The Key to an Honorable Exit from Iraq
Nevertheless, the conventional wisdom in Washington dictates that the U.S.’s parting diplomatic gesture should be the encouragement of a centralizing strongman in the shape of Nouri al-Maliki. Once seen as an ineffectual milquetoast, Maliki has since emerged as an aspiring dictator who thinks little of violating Iraq’s constitution by blocking mandates on natural resources, on Kirkuk, and other disputed territories. He has also tried to raise an illegal militia, beholden to himself and composed of ex-Baathists and Kurd rejectionists, to war against the legitimate KRG. Distrusted and unpopular at home — his list received no more than forty percent of the vote in each Shiite-majority province — Maliki’s political future should not be seconded by chancelleries abroad, particularly by the one trying to organize the safest and most responsible departure from Iraq.
Here is O’Leary:
It will be far better for the Obama administration to organize an early exit before any Baghdad-based government becomes too strong. In the interim, it should render military and policing assistance to the provinces and to the Kurdistan region — which would be lawful — rather than to federal forces. The reason is simple: to consolidate a balance of power. The weaker a Baghdad government is, the more it must bargain with and accommodate the Kurds, Sunni Arabs, and other minorities, and the more it must avoid naked partisanship on behalf of any community. The weaker it is, the greater the prospects for province-based federalism to strengthen itself in Arab Iraq.
The Bush administration’s gains on the battlefield as a result of Gen. Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy, al-Qaeda’s self-defeating ideology, and the Sunni Arab Awakening have been partly eroded by its folly at the State Department. Some of the bad thinking was understandable given the fratricidal doomsday scenario that played out in Iraq between 2005 and 2006. And some of it was just stupid: Blocking Kurdistan’s use of Article 112 to independently develop its natural resources prohibited eager U.S. oil and gas companies from investing in the most stable and dynamic sliver of the fertile crescent.
The modern state of Iraq is an artificial British construct held together by the exigencies of the cold war and a homegrown variety of totalitarianism that borrowed from the playbook of European fascism. It would be a huge mistake not to consider the cultural continuities of pre-World War I Mesopotamia in anticipating the country’s future. As Joseph Biden, in his capacity as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, advocated at the time, the sanest U.S. policy for Iraq is and always will be a pro-constitution policy, which takes these continuities seriously. This is true not just because, as O’Leary writes, “it is legally and democratically better, but because it will enable a more judicious and just U.S. exit.”
The Kurds should be more empowered, not further diminished, as we bid farewell. A good faith effort on the part of the Obama administration would be the support of Article 140 of the constitution, which will allow Kirkuk — known as the “Jerusalem of the Kurds” — to unify with the KRG in an act of reconciliation and atonement for Saddam’s gruesome “Arabization” policy of the 1980′s. Facts, but also opinions, on the ground are in sympathy with this long-delayed project, and implicit in it is the enfranchisement of Kirkuk’s Turkomen, Arab Muslim, and Christian populations, something the Kurds have sworn to uphold.
There is also an historic debt to discharge in the bolstering Iraqi federalism. You may have noticed that following the U.S. invasion, it was not the Kurds who looted the Baghdad Museum or blew up their co-religionists with roadside bombs; they were too busy rebuilding a shattered nation. It is not realism but cynicism that would make it a U.S. priority to further undermine a perennial yet oft-betrayed ally, and one that, we can be sure, will be first on the scene to stay any incipient disaster that might befall Iraq after we’ve gone.
will there be a no fly zone for the Turks or will there be more room under the bus for the Kurds. the notion of a strong Kurdistan freaks the Turks out. the Arabs want more control, poor Kurdistan so close to the United States, so far from God. what would Obama do?
“Honorable Exit?”
What a poor choice of phrase.
good article,thanks for the links…they were very informative.
joe biden was right abut something?broken clocks….know what i mean.
Iraq is lost and history will credit the Usurper with losing it. With a date certain, all the terrs have to do is wait until the US is gone, then dig up their guns or get new ones from Syris, Iran, KSA, etc. and the party is back on.
The left rejected this argument against a date certain and now they will find out how valid it is. They won’t have to pay for it however. The long suffering Iraq commoners will shed the blood for the left’s mistake.
Because it takes more then voting to make a democracy, Bush’s noble idea that Iraq could act as a seed bed for Democracy in the ME never really had a chance. What there was in Iraq was the opportunity to put in place some of the prerequisites for democracy.
Democracy requires a population literate enough to staff a bureaucracy that is reasonably free of corruption to the point where they can turn laws into rules that provide for all citizens a more or less level playing field. Democracy also requires citizens that are literate enough to read those rules and wealthy enough to have the leisure time to contemplate them. Somebody that just worked a 16 hour day and still has to feed the kids, take out the trash, do laundry, etc. before dropping exhausted into bed to do it all over again in a few hours hasn’t the time or energy to think about politics.
Given those 3 things and a little security, ANY society can develop it’s own brand of Democracy. Without them it is extremely difficult. The Usurper has kicked out the security leg that supports all the rest.
The left is going to claim that the Iraqi’s are capable of providing their own security. No evidence of that. When the Iraqi security forces get involved with the upcoming civil war in Iraq, they will become the biggest part of the problem, not part of the solution. It takes generations for a national military to become truly national and not an instrument of the latest Tyrant de’ Jour.
There have been US troops in Germany for 3 generations now (63 years). If the US withdrew those troops, within a decade the French and Germans would be back to killing each other. With Russia wanting in on the action too. No nations drops thousands of years of history in a generation or two. Or even three. Maybe in another 100 years Germany and France can be left alone in the same room without being restrained and searched for sharp objects.
I hope we do the Kurds right, after HW Bush told them to rise up against Saddam’s poison gas, and then threw them into hell.
Of course FDR did that to the Poles and eastern Europe, and Truman to N. Korea, and Kennedy to the Cubans, and the Ford era Democrat Congress to the Vietnamese, the Mung, the Cambodians.
Life is tough when you trust the US.
What did Obambi say to the Israelis? ….What ever. Jews aren’t that stupid.
Oh yeah. Those wonderful Kurds. Lets pump them up so they can take over eastern Turkey, Northern Iraq and north western Iran. Then everything will be just peachy. And while we’re at it maybe we should (sort of on the sly ) help them to acquire nuclear arms. Yeah, that’s the ticket. That will stabilize the WHOLLLLLLLLLE world.
scott, you just get a shipment in? I don’t see anyone except you advocating a greater Kurdistan with nuclear weapons.
Have you ever heard the term ” strawman argument “? Maybe you should google that. I would post a link, but you are the only one here that needs it and a little research would be good for you.
While Scott’s point may come across –with respect– a smidge histrionic, his underlying thesis does have merit.
However richly they may deserve it (and they surely do), care must be exercised in the nurturing of Kurdish empowerment. As indicated above, several states (notably Turkey) are a mite twitchy about the notion of Kurds having their way.
Still, supporting an emphasis on existing Constitutional provisions for a strongly federalist policy toward the KRG is just good sense. The kind of robust Kurdistan which is straining to burst forth would be a gusher of prosperity (literally) for the Iraqi state. As long as due tithes flow Baghdad way, and nationalistic sentiments are kept carefully in check, it is a win-win, North to South.
I think the position of the article is a tad over the line (I fear it underestimates the centrifugal forces that position’s implementation would amplify). However, somewhere short of Scott’s Scary Place there is a sensible spot where an existing reality can be yoked to the possibilities of an even better one to come.