Get out of Iraq now, before we start a bigger war

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice now admits that Bush authorized the attack on the Iranian diplomatic facility in Iraq as part of a long-running campaign against Iranian agents who are aiding the Shiite insurgency in Iraq.

Iran is probably aiding Shiite militias in Iraq. That's one reason why we need to negotiate with Iran to partition Iraq and get the hell out. The plurality of Iraq's population is Shiite and sympathetic to Iran. Even if Iraq became a democracy, it would vote to be a Shia state with close ties to Iran. In the 2005 elections, over 80% of Shiite voters cast their ballots for pro-Iranian Shiite parties.

The excruciating irony is that the Bush administration created the problem in the first place. If the U.S. hadn't overthrown Saddam Hussein, Iraq and Iran would have remained bitter enemies. This entire war was one big gimme for Islamic theocracy.

In The End Of Iraq, Peter Galbraith notes that George W. Bush's bungling foreign policy literally created the Tehran/Baghdad Axis.

When George W. Bush shot off his mouth about the "Axis of Evil" (a phrase that went straight to the keyboard of David Frum to the lips of the president without any fact-checking by the State Department), the so-called "axis" did not exist. Iraq and Iran were bitter enemies at the time. Saddam Hussein and his Sunni minority ruled Iraq. Iran was Shiite Islamic Republic. Hussein started the Iran/Iraq war that killed at least half a million Iranians and left thousands in Iraqi POW camps decades later.

However, once the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq's Shiite majority suddenly had a lot of power, by dint of sheer numbers. Of course, Iran founded and nurtured Iraq's major Shiite parties for years before the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein.

The United States had a surprisingly good relationship with Iran before the disastrous Axis of Evil speech. Galbraith explains, "Before the Axis of Evil speech Iran was cooperating with the United States in Afghanistan, sharing intelligence about al Qaeda, preventing fugitive al Qaeda members from escaping through Iran, and giving the U.S. military permission to conduct search-and-rescue missions in Iranian territory for any American pilot shot down in the Afghanistan war."

At first, the U.S. and Iran had a lot of common interests with regard to Iraq. Both sides wanted to contain Hussein's aggressions. Several years earlier, Iran had been attacked by Hussein and subjected to his poison gas attacks. Of course, Iran has good reason to fear al Qaeda, a Sunni group sworn to erase Iran's Islamic revolution and recreate a Sunni caliphate. All that changed after Bush signaled to the Iranians that they might be the next target.

Bush's loose talk spurred the Iranians to pursue their nuclear program. Once the U.S. became tied down in Iraq, Iran was able to step up its program without fear of reprisals.

If Iran is determined to help Iraq's Shiites, now is the time to cut a deal and get out. It would be absolutely ridiculous, not to mention barbarous, to start a war with Iran over the ruins of Iraq. The longer we drag this out, the further the Iranians may progress in the nuclear program. Remember, military experts are saying that the war could drag on for years. We don't want to end up in a nuclear face-off with Iran over a country we've already lost.

Remember, if we really wanted democracy in Iraq, we should have expected a Shia-dominated theocratic government closely allied with Iran, because that's what people are going to vote for in the foreseeable future. So, you have to ask, what's the point of fighting Iran to forestall the inevitable?

The only moral imperative keeping the U.S. in Iraq is to stop the impeding genocide of the Sunnis at the hands if the Shias. The conflict has already shifted from a war against American occupation to a civil war between Sunni and Shia.

The only way out is to acknowledge Kurdish independence, create some kind of Sunni state that can be defended from the predations of its neighbors, and let the Shia of Iraq form their own republic. The longer we wait, the worse our chances of brokering a good deal.

Comments

[Cass]

There isn't any good deal, but there's always a choice between bad and worse. (To underline the point, Turkey threatened to launch at any time their own pre-emptive invasion of Kurdish Iraq today.) Of course national interest has nothing to do with our policy today; we're fighting to save George Bush's fantasy of a black-and-white world, and of himself as a great, divinely-appointed leader.

