Clinton Would Keep Troops in Iraq
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that she would keep some US troops in Iraq to fight al-Qaeda, curb Iranian influence, protect the Kurds and assist the Iraqi military.
The elements of this plan will not work or are unnecessary.
1. The Kurds don't need protecting. Their Peshmerga military, 60,000 to 100,000 strong and well trained and armed, is the best indigenous fighting force in Iraq. There is almost no violence in the territory of the Kurdistan Regional Government, precisely because the Peshmerga are so good. There are almost no US troops up north because even now they are not needed.
2. There is no al-Qaeda in Iraq in the technical sense of the word, of fighters who have sworn fealty to Usama Bin Laden. There are a small number, probably less than a thousand, of foreign volunteers fighting in the country, mainly from other Arab states but also from Europe. They are mostly Salafi Jihadis (revivalist militants) and act as adjuncts to local Iraqi guerrilla cells, all of which are much bigger and more important. They are there to fight US occupation and would probably just go home if it ended. If peace was made with the Iraqi Sunnis, the Iraqis themselves would expel or slit the throats of the foreigners. If peace isn't made with them, they'll keep giving the foreign volunteers cars rigged up with bombs to go detonate. Either way, the US military cannot fight "al-Qaeda" in Iraq in isolation from the struggle against the Sunni Arabs. And, a small force such as she is proposing would be massacred in al-Anbar Province if there were still hostilities with the Sunni Arabs in general.
3. There are no Iranian units in Iraq. There are no Iranian prisoners to speak of in US custody in Iraq, even though 12,000 prisoners are being detained. The US did arrest a handful of Iranians deputed to the compound of Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and to Irbil, the power base of Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani. These Iranians were there at Iraqi invitation. The US can only interfere here because it has a big force in the country. A small US military force could do nothing whatsoever about Iranian influence in Shiite Iraq, especially in the face of Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish desire for such cooperation. There will be millions of pilgrims coming back and forth, and they all can't be monitored. The major Shiite party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, is tightly linked with Tehran even while being among the main US allies. Small US units trying to take on Iranians in the Shiite south would risk being massacred by thousands of angry Iraqi Shiites.
4. Leaving small numbers of US troops in Iraq to assist the Iraqi military over the short term might be desirable and might be practicable, though I've been advised that it might not work. Over the medium to long term it would be most unwise because it would set up a strong risk of the US being pulled back into the civil war. What if you put a US company in with an Iraqi battalion, and the whole unit was ambushed by Sunni Arab guerrillas and many US troops killed? Either you let them get away with it, which is an invitation for them strike again at other US troops. Or you retaliate, which means putting more US units in for a retaliatory operation.
5. Small units of US troops are not going to agree to stay in Iraq because they will lack security. Only a big army in the country can provide that security. If US troops are captured, who will rescue them and how, if we have gotten most of the military out?
6. Some day Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is going to get up in the morning and give a fatwa or formal legal ruling that there must be no foreign troops stationed on Iraqi soil. When that happens, the US will not be able to stay in Iraq. It will be over with.
I have great respect for Senator Clinton and say all this only because I think her statements show she is getting bad and unrealistic advice on this matter, possibly from powerful lobbies, and fear that she may become attached to a set of policies that make no sense in the context of the really existing Iraq.
Labels: Iraq War
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/16/2007 01:26:00 AM
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6 Comments:
Although I greatly respect your expertise and analysis, why you would “greatly respect” Senator Clinton is a mystery to me. I think she absolutely typifies the abysmal cowardice, narcissism, and greed that dominates and paralyzes the Democratic Party.
Her endless political calculation and feats of gymnastic triangulation while thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis see their lives destroyed is an obscenity; her fealty to AIPAC and the overall U.S. military-industrial complex is utterly boundless.
On July 17, during the Israeli war on Lebanon, she appeared in New York with Israel’s UN ambassador Dan Gillerman, who announced, “To those countries who claim that we are using disproportionate force, I have only this to say: You’re damn right we are!” Clinton added: “We will support [Israel’s] efforts to send a message to Hamas, Hezbollah, to the Syrians, to the Iranians… We will take whatever steps are necessary.”
Please explain to me what you find admirable in that policy commitment? Do you have any doubt that she will cheer on the Cheney Administration’s (and/or Israel’s) attack on Iran when it is unleashed?
She looks palatable only when lined up against this ghastly junta of right-wing ideologues currently occupying the White House. One could argue, I suppose, that she is a lesser evil of some sort; however, she is a careerist obsessed by power and her own monumental ego. Of course she is not alone in that, but the U.S. will not escape our current morass of debt, militarism, and empire with her in charge.
