I was struck by the absolute tone from MyDD’s Matt Stoller regarding whether the next President should completely withdraw troops from Iraq, or leave enough for “peacekeeping” and genocide prevention, insofar as either are actually possible. In particular, I was surprised to see him treating Obama advisor Samantha Power like just another political shill. I have to imagine Power knows more about genocide than just about any other presidential campaign advisor in either party — in fact, you might say she wrote the book. And indeed, she warns that a US-enabled genocide may well result from a withdrawal of forces. (Thanks to Keller for first pointing this out.)
I give the MyDD guys big-time credit for correctly insisting that opposition to the Iraq War would swing the 2006 election, and that Democrats should not bother to get pulled into a discussion of what they would do differently. As the majority party in a divided government, their job is still to oppose the President, and force him to negotiate. (The President hasn’t gotten the memo, of course.) Congress just doesn’t have much in the way of making military policy, except the blunt instrument of the purse, which they’re now threatening to use.
But 2008 presidential candidates are a different story. I absolutely cannot get with Stoller when he says this:
Anyway, I’m more concerned about the politics than the policy, because I see this more as an issue of political honesty than genuine military strategy.
I think that comment shows the limits of MyDD’s laser-beam focus on electioneering. It would seem we’re unlikely to get the troops out of Iraq before the end of this administration. That means it’s going to be up to the next President to do so, and it’s entirely proper and necessary for them to put out workable, realistic and ethical plans for withdrawal. In this case, “political honesty” is “genuine military strategy.”
Should the continuation and enlargement of Iraqi genocide be a consideration for those who offer withdrawal plans? I have to ask, how could it not? Do we believe Colin Powell’s dictum that “You break it, you bought it”? Do we just abandon Iraq to the forces of torture and terrorism?
Put it this way: I supported US action in Kosovo against continuing Serb genocidal aggression. Would I not support US action against Sunni-Shiite genocide — even though we are largely responsible for uncorking this particularly brutal genie?
As for whether a continuing US force within Iraq would actually be a help or a hindrance, I don’t really know. I lean toward thinking that the US presence inflames hostility more than anything else, but one also hears of people in Baghdad who are grateful for the protection of US forces — however short-term and ineffective that has turned out to be. We don’t know the counter-factual: What will things be like without our present forces? Better? Worse? Who knows?
Look, I’m glad someone of Bill Richardson’s expertise and profile suggests that we’ve got to get completely out of Iraq. I’d prefer to believe that’s true. But I think we’ve got to consider our responsibilities to try to heal that country, one way or another, by diplomacy, force, or some combination. And I’m glad Obama seems to take that responsibility seriously.*
*By seriously, I mean seriously, and not “seriously”; the quotes are reserved for the mainstream punditry’s equivalence of knee-jerk hawkishness with foreign-policy gravitas. cf. Atrios.
I think you’ve characterized the quote you used as an attempt of Stoller’s to criticise the plans forwarded by Democrats which include a residual force in Iraq; however, I think that particular quote is best put in the context of his writting here:
“Now to the substance. There are two issues here. One is entirely political and has to do with the meaning of various words as used by our candidates. To me, when a candidate says that he or she will end the war, it means cessation of hostilities. When they say they will bring the troops home, it means that the troops will leave Iraq and in fact, come home. It’s really beyond question that various top-tier candidates are pretending that they will withdraw the troops when what they mean is that they will probably leave some residual force in Iraq. If they want to argue that leaving troops in Iraq is a good thing, fine, but be forthright about it. Our political discourse is pretty broken, and words choice and meaning can only return if we demand our leaders be straight with us.”
Stoller does attempt to dissuade his reader’s from considering plans leaving forces in Iraq as neccessarily part of a responsible withdrawl plan but, he does make it clear that he does not consider such plans to be inherently dishonest.
… but I’m pretty sure that Stoller basically equates “honesty” with “full pullout, no remaining forces, no nothin’.” That’s still the strong impression I get from his posts, that quote notwithstanding.
