The debate over withdrawal from Iraq

I am watching Bobby, tonight, the beautiful movie by Emilio Estevez about the tragic assassination of one of America's truly great and courageous politicians, Robert F. Kennedy, which, if you haven't seen it, is brilliant. It embodies so many of the principles of liberalism that inspired me in my youth.

There are three debates about withdrawal of troops that I think matter most to the situation in Iraq.

The first, of course, and the one that is catching the most headlines, these days, is the debate between the President and the U.S. Congress and in the American public over how long they will support troop deployment in Iraq, funding security and other efforts in Iraq, and how much patience the Congress and the American people feel for the situation in Iraq.

The second, and more important debate, I think, is the one occurring in the Iraqi parliament, right now. There are conflicting reports about what the Iraqi government might want. The Washington Post reports that Iraqi lawmakers are backing a bill on troop withdrawal. The Post reports that a bare majority of 138 of 275 lawmakers have signed a measure to establish time lines for American troop withdrawal. The Associated Press indicates that Al-Sadr alligned officials report 144 signatures, a stronger majority.

The Associate Press reports that the Maliki government and its allies, on the other hand, are urging the American Congress not to authorize an American pull-out until Iraqi troops are ready to take over security responsibilities.

Which one of these government representations of the view and will of the Iraqi people should be taken most seriously is unclear to me, at this point. My democratic instincts would tend to say what parliament says goes. But my instincts as a political observer tell me that Prime Minister Maliki is a far better faith political leader for the Iraqi people than is Moqtada Al Sadr and his political coalition which helped secure the legislation to compel an American withdrawal.

But there is another debate about the war in Iraq that I think is as important and, in many ways, more important than the debate going on the Iraqi parliament. And that debate is the thoughtful, empirical policy debate about what would be the best course of action in Iraq given the current situation.

Joe Nye argues that, "[T]o defend this (or any future war) on the basis of the moral clarity of our intentions is impoverished one-dimensional moral reasoning. Whatever the president's motives, his inadequate attention to means and the full range possible consequences makes this an unjust war."

Francis Fukuyama argues that we need to start having "a very different debate from the one we have been having up to now, a debate not about surging and not about withdrawing with our goals accomplished but about how to draw down our forces in a way that minimizes the costs that will inevitably accompany our loss of control.

Benjamin Barber argues that "potential American partners (and perhaps even friends) are being kept at arm's length by a U.S. government obsessed with a losing campaign in Iraq. When the final balance sheet is produced, it will be clear that in failing to win his foolish war against global terrorism in a country where there were no global terrorists until we got there and drew them into the battle, Bush may have also lost several winnable campaigns for friends and allies elsewhere around the globe."

Frederick Kagan makes what I think is the most thorough and reasonable argument, which is that security is a necessary and non-negotiable prerequisite for political resolution of the chaos in Iraq, and that Americans must stay as long as is needed in a situation that we created, whether we want to take responsibility for that decision or not. Abandoning the Iraqis, Kagan argues and I agree, leaves them vulnerable to Al Queda terrorists and Shia (and Sunni) militias who seek a permanent base in Iraq, in the case of Al Queda, and to dominate militarily and politically, in the case of the Shia (and Sunni) militias, which will result in the brutal, needless, and tragic deaths of Iraqis who are counting on American assistance to the elected Iraqi government to provide security.

As Kagan argues:

"In Iskandariyah, I met Major General Qais, the commander of the Babil Province police forces. I asked him the same question, What is your greatest challenge. Without hesitation, he, too, said: Shia militias. The Iraqi police are known to be infiltrated by Shia militia fighters, but General Qais has molded a force that he uses against those very militias on a daily basis. He has survived attempts on his life, and he and his family are under constant threat. They, too, rely on America to help them fight the agents of Iran who seek to defeat us. Across Iraq today, decent people are standing up and identifying themselves. They are reaching out to us, working with us, and fighting alongside us against our enemies, even against the powerful Shia militias. If we abandon them now, they will be tortured and killed, along with their families, by the militias. We will have exposed every decent person in the country to destruction...

