Matthew Yglesias » The War’s End

Nov 27th, 2008 at 3:02 pm

The War’s End

SOFA and security pact pass Iraqi parliament — US forces will leave by 2011 and the only sense in which it isn’t a fixed timetable is that they might leave sooner. Days ago I read something relevant that I strongly disagreed with on the Abu Muqawama counterinsurgency blog:

Regardless, at no point were either Sen. McCain or Sen. Obama key players in future U.S. policy in Iraq. In fact, either of them was going to inherit a course — negotiated by the Iraqis and U.S. policy-makers in Baghdad — that might or might not have looked anything like what they wanted to do. It was Sen. Obama’s good luck that his vision of a future U.S. presence in Iraq looked a lot like the vision of the Iraqis.

It’s not luck that liberals’ vision of a future U.S. presence in Iraq was closer to Iraqis’ vision than was the vision of America’s neo-imperalist camp. Rather, liberals’ take on the matter has always been informed by both awareness of actual Iraqi public opinion (which has been hostile to the American presence since at least 2004) and to the folly of empire more broadly. It’s not a coincidence that when you look at the annals of counterinsurgency “success” stories — Kenya, Malaya, etc. — the success looks pretty equivocal and the occupying power winds up leaving in the end.

Had out policy not been dominated by foolish dreams of a US-dominated Iraq, we could have extricated ourselves with honor and dignity over the course of 2005 — declaring victory at the formation of the post-Saddam Iraqi government. Instead, we pursued a bloody and costly alternative course for years before, eventually, even the war’s keenest proponents came to recognize the realities of of the situation.

Comments
32

Filed under: Counterinsurgency, iraq,

32 Responses to “The War’s End”

Don Williams Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
The Iraqi Parliament would still have been debating the agreement 8 months from now if the terrorist attack in India had not shocked the shit out of the Shites.
Don Williams Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Or, as the NEw York Times would say, Shaken Shites Shun Shallow Shackles of Shabby, Shadowry Shahs.
Aaron L. Connelly Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
In comparing Iraq to Kenya and Malaya, you suggest that we ought to consider our counterinsurgency success in Iraq an “equivocal” success, because we will eventually end up leaving. But this misses the fact that no serious sector of American polity ever wanted to remain in Iraq long-term, in large numbers, as its own strategic end– only as means to allow Iraqi government the opportunity to get on its feet.

By contrast the objective in Malaya and in Kenya, in the beginning, was to remain suzerain for at least the medium-term, to preserve the U.K.’s dwindling influence in the world. Eventually the British Conservatives realized that Communism was a greater threat to the British way of life than the loss of its Empire, and the Emergencies in Kenya and Malaya became more about securing the respective regions against Communism (a strategy which involved giving Kenya and Malaya independence) than it was about securing it for British influence (a strategy which did not).

In the latter part of each campaign, the British goals resemble the American ones, but not in the beginning. That’s why there was a pervasive sense of failure following the Mau-Mau Rebellion and the Malaya Emergency, and why there will not be one following American withdrawal from Iraq.
kafka Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
We can only hope troops leaving Iraq don’t wind up in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iran.
Evil Twin Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Aaron L. Connelly, are you trying to be funny? Or is your humor accidental? There is, in fact, a sector of the American polity that wanted to be in Iraq forever. They are called the Republican Party. Now, if you meant that the Republicans aren’t a serious segment then I guess you have a point. But otherwise, you are either joking or engaged in a major re-writing of the entire Iraq misadventure.
flory Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Had out policy not been dominated by foolish dreams of a US-dominated Iraq, we could have extricated ourselves with honor and dignity over the course of 2005

And in an alternate history world — would our ’success’ in Iraq have kept Republicans in control of Congress in 2006? And in turn, would complete Republican control of government as the economy swirls down the toilet have led to even more Dem gains in 2008?
Or would not wasting hundreds of billions in a fruitless war over the last three years have given Hank Paulson more manuevering room and ameliorated the downturn?
Bengt Larsson Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Thanks Evil Twin at #5, I was thinking the same thing. Wha…?
By the way, I’ve read that the Republican Party will be spending more on Internet outreach…
MikeF Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
US forces will leave by 2011 and the only sense in which it isn’t a fixed timetable is that they might leave sooner.