God help us all.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Cass, True. The administration have held on to their strategy (in 2005, they supposedly introduced a new strategy, but it didn't change much) by their fingernails for this long because, like a bankrupt Tammy Fay Bakker facing the repossession of her house, they haven't been able to face living in a dingy bachelor apartment. Guess what: you'd better start facing it or else you're homeless. President Bush's policies have strengthened the terrorists, as we always said they would (well, not always; most of us supported him perfectly well for Afghanistan, it was only when this cockamamie Iraq idea came up that we on the left broke with his policies in the War on Terror). Since the invasion, it's been, "well we can't leave! It'll be a disaster!" Uh, yeah--that's why we counseled against it. Don't say it "will be," it _is_ a disaster.

I don't know. Leaving Iraq means that forces hostile to us, most probably and predominantly Iran, will seize the remains of Iraq, drastically changing the whole balance of power in the area. However, remaining in the area not only prolongs the inevitable (us leaving), it risks those 150,000 troops of ours getting involved against Iran, which will be such a monumental defeat that we'll have nothing less than a profound moment of national shock and introspection that we haven't come close to before. We will finally face the humbling fact that we're just one country among a couple of hundred, not The Country.

I hadn't heard that about Turkey. The Financial Times reports today that military figures within Israel are considering a unilateral strike against Iran, if we don't do it for them; also, one of their generals suggests that Israel should "clandestinely" (how "clandestinely," when it's mentioned in an international newspaper, I don't know, but of course our President doesn't read newspapers) influence Saudi Arabia to encourage us to go against Iran.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Another bit from the Financial Times a couple of days ago was this: they mentioned that the 20,000-troop "surge" would only bring the troop level back to where it was when Rumsfeld drew down troops from the original to 130,000. Also, and this I loved: that Bush had dismissed his top generals a few years ago because they insisted that we needed more troops, and now he's dismissing the generals he replaced them with because they don't agree that we need more troops.

[Tyler DiPietro]

The problems go far beyond the inevitable ethnic cleansing of Sunni by Shia and the expansion of Iranian influence into more than half the country. Partitioning the country is likely to leave Kurdistan independent, and as Cass points out, Turkey is entirely unlikely to tolerate an independent Kurdish state on it's borders. Then there is the threat of a regional Sunni/Shia conflict that will destabilize the entire region, not to mention severely damage the Western economies with surging oil prices.

There is no good solution. I'm for supporting independent Kurdistan and deterring Turking (or Iranian) invasion. But there is not much else we can do.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Tyler, the way I see it, every bad thing that you mentioned is already happening. I don't see how the American presence is doing anything to deter Sunni/Shia conflict, or the influence of Iran.

Riverbend of Baghdad Burning posted recently about how you already were taking your life in your hands if you openly criticized an Iranian mullah in Baghdad.

Our presence is irrelevant to Iranian influence. Iran is right there, and the plurality of Iraq's population wants closer ties with Iran. If anything, staying and antagonizing Shittes and Iran is going to exacerbate the problem of Iranian influence.

There's a de facto independent Kurdish state already. I think dissuading Turkey from invading would be the least of our problems, especially if we stopped wasting money and lives trying to reoccupy Baghdad.

[Alon Levy]

Can the US pressure the EU to agree to a compact whereby Turkey can get a few derogations in accession negotiations in return for recognizing an independent Kurdistan?

[bushbaptist]

Balkinising Iraq will create more problems than it solves. As I pointed out at Abstract Nonsense, it would a country with two wealthy states and one very poor one. Not a good recipe for peace.
In the north the Kurds are a majority but there are many other Arab groups there as well. They are already stirring up trouble in the south of Turkey and in northern Iran.
The Bush Bunch never had an exit strategy. Here's a timeline of what was supposed to happen: The US invades Iraq, the Iraqis would greet you by kissing your boots and scattering flowers all over you.Install a puppet Govt., Set up an Agreement of Conpliance so you could build massive Millitary bases all over the country, and you all could go there on holidays to play at making sandcastles.
That is the problem with fantasies - they never fit into reality!
You got Chalabied!!