...But the most moving scenes were in some of the worst neighborhoods of the city. Our uparmored Humvees rolled through Ghazaliyah and Dora, two Sunni neighborhoods heavily infiltrated with al Qaeda and under pressure from Shia militias. There are few services in these neighborhoods, and IED attacks and killings had been regular features until very recently. We walked through raw sewage in the streets and saw bullet and bomb holes in the buildings. But to my amazement, we also saw children in those streets who did not glare or run or stand dourly as the occupiers passed. Instead they smiled and waved, asking for candy or just saying hello. Even in the worst places in Iraq, we have not lost the children. They still look to us with hope. They still expect us to deliver them from death and violence. They still believe that we will honor our commitments to their parents.

What will happen if we abandon these children? Death will stalk them and their families. Al Qaeda will attempt to subjugate them. Shia militias will drive them from their homes or kill them. And they and their neighbors, and everyone in the Middle East, will know we left them to their fate. Everyone will know, "Never trust the Americans." Everyone will warn their children, "The Americans will only betray you." We will cement our reputation as untrustworthy. We will lose this generation not only in Iraq, but throughout the Middle East. And we will have lost more than our reputation and our ability to protect our interests. We will have lost part of our soul."

He is right about that, I believe. If the Iraqi parliament is expressing a genuine belief by the Iraqi people that American troops should withdraw, then we should honor that desire, I believe. But if that vote is a manipulated effort by Iraqi militias, whose allies in parliament led and secured the votes to pass this legislation, to undermine a more just peace so that they can impose a sectarian and bloody end to this war on their Sunni and Kurd neighbors and undermine a more genuine democratic future for Iraq, then America should think twice about pulling out.

Frederick Kagan is right about one very important feature of this war. As he writes:

"From time to time, nations face fundamental tests of character. Forced to choose between painful but wise options, and irresponsible ones that offer only temporary relief from pain, a people must decide what price they are willing to pay to safeguard themselves and their children and to do the right thing."

America, right now, is indicating a preference for what I believe to be the less responsible option to bring some speedy kind of closure to this tragic war regardless of the consequences for Iraqis and their security. That is understandable, given the more than 3000 American soldiers who have died and the countless Iraqis who have died.

The question before us is not, "Who is right, liberals or conservatives, Congress or the President, Americans or Iraqis?"

The question before us is, "How do we engage this discussion and make this decision with much more genuine integrity to our best understandings, highest ideals, strongest character and most serious responsibilities and commitments?"

Do we abandon a situation because we fear futility, even as many people are counting on us to stay with our commitments in order to find a more honest way through this war? Or do we stick with this situation until it is either clear that the Iraqi government, military, and law enforcement do not need our assistance or until it is clear that they do not want our help?

Colin Powell's comments on this situation are the ones that make the only sense to me. It is Pottery Barn rules. You break it, you buy it.

We broke the situation in Iraq. We are responsible for it, even if we don't feel like being responsible for it. I opposed this war, up front, with concerns about exactly the kind of political and military situation that we face in Iraq today. But I know better than to abandon a responsibility this serious just because it doesn't feel as hopeful as I might like, right now. If Iraqis are unequivocal that they want us to leave, then we should leave. The worst hubris in this whole situation has been our stubborn pretension that it did or does not matter what Iraqis think when, as it concerns Iraq, what Iraqis think matters more than anything else, and certainly anything that we might wish differently given how we invaded their country, without their permission or consultation. Iraqis, ultimately, should decide the fate of Iraq. If they say that they need our help, then we owe it to them to provide it. And if they say they want us to leave, then it is our responsibility to respect that wish and to leave.

I am unclear, at this point, what the Iraqis really want. I want to take the Iraqi parliament seriously, but it is very difficult to do so when the vote for American withdrawal was so clearly orchestrated by the very militias who threaten a very bloody and brutal end to this war for fellow Iraqis. And I trust that Prime Minister Maliki and his government, which have pleaded for American troops to stay, is a better faith actor than Muqtada Al Sadr and his militias and political representatives who arranged for this vote for Americans to leave. I trust the Iraqi government, better, to offer a credible monopoly of force to work more impartially on behalf of the interests, better, of all Iraqis, than the sectarian ambitions of Al Sadr or the Jihadi or anti-American interests of Al Queda. That is where my trust is invested, at the moment. But I am open to a discussion about what we might do next given the evolving political situation in the Iraqi government and, more importantly, among the Iraqi people.

