Iraq : The Logic Of Disengagement

[Cyrus]

Edward Luttwak (http://edward-luttwak.biography.ms/) is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies -- and certainly not a dove. His article (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050101faessay84103/edward-n-luttwak/iraq-the-logic-of-disengagement.html) on Iraq, in Foreign Affairs magazine, offers his argument and proposal for America disengaging from the quagmire.

Here's a sample (with emphases added), which one would be advised to read carefully :

[ QUOTE ]
Given all that has happened in Iraq to date, the best strategy for the United States is disengagement.
<font color="white"> . </font>
The endless sequence of major acts of violence proves that U.S. military forces are unable to fulfill their security role.
<font color="white"> . </font>
While the U.S. armed forces are formidable against enemies assembled in massed formation, they are least effective at fighting insurgents. Insurgents strive to be especially elusive, and as targets diminish, so does the value of American firepower. This wasm demonstrated in Vietnam in many different ways over many years and is unnecessarily being proven all over again in Iraq, damaging the reputation of the United States, wasting vast amounts of money, inflicting added suffering on Iraqis at large, and taking the lives of young Americans, whose sacrifice, one fears, will soon be deemed futile.
<font color="white"> . </font> <font color="white"> . </font>
A withdrawl, however, would not leave the insurgents vitcorious : Even if the official Iraqi army and police remain as ineffectual as they now are, the Shi'a and Kurdish militias are far larger and better armed than the insurgents, and would crush them soon enough.
<font color="white">. </font>
Disengagement would call for the careful planning and scheduling of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from much of the country--while making due provisions for sharp punitive strikes against any attempt to harass the withdrawing forces.
<font color="white"> . </font>
But it would primarily require an intense diplomatic effort, to prepare and conduct parallel negotiations with several parties inside Iraq and out. All have much to lose or gain depending on exactly how the U.S. withdrawal is carried out, and this would give Washington a great deal of leverage that could be used to advance U.S. interests.
<font color="white">. </font>
The United States cannot threaten to unleash anarchy in Iraq in order to obtain concessions from others, nor can it make transparently conflicting promises about the country's future to different parties.
<font color="white"> . </font>
But once it has declared its firm commitment to withdraw--or perhaps, given the widespread conviction that the United States entered Iraq to exploit its resources, once visible physical preparations for an evacuation have begun--the calculus of other parties will change.
<font color="white"> .</font>
In a reversal of the usual sequence, the U.S. hand will be strengthened by withdrawal, and Washington may well be able to lay the groundwork for a reasonably stable Iraq. Nevertheless, if key Iraqi factions or Iraq's neighbors are too shortsighted or blinded by resentment to cooperate in their own best interests, the withdrawal should still proceed, with the United States making such favorable or unfavorable arrangements for each party as will most enhance the future credibility of U.S. diplomacy.
<font color="white">. </font>
The United States has now abridged its vastly ambitious project of creating a veritable Iraqi democracy to pursue the much more realistic aim of conducting some sort of general election. In the meantime, however, it has persisted in futile combat against factions that should be confronting one another instead. A strategy of disengagement would require bold, risk-taking statecraft of a high order, and much diplomatic competence in its execution.
<font color="white"> . </font>
But it would be soundly based on the most fundamental of realities: geography that alone ensures all other parties are far more exposed to the dangers of an anarchical Iraq than is the United States itself.


[/ QUOTE ]

The man makes sense.

[Cyrus]

A lot of people who support America's policy in Iraq argue that the U.S. is bringing to the occupied country a better regime and hope for the future (an argument which Edward Luttwak does not dispute at all), as opposed to the nationalist/religious insurgents who want to take the country back to its old, anachronistic ways.

But Luttwak is a pragmatist -- and knows his History.

And History offers a lot of conclusive examples to the opposite effect, and most notably the way the very term "guerilla" was first created. Luttwak, in the same article, pointedly makes note of it:

[ QUOTE ]
The word "guerilla" acquired its present meaning from a ferocious insurgency against would-be liberators.
<font color="white"> . </font>
On July 6, 1808, King Joseph of Spain, who was the brother of Emperor Napoleon and had been placed on the Spanish throne by French troops, presented a draft constitution that for the first time in Spain's history offered an independent judiciary, freedom of the press, and the abolition of the feudal privileges of the aristocracy and the Church.
<font color="white"> . </font>
Ecclesiastical overlords still owned at the time thousands of towns and villages, throughout Spain, inhabited by some of Europe's most wretched tenants.
<font color="white"> . </font>
Far from demanding the immediate implementation of the new constitution, however, the peasants obeyed the priests who summoned them to fight against the ungodly innovations of the foreign invader and occupier.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Darryl_P]

What do you say to someone who argues that democracy was in adolescence in 1806 but now it is somewhere between middle age and old age? If this is true, then the parallel doesn't work so well.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
What do you say to someone who argues that democracy was in adolescence in [1808] but now it is somewhere between middle age and old age? If this is true, then the parallel doesn't work so well.

