Iraq: Strategic and Diplomatic Options
The Los Angeles Times recently published an article outlining what they said are the strategic and diplomatic options being explored by the Iraq Study Group. The Westhawk blog recently posted a description of those options:
Quote:
1. Set a timetable for withdrawal. A report in today’s news states that the Bush administration will soon insist on a timeline of specific benchmarks and goals on security, associated with a timeline for turning security responsibility over to the Iraqi government. This approach amounts to brinkmanship with the Iraqi government. What if the Iraqi government is either unwilling or incapable of meeting the proposed U.S. timeline? Would the U.S. government then essentially be negotiating with itself? Would a timeline for handing over responsibility to the Iraqis lead inevitably to a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals? Once those begun, they could not be slowed or stopped. If the U.S. commits to a withdrawal timetable, it must simultaneously accept the possibility of a worst-case outcome, because it would have conceded all control over events.
2. Enter into negotiations with Syria and Iran. The theory with this idea is that Syria and Iran have an interest in a stable Iraq. Getting them involved in the Iraq problem will allow them to be part of a stabilizing solution, so it is argued. This is a terrible idea for several reasons. Going to your enemies for help when you are in a weak position is a very poor negotiating tactic. For the Iranians, such a course would formally legitimize Iranian subversion of Iraq, a completely opposite outcome from what the U.S. should be seeking. In addition, the Iranians would likely also seek to extract Western concessions on their nuclear program, in return for their cooperation on Iraqi security. Formally legitimizing a security role for Iran and Syria inside Iraq would be a betrayal of Iraq and a strategic debacle for the West.
3. Encourage the legal trisection of Iraq. The natural forces of ethnic cleansing are already slowly bringing this about. The formation of a Shi’ite homeland in Iraq’s nine southern provinces, led by SCIRI’s Abdul Azziz al-Hakim, will be another large step down this path. However, the Sunni-Arabs will never formally agree to the legal breakup of Iraq, because they will be left with nothing from the deal. Therefore, they will resist this course, as they are doing everyday in Baghdad and Anbar. Iraq will become stable only when the Sunni-Arab population is reduced enough for it to no longer be a base for military activity. Hopefully this can come about through orderly international resettlement. Until that happens, large mixed cities like Baghdad and Kirkuk will be very violent places. Once again, the U.S. is highly unlikely to publicly back a policy of ethnic cleansing and resettlement, nor does Mr. Bush wish to be the Lord Mountbatten of the 21st century.
4. Replace Prime Minister al-Maliki with a “strongman.” Who might be this strongman? And what would then happen to Iraq’s national unity government after he was appointed? If Iraq’s current national unity government and parliament want to replace Mr. al-Maliki, they can do so at any time. If such a better candidate for prime minister already existed, might not the parliament have chosen him in the first place? Appointing a strongman would certainly intensify the civil war; the strongman would have to be a Shi’ite, and if he were truly strong (stronger than the national unity government allows Mr. al-Maliki to be), then the Sunni-Arabs would walk away from legal politics. This reaction, combined with the ethnic cleansing of the Sunni-Arabs, we believe is necessary to stabilize Iraq. But they are not likely to be Bush administration policies.
Strategic and Diplomatic Options
Concur UBoat's conclusion...Strikes me the "light footprint" concept has, at least in this situation, been discredited--if it ever carried any weight historically.... (Sorry, but my only personal COIN experience was in Viet Nam, clearly not a light footprint kind of situation)...Further, it is hard to see what rational options remain at this point beyond deciding just how many additional US are needed.
What The Baker Commission Is Ignoring
13 November Newsweek commentary - Don't Punt on The Troops Issue by Fareed Zakaria.
Quote:
... Here is the tough question: What are America's objectives in Iraq and how can we achieve them? More bluntly, what is to be done with the roughly 140,000 U.S. troops stationed there? What is their mission? If they have new goals, do these require more Americans or fewer? Not to tackle this issue is to present a doughnut document—all sides and no center.