Bobby Kennedy, in the film, tonight, has a beautiful speech that he delivers and that they play after his assassination at the end of the movie, that is appropriate to our current political period, the political discussion, and the decisions we are contemplating:

"To often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force. Too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of other human beings. But this much is clear. Violence breeds violence. Repression breeds retaliation. And only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our souls. But when you teach a man to hate and to fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color, or his beliefs, or the policies that he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your home or your family, then you also learn to confront others, not as fellow citizens, but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation, but with conquest, to be subjugated and to be mastered. We learn at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens. Alien men with whom we share a city, but not a community. Men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in a common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force.

Our lives on this planet are too short, the work to be done is too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in this land of ours. Of course we cannot banish it with a program, nor with a resolution. But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life, that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness winning what satisfaction and fulfillment that they can. Surely this bond of common faith, surely this bond of common goals can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at the least, to look around at those of us of our fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again."

I cannot think of a more appropriate sentiment than this at this dark and polarized moment in our nation's history and in the course of making grave and important decisions about the fate of Americans and the fate of Iraqis whom we have involved in this war that they did not invite us to wage.

None of us are inherently superior to one another. None of us. We are a common nation and common international community engaged in a common debate and discussion about our common efforts in Iraq, the country, and the world. We cannot substitute constructive disagreement and discussion with force, because it does not substitute. What we need is a common discussion of our common goals in Iraq and in the world that is premised on the notion that this kind of nobility may be beyond many of us, at this point in our lives, but it is the responsibility that we share in the terrible and grave consequences that we face in a failed effort in Iraq and in our common efforts as Americans facing our common problems beyond Iraq.

Reason is the only sustainable means of governance and self-governance. Force and politics can persuade when reason fails. But we must neither abuse that trust that comes with force and power when it is not necessary or when it disrespects the consciences of our fellow citizens and fellow men and women on earth, nor should we shrink from the need and responsibility to use force wisely and with the most genuine concern for those whom we protect with it when it is needed. Matters of security, as are pressing in Baghdad and Iraq, today, are those times when force is most assuredly needed. We must use reason, whenever ideally possible, politics, only when reason fails, no other option is available and as a protection against imposition by those who seek and manipulate power against us, and force only when absolutely necessary, and then as least and as little as possible and necessary.

But our efforts must, ultimately, be guided by reason if any real purpose is to animate our thought and actions. We must seek a world where reason, much more than power or force and as exclusively as possible, is relied upon to govern ourselves and one another. And above all, our reason must be used to guide our efforts when power and force are necessary. Reason will fail us. But it will fail us less than brute force alone. And genuine courage and humility must animate that reason which seeks to wield power and force. But that is within our grasp as well. If only we will reach for it.

This is the kind of discussion that we need about the grave situation in Iraq, currently. A thoughtful, reasoned, engaged discussion and debate, which acknowledges honest disagreement and seeks to engage dialogue about how to account for genuine concerns so that our most thoughtful, reasonable policices can be adopted, and if those policies fail, to discuss what more reasonable options we might face next.

That is the debate and discussion about the war in Iraq that needs to be taking place, right now. A reasonable debate among reasonable people with reasonable differences facing common problems and with common faith, common goals, and common humanity that seeks policy options that we can only hope can protect Iraqis and honor our commitments to them.

That is the debate and discussion we should all be most focussed on. And to the degree that this is where we are focussed, then more reasonable options will be proposed and adopted, and, as importantly, chosen in future rounds of policy discussion, where future choices can be animated more by thoughtful and reasonable understanding and options rather than by propaganda, power, or force.

This is the debate that would honor America and Iraq, and be worthy of Americans and Iraqis engaged in common aspirations for a free and democratic Iraq.

May we be wise enough to choose such a course, and approach this standard as we face our reasonable options for resolving this tragic war. I can only hope that we will choose such wisdom.

Love,
Ben