Obviously the Republicans used the surge to show that they are tough and they still are the “party of victory rather than defeat” and it has helped temporarily bolstered some of their presidential prospects especially McCains, as for the Democrats since they are refusing to cut funding (which by the way would not mean cutting funding for the troops) or to force a withdraw (Congress NOT the President ultimately controls the military ladies and gentlmen, pick up a copy of your Constitution and you will see that!) using the War Powers Act they are essentially intentionally keeping troops in harms way to hang as an albatross around the necks of the GOP in 08 (at least thats Rep. Emmanuels plan). Charleys point is very valid, it will be catastrophic to abandon the country since it will become a chaotic vortex that will suck in all its neighbors. Already Turkey is shelling Northern Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have plans to sell the Sunnis arms if we do leave, and Iran is obviously funding the Shia in Iraq.
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Yet leaving troops there to stop a genocide means we will indefinitely stay there and thats problematic. It is interesting that the Iraqi proposals made by John Kerry are in fact still viable, yet no one is talking about them. Essentially if we have a President apologize to the UN for the war but also invoke the UN charter to force the organization to do something about Iraq, bring in a robust (500k-million man) peacekeeping force with a broad mandate to much like in Bosnia keep the groups seperate and peaceful, and then under UN supervision draft a final agreement the parties can agree on, and then finally, leave and never come back and never again invade a country on the pretense of a lie.
..and you are correct
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Congress NOT the President ultimately controls the military ladies and gentlmen, pick up a copy of your Constitution and you will see that!
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But, the opponents of the American “occupation” (not much of an occupation, most Americans seem to be sequestered in the ever more cut off “green zone”) are confronted with the fact that there are more than 150K American hostages in Iraq. Congress could defund the Iraq escapade very easily in the next DepDefense budget just by not including funds for it in the budget. The problem is, that that would not require the petulent child pResident Bush to withdraw the troops. Therein lies the rub, and that’s why the troops over there are hostages.
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I understand your point, and I don’t disagree with it. A few weeks ago, Juan Cole identified at least 20 different groups vying for power in the Iraqi civil war. The US cannot mediate among all of them–they’ll have to sort it out themselves. The embarrassing point, for the US, is the fact that they started this in motion, when it was unnecessary for them to have done so.
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One more point, and a point that is often overlooked in the US. But not in Turkey. The downfall of the Hussein regime in Iraq has emboldened the Kurds in Iraq. The Kurds occupy northern Iraq, but there are Kurds also in south-eastern Turkey (a Nato ally!), as well as in parts of Syria and Iran. They–or at least some–would like to have their own heimat, including parts of Iraq, but also the referenced parts of Turkey, Syria and Iran. Given that Turkey is a Nato ally, is the US willing to defend the territorial integrity of Turkey? Just yesterday, there was an attack on the offices of a Christian publishing house in a town in southeastern Turkey, probably in a Kurdish region.
is that the source of the Tigris & Euphrates rivers lie in present day Kurdish Turkey, more or less. Need I say more?
This is a statement only a drug addict would make:
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“Essentially if we have a President apologize to the UN for the war but also invoke the UN charter to force the organization to do something about Iraq, bring in a robust (500k-million man) peacekeeping force with a broad mandate to much like in Bosnia keep the groups seperate and peaceful, and then under UN supervision draft a final agreement the parties can agree on…”
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We’re in Iraq exactly because the UN would never and could never have acted on any of their resolutions. Saddam would still be in power, the UN would still be passing resolutions, the status quo would be preserved.
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Instead, the president and the US acted, something progressive believe is a war crime or at least an impeachable offense.
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But it’d be OK for the UN to do it. Which it never, ever would. Even if it wanted to, could the UN ever field a 500,000+ force? Not in a million years. Even if it WANTED to, which it doesn’t.
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The UN cannot act. They can only talk. Talk talk talk. And pass resolutions. Then talk some more.
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Everyone is screaming about Darfur. What has the UN done about Darfur? If the UN sent 5,000 troops to the Sudan, they’d stop the genocide (assuming they could use their weapons which most often cannot.) But what’s the point? China will veto everything, and, indeed, has obstructed condemation let alone sanctions.
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Is there a clincial connection between cyrstal meth use and confidence in the UN? Or is it the other way around?
We should not withdraw until we can be reasonably certain that leaving will not pose a major threat to national security or lead to a genocide (of our own creation). I think that is in agreement with you Charley?
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I can understand debating whether those may actually happen, but I cannot accept the opinion that it doesn’t matter what happens.