In answering this question, we need to keep three factors in mind:
*This is not our chessboard. The Iraqi government has authority over all the political issues in the country. We may have excellent ideas about federalism, revenue-sharing and amnesty, but the ruling coalition has to agree and then actually implement them. So far, despite our many efforts, they have refused. There is a desperate neoconservative plea for more troops to try one more time in Iraq. But a new military strategy, even with adequate forces, cannot work without political moves that reinforce it. The opposite is happening today. American military efforts are actually being undermined by Iraq's government. The stark truth is, we do not have an Iraqi partner willing to make the hard decisions. Wishing otherwise is, well, wishful thinking.
*Time is not on America's side. Month by month, U.S. influence in Iraq is waning. Deals that we could have imposed on Iraq's rival factions in 2003 are now impossible. A year ago, America's ambassador to Iraq had real influence. Today he is being marginalized. Thus any new policy that requires new approaches to the neighbors and lengthy negotiations carries the cost associated with waiting.
*America's only real leverage is the threat of withdrawal. Many outsiders fail to grasp how much political power the United States has handed over in Iraq. The Americans could not partition Iraq or distribute its revenues even if Bush decided to. But Washington can warn the ruling coalition that unless certain conditions are met, U.S. troops will begin a substantial drawdown, quit providing basic security on the streets of Iraq and instead take on a narrower role, akin to the Special Forces mission in Afghanistan.
And one last thing: for such a threat to be meaningful, we must be prepared to carry it out.
Much more at the link.
U.S. Has Many Options in Iraq, None Easy
19 November Los Angeles Times - U.S. Has Many Options in Iraq, None Easy by Paul Richter.
Go to the link for a listing of five options, the advocates and pros and cons for each option.
The "Last Big Push" Option
20 November Christian Science Monitor - U.S. Troop Levels in Iraq May Rise, Then Decline by Howard LaFranchi.
Quote:
It's being dubbed by some as the "last big push" option, and it appears increasingly to be what President Bush favors on Iraq.
Despite growing expectations of a troop withdrawal from Iraq in the wake of Democratic gains in Congress, the White House appears to be leaning in a different direction: at least a temporary rise in US troop levels.
The numbers would not be huge, perhaps 20,000 on top of the 144,000 US soldiers already fighting the war. But the idea would be to stabilize Baghdad - a priority that has proved dishearteningly elusive since September - and to allow for a major diplomatic push aimed at drawing Iraq's neighbors into resolving the spiraling violence.
Implicit in the perspective of the officials and experts who see this as a kind of military "Hail Mary" pass is the assumption that a phased reduction of US troops would begin next fall - whether or not Iraq had been brought back from the brink of all-out civil war.
Some experts who have favored increasing the number of US troops in the past say conditions have deteriorated to such a degree that before any steps are taken, the United States must first differentiate between a knee-jerk act of desperation and something that can really improve the situation in Iraq...
Just getting caught up on this entire thread...
... let's all stay on topic and table any personal digs, etc. Thanks.
Pentagon Review Sees Three Options in Iraq
20 November Washington Post - Pentagon Review Sees Three Options in Iraq by Tom Ricks.
Quote:
The Pentagon's closely guarded review of how to improve the situation in Iraq has outlined three basic options: Send in more troops, shrink the force but stay longer, or pull out, according to senior defense officials.
Insiders have dubbed the options "Go Big," "Go Long" and "Go Home." The group conducting the review is likely to recommend a combination of a small, short-term increase in U.S. troops and a long-term commitment to stepped-up training and advising of Iraqi forces, the officials said.
The military's study, commissioned by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace, comes at a time when escalating violence is causing Iraq policy to be reconsidered by both the White House and the congressionally chartered, bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Pace's effort will feed into the White House review, but military officials have made it clear they are operating independently...
"Go Big," the first option, originally contemplated a large increase in U.S. troops in Iraq to try to break the cycle of sectarian and insurgent violence. A classic counterinsurgency campaign, though, would require several hundred thousand additional U.S. and Iraqi soldiers as well as heavily armed Iraqi police. That option has been all but rejected by the study group, which concluded that there are not enough troops in the U.S. military and not enough effective Iraqi forces, said sources who have been informally briefed on the review.