The Rogues Gallery:
Khalilzad; An Egyptian crook with ties to oil and arms sales.
Maliki; An Iranian Terrorist Commander.
Talebani; A kurdish Al Capone and Ganster.
These are the people that run Iraq!

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Can the US pressure the EU to agree to a compact whereby Turkey can get a few derogations in accession negotiations in return for recognizing an independent Kurdistan?

Posted by: Alon Levy

They could, if the EU hadn't already blown it by snubbing Turkey. Yet again from the Financial Times, who reported over the last week that the Turks had begun to return the cold attitude that the EU has been giving them over joining.

[Chris]

Actually David Frum claims that he originally wrote "Axis of Hate," and that that was switched to
"Axis of Evil." So he can only really claim credit for 2/3rds of the phrase.

[Tyler DiPietro]

Lindsay,

I don't see how the American presence is doing anything to deter Sunni/Shia conflict, or the influence of Iran.

I actually agree that it isn't. I think that the assumption Americans continually make, that they are omnipotent and can stop what has been inevitable since the British artifice of Iraq in the heyday of the colonial era, to be exceedingly stupid and a reflection of imperial hubris.

Right now I'm for a partitioning of the country, and negotiating with Iraq's regional neighbors to form a plan where the different ethnic factions can associate with their designated regions. In fact, this train has already left the building. So it will either be a violent ethnic civil war, a la the breakup of the former Yugoslavia after Tito, or it can be a somewhat contained partitioning, with the oil-impoverished Sunnis perhaps being able to secure some oil revenues from a supra-national Iraqi organization or some friendly Arab Sunni neighbors.

But all of that is a very long shot. The Busheviks have squandered nearly all of our political capital anywhere, especially the mid-east. And judging by their recent behavior toward Iran in the midst of the Iraq quagmire, they can be reasonably called insane beyond feasible description/

[herbert browne]

I'm having a hard time believing that all those Iraqi shi'a who fought in the Iran/Iraq war were secretly rooting for Iran... are the Iraqi shi'a Arabs, or Persians?.. or some of both?.. or something else? I don't think that Ali al Sistani is an apologist for the Iranians, whatever sympathies he may hold for them on religious grounds. No... if American troops will just get out of the way, these people will sort out their situation far more easily and humanely than they will with the U.S. in the thick of it- and I doubt whether they'll want too much "help" from beyond their borders.
The Kurds, certainly, are in a different situation... with an historic presence but no "legal" one- and internal power struggles that are a bit reminiscent of Life in Afghanistan (& Somalia). They're smart enough to know that, if they want autonomy, their best bet will be to hang with their Arab compatriots in iraq- where they have some legitimate political (& economic) power, rather than take to the hills (well... they're already there, right?) and try to pull off an "Autonomous region" that's part of at least 4 member states amongst the United Nations. They have a much better chance of gaining a legal Statehood by just accepting (embracing!) their de facto situation, and being an economic & political ally to the Iraqi sunni- who really need allies,now... ^..^

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Actually David Frum claims that he originally wrote "Axis of Hate," and that that was switched to
"Axis of Evil." So he can only really claim credit for 2/3rds of the phrase.

Posted by: Chris

Yes, I heard this too.

[Doyle Saylor]

Good Ole Lindsay keeps on focusing the attention just where it needs to be. I think it is possible to halt Bush now. But not terribly likely. At any rate if Bush pushes things further, with such a huge divide in this country I would think this would cement a shift to the left. I don't think anyone can adequately decipher why things have gotten to this point until a solid shift happens. No one quite matches Lindsay in being our voice. Good job!
Doyle

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

>I think it is possible to halt Bush now. But not terribly likely. ... with such a huge divide in this country I would think this would cement a shift to the left.