Matt Yglesias seems quite taken with Samantha Power, so far I am less convinced. Her roll out in of Obama’s since delayed speech was a bit of a disaster, besides implying most of “left” didn’t have genuine pride in the United States, her policy prescriptions seemed pretty banal.
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The one item I found interesting in the LA Times article you linked to was her call for the US to use the interim between the announcement of withdrawal and the deadline to facilitate a separation of secarian and ethnic groups. In practice I suspect this would be a fairly probelmatic policy in implementation, especially since it is unlikely to be supported by the “government” or any of the warring factions.
Is this an example of progressive leadership?
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“?Democrats should not bother to get pulled into a discussion of what they would do differently. As the majority party in a divided government, their job is still to oppose the President, and force him to negotiate. (The President hasn’t gotten the memo, of course.)”
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Here’s what I draw as progressive national security strategy:
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(1) don’t discuss what you would do differently in Iraq;
(2) whatever the president is doing, oppose it;
(3) then force the president politically to “negotiate” ?
(4) but don’t discuss what you would do differently (i.e., there is no memo.)
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It’s nonsense. It seems your only goal is to embarrass the president and embarrass the US.
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This passes for a policy on the Iraq war, or a global war on terror? (Progressives deny there is one.)
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Progressives have (a) NO opinions, (b) NO solutions, and (c) NO way of leading. If in power, progressives and liberals will only undo whatever Bush has done, meaning withdrawal and creation of another Darfur, times 100. At least the president is trying to do something besides being reduced to waiting for the next 9/11 then cleaning up the mess afterwards.
…And I’m not even a lib/progressive.
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I’m not even going to bother parsing the comment, because it is too silly.
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A few observations. What I would do is withdraw all of the American troops from Iraq. The GWBush has unleashed a problem that it didn’t have to, but the Iraqis are going to have to sort it out. Will people be killed, injured and/or displaced? Yes. Is the US in a position to prevent it? No.
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Two, where would I displace the American troops to? Probably to help Turkey, to maintain its territorial integrity. Recall that Turkey is a Nato member, and the American unleashing of the Kurds in the north of Iraq has threatened that. The least that the Americans can do is support a Nato ally.
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(NB: it is probable that, if Turkey got rid of the Kurdish areas, it would enhance its possibility of membership in the EU. But that’s another comment for another time)
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On a couple of things from the comment
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It seems your only goal is to embarrass the president and embarrass the US.
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Sieg Heil! Don’t criticize the overblown Yalie cheerleader, for fear of embarrassing the US. That’s stupid.
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This passes for a policy on the Iraq war, or a global war on terror?
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This is also silly. Global war on terror? The Europeans are doing a better job at doing battle at terror than the US, and they have been for decades. And the US isn’t even cooperating with the Europeans in that effort.
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Please, dear, don’t BS us. Some of us know what’s going on, and we’ve been describing it here for months.
I see. There’s only your side of the story, only a single truth. Your Truth. “Some of us know what’s going on …” Everyone else does not. What line of business are you in, oh prescient one …
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I didn’t ask what you would do, I was commenting on Charlie’s absurd “don’t tell, just oppose” advice. I stand by my criticism of Charlie’s nihilism.
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“Will people be killed, injured and/or displaced? Yes. Is the US in a position to prevent it? No.” I will defer to you if you’re a seasoned military strategist or perhaps tenured at Johns Hopkins. I am not. Why are you so sure the US cannot prevent it? Besides saying “Bush sucks, we’ve lost,” please share your wisdom, inside knowledge and resume with us.
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If many believe the UN can step in and keep Shiite and Sunni from killing one another, why cannot the US, with or without coalition partners? Charlie even holds up the NATO peace keeping mission in Bosnia as an example ? if it works there, why not in Iraq? Yes, why not? And why not the US?
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“Sieg Heil! Don’t criticize the overblown Yalie cheerleader, for fear of embarrassing the US. That’s stupid.” Play the Nazi card, thanks. Dodge the logic with insults.
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I didn’t say don’t criticize, I said the criticism becomes an exercise in obstruction when, if one follows Charlie’s advice, the critic poses no alternative. You provided me with an alternative policy – withdraw. Thank you. But Charlie advises not to mention an alternative. Just criticize and oppose. That’s called nagging.
