Those of us who opposed the Iraq war from the beginning are citing the recent violence as proof that we were right. But that isn't enough to win an election. Like it or not, the war happened and American troops are there. And we need to have a more thorough plan than just glibly saying "bring the UN in".
A detailed Democratic plan for Iraq would go a long way towards mitigating the public's concerns about our weakness on security issues. It also changes the terms of the Iraq debate from whether the war should have taken place (a debate Bush would and did win) to what strategy should be pursued in the postwar period (which Bush is rapidly losing ground in).
Should we bring in the UN? Yes. But be realistic; the UN's experience lies in small-scale peacekeeping efforts, not wholesale nation- building. The largest UN operation in the world (Liberia) has only 15,000 troops, or a tenth of what the coalition now has. Nor has the UN ever assumed direct governance of any part of the world; it's always worked through "trusteeships" with a major power involved. The UN is a small organization; it simply doesn't have the institutional capacity to build a national government virtually from scratch.
So a US presence in the country is required for the forseeable future. In order to be tenable, the US has to start doing things differently. For starters:
- No attacks on residential neighborhoods. Period. Not even if terrorists are hiding in homes or mosques. Does that make the US look weak? Only if the goal is to be seen as a conqueror, an occupying power to be feared. But our mission was supposed to be to liberate Iraq from Saddam, not replace him.
- Swallow your pride and negotiate with "terrorists". The US should regard itself as a guest of the Iraqi people, not a ruler, and it must deal with the political factions that are there, not use force to quell any and all forms of dissent.
- Elections first, transfer of power second. The US' stalling on elections gives rise to the suspicion that it isn't serious about democracy, it just wants to install a puppet regime. Elections should be held as soon as possible.
And that means biting bullets. A Shi'ite Islamist party would almost certainly win a democratic election. It may well take a pro-Iranian bent. It may introduce shari'a law and weaken the status of women. The US will have to accept decisions made by an elected body, even one it disagrees with.
Similarly, the coalition has already drastically changed the structure of the Iraqi economy, implementing the usual neoconservative bundle: privatization, lower taxes, unrestricted foreign investment, etc. These decisions should be made by elected officials, not the coalition. The US has to let Iraq make its own economic decisions, even if these are ill-advised. If the new government renationalizes the oil industry...the US must live with it.
In other words, America will have to provide security and defense for a government it has little say in the operation of. Well, too bad. We made our bed, now we have to accept responsibility and lie in it.
Democrats have slammed Bush for a while on the absence of a plan on Iraq, but haven't really come up with one of their own. Let's hope that's remedied soon.