Compare and contrast:
Bush Administration incompetence doomed New Orleans. We created this mess by building levies on the Mississippi, destroying the wetlands, cutting canals through the delta, and overbuilding on one of the most vulnerable coasts in the world. We had no plan, we failed to learn from our early mistakes, and we didn’t have enough boots on the ground when it counted. Events that have been building for decades finally caught up with us, and the dynamic of destruction is irreversible. In the short run it will be painful, but the people of New Orleans will need to find their own solutions, and the sooner we pull out, the better.
Bush Administration incompetence doomed Iraq. We created this mess by overthrowing a brutal but entrenched dictator, destroying the Iraqi army, underestimating the accumulated anger and resentment of Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian groups, and overextending ourselves in one of the most dangerous regions in the world. We had no plan, we failed to learn from our early mistakes, and we didn’t have enough boots on the ground when it counted. Events that have been building for decades finally caught up with us, and the dynamic of destruction is irreversible. In the short run it will be painful, but the people of Iraq will need to find their own solutions, and the sooner we pull out, the better.
I deliberately wrote the two previous paragraphs to be provocative, after reading DarkSyde's frontpage diary yesterday on the "good solution". Of course, New Orleans is part of the United States and Iraq is not. Of course, the former disaster was set in motion by a natural disaster, and the second by a war of choice. The problem I have with the paragraphs above is the way they proceed from a series of factual statements to frame a false and simplified choice.
Bush Administration incompetence is a major factor in the horrible outcomes in both situations. It is not the only factor; a century of bad environmental policy set up New Orleans for disaster, just as irrational colonial boundaries and a brutal dictatorship set the stage for Iraq to explode. In terms of New Orleans, we condemn Bush but more easily accept that history had a role. In Iraq, some of us seem to assume that the only history that matters occurred after March, 2003 and therefore the only solution to the events set in motion by the invasion is to defund the war, bring the troops home, and let the Iraqis sort it out. Furthermore, many of us have faith that all sides will stop fighting and negotiate if only we just leave. Evidence suggests that sectarian war is increasing independently of the US presence, but the response is to dismiss this possibility, or claim that we no longer have any possible influence on the outcome. I have seen these comment dozens or even hundreds of times, rarely with hard analytical justification.
In New Orleans, we feel more empowered to propose a wide range of alternatives to Bush Administration policy. In Iraq, we are afraid to propose nuanced alternatives, some of us because we are horrified and simply want out, others because we are genuinely confused about what alternative to pursue, and others because we realize that the Republican Party that has so damaged our country is facing political catastrophe. We would rather stand by and watch them immolate themselves, even if Iraq burns to ashes too.
I can't accept either this passivity on the part of our party, or the tough-love-blame-the-Iraqis strategy that calls for comprehensive across-the-board disengagement. What should the US role be? What are the broad outlines of a policy that the Democratic Party can support, other than the false choice of "troops home now", or the vague non-committal stance taken by Hillary or Harry Reid? I submit that most of us can agree to the following:
• The US should not escalate and send more troops into Iraq; rather, we should start the process of disengagement in six months or less, with most US troops out over the next 12-18 months. (This is shared by nearly every serious proposal – ISG, International Crisis Group, etc)
• The US must immediately forswear any military attack on Iran or permanent military bases in Iraq. (ISG on bases; Biden and Pelosi on Iran)
• The US should maintain forces for the short term in bases within Iraq and in the medium term in neighboring countries, the Gulf and in Kurdistan, to be able to intervene in the case of massive ethnic cleansing or genocide. (Biden, Galbraith, Luttwak) The US should not "embed" with Iraqi forces, but should be kept in reserve in case a serious massacre of civilians is imminent (Edward Luttwak in today's NYT)
• The US should immediately start to negotiate with Iran and Syria to establish agreements to not intervene, and to apply pressure against any political factions that engage in genocide or massive ethnic cleansing. Then we need to get down on our knees and beg the UN to help verify implementation. We have to convince the Arab League to return and attempt to calm tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran over Iraq, and to attempt to prevent Saudi Arabia from funding the insurgency. We must recognize and accept that there will be an Islamist Shia’ majority government in Iraq, but any negotiated settlement must protect the Sunni community and create a federal system with civil service set-asides and a degree of self-government in areas in which the population is predominantly Sunni. Partition is a last resort, but we should plan for it should it occur. (Everything but the last sentence is in ISG and ICG recommendations.)