Can we, for heaven’s sake, elect someone other than a Bush or a Clinton to the White House? Is American political leadership now so dynastic and inbred that we can only look forward to a contest between Jenna and Chelsea in a few decades? How soon until we will find more intellectual (and genetic) variety in a West Virginia coal town than in Washington, D.C.? Or have we already passed that point?
I greatly recommend Chalmers Johnson’s book “Nemesis” to get a profound historical sense of the dangers that the United States faces as a functioning democracy. It wouldn’t hurt to absorb historian Kevin Phillips’s thoughtful “American Theocracy” as well. Neither of these men are academic leftists (both evidently voted for Ronald Reagan); these are conservative perspectives, at least in the traditional sense of the term. Hillary Clinton, alas, is a part of the problem; she is emphatically not the solution.
Still Not Into Asking the Locals?
HRC doesn't care what the Iraqis think, eh? Iraqis want us out in short order, in overwhelming numbers.
Nor does HRC want what is in our own interest? We are paying a price that, while low in historic terms, is high in relation to what we are gaining, which is less than nothing. The longer we stay in Iraq, the worse things get. Progress is not an option. Given this, there is nothing wrong with withdrawing US forces from Iraq PDQ.
The astounding alarmist views in Rolling Stone are "worthy" of a CIA first draft before inter-agency scrubbing--alarmist without basis, ignoring many key factors.
Let's put their scenarios to a real-world test: offer withdrawn US units to any neighboring country, those so quickly tossed about in the doomsday arguments of the RS panelists, and see if anyone offers them a place from which to offer "assistance." If there are real world worries among the neighbors, they can ask us to stay, but no need to hold your breath.
W. withdrew from Saudi Arabia in the smoking-rubble aftermath of 9/11 and it hasn't turned into WWIII-land yet.
The main course of events in a post-withdrawal Iraq would be a quick sigh of relief all around and the rush of politicians to jockey for position. Further large-scale blood-shed at that point will be massively rejected. The major point of contention will be who did the most to get the US to withdraw, and the Shiites would have a strong argument if we are gone.
Of course the Iraqi parliament could pass a resolution requesting foreign forces to remain, if that is their wish. Or they could invite forces not present if they want some trained back-up. Or just field their own army and fight for their freedom, without expensive non-Arab-speaking American participation.
Before the US agrees to any request to keep forces in Iraq, there should be some hard bargaining about what we might get out of such an effort. So far, all we've gotten is this lousy war-presidency shredding our Constitution in the name of an endless war that is "pressed" with the most lackadaisical attention to reality one can imagine.
Maybe HRC doesn't think strong presidential powers are so bad if she is the one wielding them. Maybe some Republicans are starting to contemplate this angle. Maybe they should read all those laws they passed without scrutiny in their panicked rush to respond to articially-generated fears.
Ms. Clinton simply wants to avoid using the most filthy, unmentionable word in the American political lexicon, peace.
"Peace" has come to mean "unconditional surrender" not the ending of hostilities. So it's real bad.
Ms. Clinton makes sure she promises the US will be fighting somebody somewhere, all the time.
To even hold out a hope of peace would be considered treasonous.
Hmm, I wonder hich powerful lobby do you think that might be?
Hillary's prescription is more triangulation, and I personally disagree with most of it. Your points on al-Qaeda and al-Anbar are spot on. Likewise, there's a lot of misplaced hysteria about the need to counter Iran militarily, nearly as much of it coming from the left as from the right.
In my opinion, the withdrawal should take place gradually, and a reasonably robust force should be retained in the region in the event massive ethnic cleansing or massacres take place and there is a need to create corridors for civilians to flee, or to protect discrete areas. This should be more of a Balkan NATO model of intervention, and it's a shame we aren't closer to January 2009 and some remote possibility of creating a multinational protection force.
The Kurds do need protecting, but what they need is diplomatic support - from the US but also from the EU. A large US troop presence is neither wanted nor necessary in Kurdistan. The one thing I give Hillary credit for is that she alone among the Democratic candidates at least acknowledges that the US has some responsibility to prevent a really bad outcome for the Kurds, given our repeated betrayals in the past. Let me be clear that this does not mean advocating for outright independence now, although the US should be prepared to work in concert with the EU to have a Plan B to deal with this possibility, should a hard-line Arab nationalist government (perhaps Sadrist) take power in Iraq and consolidate central control, including over all oil revenue.
You have great respect for Senator Clinton? Why?
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