The sources insisted on anonymity because no one at the Pentagon has been permitted to discuss the review with outsiders. The review group is led by three high-profile colonels -- H.R. McMaster and Peter Mansoor of the Army, and Thomas C. Greenwood of the Marine Corps. None of them would comment for this article...
"Go Home," the third option, calls for a swift withdrawal of U.S. troops. It was rejected by the Pentagon group as likely to push Iraq directly into a full-blown and bloody civil war.
The group has devised a hybrid plan that combines part of the first option with the second one -- "Go Long" -- and calls for cutting the U.S. combat presence in favor of a long-term expansion of the training and advisory efforts. Under this mixture of options, which is gaining favor inside the military, the U.S. presence in Iraq, currently about 140,000 troops, would be boosted by 20,000 to 30,000 for a short period, the officials said.
The purpose of the temporary but notable increase, they said, would be twofold: To do as much as possible to curtail sectarian violence, and also to signal to the Iraqi government and public that the shift to a "Go Long" option that aims to eventually cut the U.S. presence is not a disguised form of withdrawal...
General Odierno Discusses Goals of His Return to Iraq
20 November New York Times - General Discusses Goals of His Return to Iraq by Thom Shanker.
Quote:
Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who returns to Iraq next month to take charge of the day-to-day fight as commander of the Multinational Corps-Iraq, says he departs for Baghdad with a clearer, perhaps even diminished, set of expectations of what the military can be expected to accomplish now, more than three years after the invasion.
“You have to define win, and I think everybody has a different perspective on winning,” General Odierno said during an interview at the Army’s III Corps headquarters here.
“I would argue that with Saddam Hussein no longer in power in Iraq, that is a partial win,” he said. “I think what we need is an Iraqi government that is legitimate in the eyes of the Iraqi population, an Iraq that is able to protect itself and not be a safe haven for terror. That’s what I think winning is.”...
“Notice I left out a few things, such as a democracy in the sense that we see a democracy in the United States. We have to allow them to shape their own democracy, the type of democracy that fits them and their country.”
It has become a truism of the war in Iraq that there can be no military victory without a political solution, which requires the coordinated efforts of the entire United States government and of the Iraqi one, as well.
“The longer we stay in Iraq, the less of a military fight it becomes,” the general said. “We have to understand that.”...
"...the way we did it in Vietnam."
Gen Wayne A. Downing (USA, Ret) said to Tim Russert, Rep Duncan Hunter (chairman of the House Armed Services Committee), and Rep Ike Skelton (ranking member, House Armed Services commitee) on the November 26, 2006 Meet the Press:
Quote:
“But what we don’t want to do, Tim, and, and, and, you know, my congressmen here, don’t let us go out of this thing the way we did it in Vietnam. Let’s not sell these people down the river the way we did the, the, the South Vietnamese. Let’s do this smart.”
Gen Downing’s heartfelt plea to the congressmen was to avoid a "Vietnam situation" in Iraq and do it the “smart” way. So much of our current national discussion is rightfully about what the Iraqi’s are able to do (or not able to do), what military decisions the US will make regarding force levels, force composition and military strategy and tactics and what Iraqi politics and middle east issues are in play. The one issue that is not given enough discussion time and planning is the deliberate cultivation of a “unified national will.” Leadership decision making is well and good, but unless there is a intentional and effective mobilization of a supportive US constituency, how can any American decision or plan succeed?
Simply put, any plan regarding Iraq that is not integrated with a successful plan to motivate domestic political support will fail and we will be “doing it” again exactly the way we did “it” in Vietnam.
This kind of foreign policy that is integrated with domestic politics demands a higher quality of political leadership than the US has had to date. Unless and until the American People have this kind of excellence in domestic political leadership the US will be tragically unequal to the task that is Iraq.
(http://sundayschoolforsinners.blogspot.com/)