IRAQ: THE OPTIONS REMAINING
As the bad news overshadows the good news from Iraq, and as public support for the intervention dwindles, commentators from all sides are drawing parallels to earlier military campaigns, from Korea to Vietnam. In a much-debated essay in the Washington Post on August 12, Henry Kissinger compares the search for an exit strategy in Vietnam to the prospect of a similar withdrawal from Iraq, pointing out that the United States had little to fear from the North in the aftermath - or from the millions who escaped from the South. In an op-ed piece in the New York Times on August 31, Francis Fukuyama argues that the United States can control the situation in Iraq indefinitely (unlike Vietnam), but that "our all-volunteer army was never intended to fight a prolonged insurgency," which will force the administration to reduce troop levels during 2006. This, he suggests, will precipitate even greater chaos in Iraq, damaging American credibility and diverting our attention from other areas of the world with which the U.S. should be actively involved.
It is undeniable that both success and failure in Iraq could each carry a hefty price tag. Should the United States and the United Kingdom somehow achieve a stable and somewhat democratic Iraq, neighboring regimes - except already somewhat democratic Turkey - may see this as a threat, the kind of example in their midst that could inspire emulation by democratically-minded elements within their own borders. Should the allies leave Iraq in civil-war disarray, the insurgents who ousted the infidel invaders and destroyed their domestic allies could be emboldened to spread their murderous violence into neighbors that stood aloof from the conflict, this time including Turkey.
This calculation may not have been part of the post-9/11 plan that produced America's intervention in Iraq, but now the question is what options remain to mitigate such consequences. Among the planners' great successes were the mounting of national elections and the promotion of a constitutional convention that produced a flawed but workable document. Among their dreadful failures was the chaotic demobilization of the Iraqi army, the uncompromising debaathification campaign and an apparent failure to see administrative opportunity in Iraq's historically fractured regional geography. The first two errors are beyond repair and have helped stimulate the insurgency, but the third still exists, as witnessed during the negotiations toward a constitution. A federal Iraq that constrains secession but permits strong regional autonomy may assuage the fears of less-democratically minded neighbors, since the central government would be comparatively weak. A collapsing Iraq would be likely to throw the region into chaos.
This means staying the course, but not unilaterally. While precipitous departure is not an option, neither is a massive troop buildup, even if it could be mobilized. In Northern Ireland, between 200 and 400 heavily armed terrorist insurgents kept more than ten thousand British forces at bay and killed thousands of civilians while bringing their war to London itself. In Chechnya, 80,000 Russian troops have been unable to control a territory the size of New Jersey with a population of 1.5 million, most of whom are on the Russian side. Iraq, a California-size country with a population of 27 million, will not be "controlled" by one hundred thousand troops - or five times as many. The United States may have lost the support of Spain and other former allies in Iraq, but there are others, more directly affected by the outcome, who should be persuaded that involvement now will mitigate risk in the future. That will require diplomacy of a sort we have not seen since the First Gulf War, but it is an option that must not be dismissed.