what happens if we just leave iraq?

In the USA there is insufficient consensus for withdrawal to be a popular and politically safe decision. Therefore, whoever were seen as the authors and instigators of this policy would be constantly assailed for making this choice, no matter who they are, including the president. Every sign of violence and instability in the entire Middle East would be blamed by some US faction on the pullout. For reference, see the "who lost China" debate in 1950. And you'd get heartily sick of hearing how our gallant troops died in vain and their sacrifices were betrayed by whoever authorized the pullout.

It's a mess as far as the eye can see.

We're screwed now - the hornets are out, and they have no nest to go back to.

Maybe. I don't know if we're holding it together or sort of delaying the inevitable. But maybe by delaying the inevitable we can actually make it less inevitable. What happens with Kirkuk is going to be key.

Meanwhile, Tom Friedman thinks what we need is to double the troops.

the honorable thing here is to fall on our sword and admit our mistake.

maybe the death of more americans will finally remind people that this is why we don't go to war just cause we're scared.

and my point isn't really about hating america, it's trying to restore our honor. we're supposed to be the good guys right? i wish more people here would acknowledge that we've blundered. we could make amends.

eh, i guess it's easy for me to suggest such a unpleasant course when it's unlikely that i would be called upon to make a personal sacrifice in such a strategy.
m.

There's a reason imperial powers install despots in unstable places.

um x-post

I said before the invasion that the Bush Administration might fuck up in Iraq, and I said during the invasion that the Bush Administration might fuck up in Iraq, and I said after the invasion that the Bush Administration might fuck up in Iraq, and now the Bush Administration has fucked up in Iraq. And it's the liberals' fault because deep down inside they wanted Bush to fail.

Ever since Iraq's remarkable election, the country has been descending deeper and deeper into violence. But no one in Washington wants to talk about it. Conservatives don't want to talk about it because, with a few exceptions, they think their job is just to applaud whatever the Bush team does. Liberals don't want to talk about Iraq because, with a few exceptions, they thought the war was wrong and deep down don't want the Bush team to succeed. As a result, Iraq is drifting sideways and the whole burden is being carried by our military. The rest of the country has gone shopping, which seems to suit Karl Rove just fine.

into THIS:

Billmon's summarizes Friedman:

I said before the invasion that the Bush Administration might fuck up in Iraq, and I said during the invasion that the Bush Administration might fuck up in Iraq, and I said after the invasion that the Bush Administration might fuck up in Iraq, and now the Bush Administration has fucked up in Iraq. And it's the liberals' fault because deep down inside they wanted Bush to fail.

I can face this fact, but I'm not happy about it, and facing up to it only makes me THAT MUCH MORE embittered to the rest of the stupid country, because, well, basically its all their fucking fault for being such goddamned gullible idiots. Now I have to bear the economic and moral fallout of their mistake.

"Sometimes You are Just Screwed

Readers occasionally write me complaining that I do not offer any solutions to the problems in Iraq. Let me just step back from the daily train wreck news from the region to complain back that there aren't any short-term, easy solutions to the problems in Iraq.

...

Therefore, I conclude that the United States is stuck in Iraq for the medium term, and perhaps for the long term. The guerrilla war is likely to go on a decade to 15 years. Given the basic facts, of capable, trained and numerous guerrillas, public support for them from Sunnis, access to funding and munitions, increasing civil turmoil, and a relatively small and culturally poorly equipped US military force opposing them, led by a poorly informed and strategically clueless commander-in-chief who has made himself internationally unpopular, there is no near-term solution.

In the long run, say 15 years, the Iraqi Sunnis will probably do as the Lebanese Maronites did, and finally admit that they just cannot remain in control of the country and will have to compromise. That is, if there is still an Iraq at that point."

http://www.juancole.com/2005/05/sometimes-you-are-just-screwed-readers.html

-- Shakey Mo Collier (audiobo...), June 15th, 2005.

I think it'd be more in line with the best of liberal values to not place a higher value on American soldiers than Iraqi civilians.

Ordinarily we might hope that a peace-keeping force under UN control would be more acceptable to the Iraqi people than the US coalition, but apart from the apparent impossibility of getting the Bush admin or the UN to go down that road it seems likely that the insurgents would be quite as happy to kill brother Arabs as they would Americans.

The path of least deaths at the moment seems to be to maintain the existing presence, continue to strengthen the Iraqi security forces, but also to look at what can be done diplomatically. The latter doesn't seem to be happening at all. Where is the attempt to engage with "rebel" forces? How many times does the US government have to learn that guerilla warfare is all but uncrushable through purely military means. The UN have to be given a stronger role. But an immediate withdrawal/huge reduction of troops at the moment looks incredibly likely to lead to some sort of epic bloodbath.

(I'm not convinced that any of the neighbouring states have any particular territorial interest in Iraq. Certainly the Turks and the Iranians main concern is to see stability established ASAP.)

well, there was that story yesterday about an "amnesty" program for Iraqi insurgents (which was intended to drive a wedge between indigenous fighters and foreign jihadists) which sounded interesting if sorta half-assed. It did strike me as odd that DubyaCo. didn't publicly dismiss such a course of actio as an admission of defeat or weakness.

But how do we know it would cost more civilian lives if we left or dramatically scaled back? The civilian death toll is pretty high as it is. I'm not convinced we should pull back, but I'm not comfortable with just accepting some conventional wisdom that we "have to stay until x happens," especially when no one's clear on what x is. Hence the thread title: what happens if we leave? How would it be worse than the current situation?

I believe the basic strategy is to make Iraq ungovernable. Under such conditions, the USA cannot possibly commit the amount of resources required to remedy the problem. At some point, the American people will stop believing there is any point to staying and will leave, despite not having 'finished the job we came to do'.

In our absence (or if we're present, we're present in negligible numbers) the insurgents chances of grsaping a full military victory grow. Even if such a full victory is not possible, some measure of power and control will be salvaged for themselves and denied to the Shiites and Kurds. Recall the Russians in Afghanistan. The arab world learned a lot from watching that happen.

The reason the insurgents don't participate in the new government in the hope of achieving partial control of Iraq at a lower cost is that 1) they would be forced to cooperate with the US government 2) they would lose face 3) they would become a permanent minority after being top dog 4) they would abandon their chance for the oil jackpot. Psychologically, these factors are decisive in favor of war.

We are now prisoners of that tiny hope of success and of our dire need to save face. We should have announced our withdrawal schedule right after the election - the next day. That way we could at least have a formula that 'proves' we weren't driven out. But BushCo thinks with its testicles.

I see what you're saying here and I agree - tho I'm unconvinced that *any* troop level would achieve the desired outcome, no matter how high. You cannot defeat an indigenous insurgency that has a steady supply of weapons and the sympathy of the local populace. You just can't. It has never been done.

Which I guess you can't realistically expect the Bush administration to change -- so realistically I guess we are just screwed.