Key assumption: SOFA is not re-negotiated between now and 2011.
kafka Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
“Had out policy not been dominated by foolish dreams of a US-dominated Iraq, we could have extricated ourselves with honor and dignity over the course of 2005 —”

Matt could finished the sentence with “we could have decided not to invade at all in 2003″. But he didn’t.
cemmcs Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
…Iraqi public opinion (which has been hostile to the American presence since at least 2004)

At least…
Dan Kervick Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Had out policy not been dominated by foolish dreams of a US-dominated Iraq, we could have extricated ourselves with honor and dignity over the course of 2005 — declaring victory at the formation of the post-Saddam Iraqi government. Instead, we pursued a bloody and costly alternative course for years before, eventually, even the war’s keenest proponents came to recognize the realities of of the situation.

This is an absolutely perverse statement, Matt. “Honor and dignity”? In what world can you possibly be living? In 2005, global and domestic opprobrium of the war were raging, the Abu Ghraib trials were taking place, the refugee crisis and civil war were picking up pace, and the verdict on the war as a moral and political catastrophe was already taking shape.
joe from Lowell Says:
November 28th, 2008 at 10:22 am
But this misses the fact that no serious sector of American polity ever wanted to remain in Iraq long-term, in large numbers, as its own strategic end– only as means to allow Iraqi government the opportunity to get on its feet.

That’s simply not true. The architects of this war were talking about the need to provide permanent bases in Iraq to replace those we were leaving in Saudi Arabia back in 2002. John McCain asked “Why not 1000 year? Why not 10,000?” because he envisioned, as he spelled out clearly on his web site, a permanent American military presence that would allow us “project power” throughout the Middle East.
Richard Steven Hack Says:
November 28th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
“We can only hope troops leaving Iraq don’t wind up in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iran.”

They will. Obama has already promised that.

As for the likelihood of the agreement changing:

THE ROVING EYE
Bush comfortable on the SOFA
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JK26Ak02.html

The Iraqi parliament has its date with destiny this Wednesday, after dozens of its 375 members nearly came to blows debating the proposed US-Iraqi Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). And that’s not counting an even higher percentage that’s not familiar with the final text because they simply had no time to digest it. It’s literally a take it or leave it, do or die affair; parliament goes into recess immediately after the
vote.

At the finish line, it’s still unclear how all 56 Sunni MPs will vote. Critics inside and outside Iraq are already spinning the pact as a joint Shi’ite-Kurdish conspiracy (the 83-member United Iraqi Alliance plus the 53-member Kurdistan Alliance, both pro-pact on the grounds it’s the lesser of all evils because at least it sets a timetable for US withdrawal).

Although they have been joined by the Fadhila party and the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, the Sadrists still don’t have enough votes to block the pact; according to London-based al-Hayat newspaper, for the moment there are 106 votes against the pact. They need 138.

The Kurdish Alliance – in favor of the pact – at least had the decency to denounce the startling lack of transparency of the whole process. But as far as the Kurds are concerned, this is a minor detail; what really matters is Kurdish independence. On a parallel level, Kurds are wary of a new ploy by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki – the creation of “tribal Support Councils”. The Kurds view these as Maliki’s militias. As if
Kurdish Peshmerga militias were not conducting their own slo-mo ethnic cleansing around the city of Mosul.

When in doubt, become a pilgrim

Then there’s the unpredictable “pilgrim to Mecca” angle. MPs from all political persuasions – as much moved by religious duty as by concocting a convenient escape route, not to mention dodging the odd death threat – have been leaving on a pilgrimage to Mecca since Sunday.

So that leaves the possibility of the pact being approved by a slim majority and/or overwhelmingly rejected by Sunnis – a certified public relations disaster and far from the “national consensus” Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has stressed would be essential to guarantee his support. (Sistani by the way blasted all Mecca-bound MPS as unpatriotic.)

For the sinister Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Iranian-trained Badr Corps, the paramilitary arm of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, huge demonstrations like last Friday’s in Baghdad, organized by the Sadrists, simply don’t matter. The mass demonstration in Firdous Square – where US Marines staged for the cameras the “decapitation” of Saddam Hussein’s statue in 2003 – was particularly pregnant with meaning: a George W Bush
effigy was burned at the same spot. Sadrists and an overwhelming majority of Sunnis see the pact as essentially an early 20th century-style neo-colonial treaty.