• As Iraq descends into a worse civil war, the US should work with the EU to negotiate a special status for Kurdistan, including a territorial compromise that includes part of Kirkuk in Kurdistan, and which guarantees independent oil revenue and security protections against forced reintegration into Iraq. Paradoxically, this is the only way to keep the Kurds in Iraq. We have abandoned the Kurds multiple times, and it is unconscionable to do so again, when against all odds, they have created one of the Middle East’s few reasonably open and pro-western societies. Above all, we must head off diplomatically any Turkish invasion, which will be a disaster for both Turkey and for the Iraqi Kurds. The EU, the US and Kurdistan should be prepared to offer Turkey incentives to sweeten the deal. An absolute ban on the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan, preferential access to oil, and a new effort for inclusion in the EU are some options. The EU should start serious engagement in this issue, since they have 2 million Kurdish refugees already and sure as hell don’t need a radicalized and enraged Kurdish exile community and millions more asylum seekers. Turkey cannot win militarily if it invades Iraq, any more than Israel can defeat Hizbullah. Attempting to restore the status quo ante after a generation has grown up under self-rule, as the ISG report seems to advocate, will only create an intractable Palestinian-style crisis, spreading to involve 30 million people. (This recommendation is similar to Peter Galbraith and also to Biden's plan – but differs from the ISG and ICG recommendations. The ISG report dismisses Kurdish self-determination in Iraq, and the ISG report calls for an unworkable 10 year period for determining Kirkuk's status. Nobody is going to wait 10 years.)
• Neither ISG nor ICG define an effective means for assuring that the central government actually distributes oil revenue, and this will require either a special UN commission as part of a peace settlement, or similar internationally guaranteed enforcement mechanism. None of the contending groups will accept for whoever controls Baghdad to control oil revenue distribution, because the regions understand quite clearly that they will be cut off as soon as the central government consolidates its power. The big piece that is missing is some sort of international agreement to form an escrow account that is internationally guaranteed for a period of five years or so, with the possibility of renewal. This is the only way to assure the Sunni communities that they will not be frozen out of a share of Iraq's oil wealth, and the only way to keep the Kurds formally within the Iraqi state.
• The US needs to maintain a relief and development assistance program in Iraq, but retooled and reformed. US policy has been to flush money down the bottomless pit of Baghdad ministries, with no discernable impact, because most ministries have little role even in Baghdad none in the rest of the country. Instead, the US should concentrate relief and development on more stable parts of the country, and work from the periphery to the center rather than vice versa. Effective US relief and development assistance can be implemented much more cheaply and effectively if Congress takes a more hands-on approach and insists on fact-based analysis and accountability. (This is modified from the ISG report, but the ISG has little to say about how relief and development should be reformed, only that relief should be increased and that the US should not suspend development assistance. This reliance on vague generalities is a weakness of the ISG report.)
Iraq is not a lost cause. Today, our Iraqi medical director traveled to Majar al-Kabir, a community near ‘Amara that is way too dangerous for British troops to visit, where he trained health center doctors on hypertension and heart disease and monitored our contribution of medicine and lab equipment to the clinics. A British NGO and a Czech NGO work in the same region, in areas long since abandoned as uncontrollable by the coalition forces. We are providing tangible health care for many Iraqis for 1% of the $170 million in taxpayer money wasted on the abandoned shell of the Laura Bush Hospital in Basra. Frankly, it’s easier to work in Iraq than in Haiti, which is a true development nightmare. It requires patience, overlapping management and oversight systems. It requires good staff and an ability to work within existing social systems. It requires non-government humanitarian organizations, not unethical war profiteers. In short, it requires Democrats, not Republicans.
Iraq needs Democrats. Just as there are relief and development alternatives, I cannot but feel that there are diplomatic, legislative and appropriations alternatives available to the disastrous policies of the Bush Administration. The forces of extremism and sectarian hate are alive in Iraq; they are growing fast and present a truly frightening danger. Neither the UN, nor the EU nor the Arab League will simply step into the vacuum, and the idea that Iraqis will suddenly come together once the US leaves is not realistic given that all informed observers believe that inter-sectarian violence is increasing independently of the US troop presence. The war will intensify before it eventually burns itself out and negotiations follow. We have little choice but to let that happen, but we need to do something exceptionally simple but difficult at the same time: understand the limits of our power, but affirm our commitment to contain and prevent genocide. The Bush Administration won't do this by itself and will attempt to muddle through the next two years. We need to force the Bush Administration to negotiate, and when they fail, we need to do it ourselves – as Bill Richardson has done in North Korea and Sudan. At the end of the day, Iran benefits by a stable Iraq. Reasonable people in Turkey don’t want to go to war against the Kurds.
The Bush Administration is unwilling to change or adapt, so we can either wait two years until we take over, or Congress can begin to dictate through the budgeting process, through public hearings, and through responsible policy positions adopted by our leaders. I’m not hopeful. Some run from the Iraq war, some focus group their responses to the point that they are meaningless, and some keep talking about "hope" with no specifics. Many feel that this is the Republican war, and we should pursue a Lincoln 1860 policy of not proposing concrete policies, while letting the other side cannibalize itself. That may be good politics, but it’s nothing we should be proud of and we shouldn’t delude ourselves into thinking that its somehow good for the Iraqis. We wouldn’t follow that sort of a callous policy toward New Orleans, and we shouldn’t give up in the face of the catastrophic civil war that is building like thunderstorm across Iraq. The discussion is not well served by the simplistic "out now" rant diaries and one-line comments that have become standard fare on this site. I wish that we - our party, our Democratic leaders, and ourselves – would accept some responsibility to come forward with substantive policies rather than vapid Hillary style triangulation or simple one-line solutions.