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“Global war on terror? The Europeans are doing a better job at doing battle at terror than the US, and they have been for decades.” If the Europeans are doing such a great job, let’s copy their game plan and propose that as a policy alternative. But that’s contrary to what Charlie advises.
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By the way Raj, I don’t know what, exactly, the Europeans are doing better than us in the GWOT. Name three specific things for me.
Why are you so sure the US cannot prevent it?
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History. The US unleashed it. It is not a military problem, it is a political problem and the local politics will settle it out.
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Besides saying “Bush sucks, we’ve lost”…
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Don’t put words in my mouth. It isn’t for us to win or lose. It’s for the people in Iraq to come to a political solution.
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If many believe the UN can step in and keep Shiite and Sunni from killing one another
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The UN won’t do anything that the “great powers” don’t want it to do. It is a creature of the “great powers” (mostly the US at this point in time, but also the UK, and to some extent Russia and China. The UN might, at the behest of the US, try to give cover to what the US wants to do, and might try to set up an international peacekeeping mission, but it won’t do anything unless and until the US asks for that, and the US hasn’t. The UN is not an independent body.
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One more point on the foregoing, the missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo are Nato missions, not UN missions. Don’t confuse the two.
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“Sieg Heil! Don’t criticize the overblown Yalie cheerleader, for fear of embarrassing the US. That’s stupid.” Play the Nazi card, thanks. Dodge the logic with insults.
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I didn’t say don’t criticize, I said the criticism becomes an exercise in obstruction when, if one follows Charlie’s advice, the critic poses no alternative.
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I’m sorry, but that’s not true.
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Let’s parse it from the last. As I read Charlie’s comment, it seemed to me that his implicit “solution” and “way of leading” (from your previous comment) was that the US should substantially, if not completely, withdraw trooms from Iraq. I’m not sure why you didn’t understand that, but that seems to be the case.
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As to the first, recall that the national Republican leaders have been trying to stifle free speech by drawing out the thought that criticism of Bush’s policy in Iraq was an endangerment to US’s national security. That was stupid, of course. But, it precisely paralleled Fascist (Nazi) policy in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s to stifle free speech. Learn from history. When political leaders seek to cow people into a particular mindset by jerking the “national security” chain. Sieg Heil!
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Regarding your last, the Global War on (some) Terror, Europeans are using standard police investigative techniques to root out potential terrorists. And some countries have been doing it for decades. Germany had a terrible terrorist problem in the 1970s–the Rote Armee Fraction (Baader-Meinhof gang). And Italy had its Red Brigades in the same time period. By judicious application of standard police techniques, they were able to root them out. It isn’t necessary to bomb another country in order to settle your home-grown terrorist problem.
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The irony–and this is what drove home to me the fact that the US government is not really interested in its “GWOT”–is that recently the German police had rooted out a potential terrorist cell in Hamburg. But they needed information from people in Guantanamo to confirm that. The US government refused the German government access to the people in Guantanamo to help with the confirmation. Result? No confirmation. But, unlike some countries, the Germans are apparently unwilling to burn down a house to catch a flea.
Shep, perhaps you can explain the Bush administration’s plans for winning this war. And perhaps you can tell me if they’ve succeeded or not, given 4+ years and a heretofore totally blank check from the Congress and media.
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There are no good options. Victory is not in the cards, Shep, your defensiveness notwithstanding.
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The President has actively created future 9/11’s, all over the world. “At least he’s trying to do something” indeed. Somebody get the drunk out from behind the wheel, please.
Regarding Kosovo, there are paradigms, and I’ll mention just one. Suedtirol/Alto Adige in northeastern Italy. It was taken over by Italy from Austria in the last days of WWI. The Italian government tried to “Italianize” the province after the end of the war. The Italian government changed the names of most of the cities, towns, street and even lakes and rivers to Italian-like words. Did it work? No. Suedtirol/Alto Adige remains a primarily German speaking area. (Actually, most people are bilingual, but most in Bozen/Bolzano north prefer German.)
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But the Italian government did something that was actually very intelligent. What they did was to turn the province (Trentino/Alto Adige) into what they call an autonomous province. I don’t know exactly how autonmous Trentino/Alto Adige is from the central government, but, returning to the theme, if Kosovo is made an autonomous province within Serbia, maybe that might solve the issue.