Maliki’s government is heavily betting on the pact being approved by a simple majority. There’s fierce dispute also on this point – according to the Iraqi constitution, it should be a two-thirds majority (not unexpectedly, the Bush administration has already declared it will violate Article II, Section 2 of the US constitution, claiming that no
Senate approval of the pact is necessary. An emasculated US Congress has responded with thunderous silence).

Just in case a frantic Maliki keeps threatening that in case of defeat, “extending the presence of the international forces on Iraqi soil will not be our alternative”. Maliki goes for the jugular; if the pact is not approved, US forces will be constrained to an “immediate withdrawal from Iraq”. Not surprisingly, the US State Department is on the same wavelength. Plus, of course, the Pentagon – which in a surreal twist has been threatening to evacuate 150,000 troops from Iraq in a flash in case the pact is knocked out; this when the Pentagon had been insisting non-stop that withdrawing within president-elect Barack Obama-proposed 16 months is unrealistic.

If the latest version of the pact is to be believed, Blackwater mercenaries – not to mention the full, 163,000-strong, Pentagon-employed private contractor army in Iraq – will finally be subjected to Iraqi law. As an overwhelming majority of Iraqi MPs has not even read the
final version of the pact, many are not exactly aware of the definitive terms. As for jurisdiction for crimes committed by US forces in Iraq, many for instance don’t know that if a US soldier kills an Iraqi civilian while not on duty, prosecutors would have to prove intent beyond reasonable doubt. Were the soldier to claim self-defense, he would be tried under US jurisdiction.

MPs also may not be aware that Washington will continue to control at least US$10 billion of assets seized from Iraq under Saddam as well as proceeds from the export of Iraqi oil held into a “Special Purpose Account” on behalf of the Treasury at the Federal Reserve of New York; that’s one third of Iraq’s total reserves of foreign currency and gold (a weapon deftly deployed by the Bush administration to force the
approval of the pact).

Others may be extremely alarmed that Abdul Qadir al-Obaidi, Iraq’s pro-American defense minister, has more or less implied there’s the possibility “some Americans might be needed after” the end of the 2011 deadline for the end of the occupation. Undisguised loopholes in fact allow the Pentagon to stay in Iraq – and keep its cherished military bases – way beyond the 2011 deadline.

Professor Michael Schwartz, author of War without End: The Iraq War in Context, argues that “the language from the previous draft permitting the Iraqi government to ask the US to stay has been removed. The specific language was: ‘based on the Iraqi assessment of conditions, the Iraqi government is remitted to ask the US government to keep specific forces for the purposes of training and support of Iraqi security
forces’. I cannot find language that would allow any extension of US presence, either as trainers or on bases. Clearly, the US does not intend to honor this promise, but I am astonished that they took this language out.”

As for Article 4, it states that the US military machine should be in the country “for the purposes of supporting Iraq in its efforts to maintain security and stability in Iraq”. Obviously, the Bush administration’s ghost writers never considered the fact that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want the occupiers out, and consider the occupation as the prime vector of violence and carnage across the country.

The pact also states that both Iraq and the US “retain the right to legitimate self defense within Iraq, as defined in applicable international law”. With the Pentagon interpreting “legitimate” self-defense according to the Bush Doctrine, not to mention its stellar record stretching the meaning of “international law”, one can imagine the incendiary consequences. Perhaps all Iraqis need to know about this
SOFA is that the Pentagon and Bush are very comfortable with it.
Hlem Says:
November 29th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Had out policy not been dominated by foolish dreams of a US-dominated Iraq, we could have extricated ourselves with honor and dignity over the course of 2005

If our country was not led and populated by gibbering imbiciles we wouldn’t have invaded in the first place.

Once that moronic decision had been made, and the Iraqi sand-castles kicked over, extracting ourselves became a much more delicate proposition.

The idea that a 2005 withdrawal could have been handled with ‘honor&dignity’ is a convenient fantasy for those who would rather focus on the mishandling of the wars aftermath than the initial decision to got to war.
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Matt Yglesias

The War’s End

32 Responses to “The War’s End”

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