One gets the impression of a wheel coming off the car--the wheel always goes the opposite direction from the remaining wheels. My deepest fear, of course, has been that the left wheels would come off too. I'm not at all sure, now that the left is coming into its own, if it takes over completely, that it will not prove to flail just as badly as the right has over the last several years, since the right has held power. We have the same problem: we're compelled to engage in the foreign entanglements that George Washington (was it Jefferson? I think it was Washington, too late at night to Google, must go to bed) warned us about, and which we're so spectacularly unfamiliar with and bad at dealing with.

[bushbaptist]

More to the point:- The issues in Iraq will go the way they will. Bush's "Plan" is more of a drool than a surge.
It is more important for you US citizens to sort out your crazy political system, so that - you the people control the Govt. all the time (not just once in 4yrs as it stands now). Currently, only the Congress can impeach a pressie (a pretty much usless way of controlling those in power). You really need a system that allows the people (a reasonable majority of voters) to out the pressie if he/she seriously mis-behaves. The Britz dropped the impeachment process many years ago because it was cumbersome, time-wasting, very expensive and almost useless.
We have a system that allows us to out a Govt. that doesn't do it's job. Technically, we just need 55% of the eligible voters to use it but realistically it needs 66% to have any real effect. The act is set up so that it can not be used for scurrulous reasons but the reasons must be legitimate.
We used it in 1998 to remove a right wing Govt. That made Bush look like a boy scout!! It took three weeks to get the signatures and within another week the Governor had disolved Parliament and called new elections. This act keeps govts. honest.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

>Currently, only the Congress can impeach a pressie (a pretty much usless way of controlling those in power).

Particularly because Congress _never_ does it. They're so terrified of using impeachment that even in cases of gross negligence such as Bush showed during Katrina and the Iraq War, which seems to me to be clear malfeasance, they simply won't do it.

Ousting the President by popular vote concerns me, because I'm afraid that the American public doesn't bother to study up before they vote. They voted for a recall of the governor, this put Arnold Schwarzenegger in power in California, but hardly one of those cheering for him did _any_ studying whatsoever about Arnold's policy ideas. Same lack of engagement when they voted in Reagan. I wouldn't have minded (well, a bit, but at least it would have been functioning democracy) if they'd voted for Reagan because they agreed with his policies. But no--our people vote, in the main, for the guy that "feels right." Our people, I'm afraid, are mostly as disengaged as President* Bush is.

[herbert browne]

Re .."One gets the impression of a wheel coming off the car--the wheel always goes the opposite direction from the remaining wheels.."
Anyone who has marveled at the appearance of a lone wheel
rolling merrily past, as the awful Truth slowly dawned, will know that physics compels a free wheel to continue in the direction that has been thrust upon it... One must hope that, if the analogy should come true, that the left wheels remain on the Ship (er, Hummer?) of State... ^..^

[mds]

They could, if the EU hadn't already blown it by snubbing Turkey.

Well, Turkey's continued illegal occupation of 1/3 of an existing EU member nation could have something to do with that. Though unfortunately, this gets lost in the haze of far-right European groups that just hate Muslims.

[farang]

I read this post, the comments, intelligent, and obvious solutions proposed, and all I can hear in my head is that con man Lieberman's lies reverberating: "we gotta kill 'em there, or they'll follow us back here and murder our little chillin'", or something like that.

Does he really think anyone with an IQ over 50 believes anything coming from the neocon "pnac"ers bunch?

It clearly is now a race to see how much of the PNAC neocon plan they can implement before being hung......

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

They could, if the EU hadn't already blown it by snubbing Turkey.

Well, Turkey's continued illegal occupation of 1/3 of an existing EU member nation could have something to do with that. Though unfortunately, this gets lost in the haze of far-right European groups that just hate Muslims.

Hm, well not to get into the war of conflicting versions between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus, but when I think of Cyprus, I always think of Northern Ireland. Two groups, each desiring to be governed by a different "parent" nation, locked in stubborn struggle; yet the EU grows up around them, and their parent countries' devolution conflicts with the fact that the EU is now overarching all of the players involved. Except for the fact that Turkey seems less likely to be taken in to the EU, it would seem very similar, and similarly fascinating.