[/ QUOTE ]
Whether or not democracy was a regime that had already been tried in the United States (or even neighoring France) was obviously irrelevant to the Spaniards resisting Napoleonic modernisation. The Spaniards were offered tangibly better social and political conditions than those they had to endure under the monarchy and the Church -- yet the Spaniards denounced and refused the lot.

Their refusal had little, if anything, to do with "their lack of familiarity" with democratic concepts or with democracy's "young age". It had everything to do with the fact that those "better conditions" were offered by a foreigner, who was an invader and occupier to boot. End of story.

Notably, some years after this episode, the Spaniards did rebel against the autocratic and harsh regime of the (Spanish) King Ferdinand VII. But, this time, the rebellion was led by another Spaniard, the King's brother -- and a civil war ensued which lasted seven years.

[ACPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
It had everything to do with the fact that those "better conditions" were offered by a foreigner, who was an invader and occupier to boot. End of story.

[/ QUOTE ]

But than those who think they know what is good for another human being are almost invariably wrong and almost invariably never able to learn from history. I think this is part of the Libertarian philosophy -- is it not?

[bobman0330]

[ QUOTE ]
Their refusal had little, if anything, to do with "their lack of familiarity" with democratic concepts or with democracy's "young age". It had everything to do with the fact that those "better conditions" were offered by a foreigner, who was an invader and occupier to boot. End of story.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is one of the worst analogies I've ever seen. You think Napoleon was offering democracy? Napoleon?? Emperor Napoleon the ruthless warlord who overthrew the First Republic in France??? Yeah, those provincial Spanish, can't even recognize a liberator when they see one.

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
But it would primarily require an intense diplomatic effort, to prepare and conduct parallel negotiations with several parties inside Iraq and out. All have much to lose or gain depending on exactly how the U.S. withdrawal is carried out, and this would give Washington a great deal of leverage that could be used to advance U.S. interests.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is just so vague. The issue is whether the country will stick together. The US will never withdraw so long as they think there is a reasonable possibility of the country fracturing and the Sunni territories becoming independent entities in which Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups might train and operate freely (I know, it's already almost like that anyway...). The problem is that the Shias and, especially, the Kurds are not necessary opposed to dividing the country, since they would be left with the oil. The Iranians might not be opposed either, since it would be relatively easy to draw a smaller Shia Iraq into their sphere of influence.

So exactly what are you going to do diplomatically to prevent this outcome?

[ QUOTE ]
A strategy of disengagement would require bold, risk-taking statecraft of a high order, and much diplomatic competence in its execution.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the other problem, of course. Even if this kind of diplomatic maneuvering was possible, which I am skeptical about, the Bush administration has never offered any evidence that it is remotely capable of diplomatic competence.

[lehighguy]

What about just putting Saddam back in power. I'm all for it at this point (not joking).

He is secular, he can maintain order and prevent civil war, and as an added bonus we can claim that we left the country exactely as we found it.

[ QUOTE ]
What about just putting Saddam back in power. I'm all for it at this point (not joking).

He is secular, he can maintain order and prevent civil war, and as an added bonus we can claim that we left the country exactely as we found it.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is exactly what I was thinking (I'm not joking either). Things were so much better for us and the Iraqis when Saddam was in power. Saddam didn't have any WMDs so he was no threat to the U.S., but he did have plenty of power in his own country which he could use to keep all these little terrorist groups in line.

Now, we're likely to see a big free-for-all when we leave and whichever regime takes power will likely leave the U.S. and the Iraqis worse off.

[superleeds]

I suggest you read a book about Napoleons life and deeds rather than belief how some people have interperated Nostradamus.

[ACPlayer]

I wrote a post a long time back suggesting that instead of going to war we would provide a safer environment for us and for the Iraqi by inviting Saddam to the White House for bourbon and barbecue and building a lasting trade relationship with Iraq.

Bilateral trade relations, I suggest we pursue that route with Iran and Syria now.

[twowords]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What about just putting Saddam back in power. I'm all for it at this point (not joking).

He is secular, he can maintain order and prevent civil war, and as an added bonus we can claim that we left the country exactely as we found it.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is exactly what I was thinking (I'm not joking either). Things were so much better for us and the Iraqis when Saddam was in power.

[/ QUOTE ]

Surely, you guys are joking.

[lehighguy]

Not really. It seems like the most sensible solution.

If we really shouldn't be there why don't we just set things the way they were before we showed up.

[BCPVP]

Yikes! /images/graemlins/shocked.gif

[lehighguy]

Why not, what's your solution. Install Shah Sistani.

[bobman0330]

[ QUOTE ]
I suggest you read a book about Napoleons life and deeds rather than belief how some people have interperated Nostradamus.

[/ QUOTE ]

OK. I will read a book about Napoleons [sic] life and deeds rather than belief how some people have interperated [sic] Nostradamus. I will report back once I have read a book about Napoleons [sic] life and deeds rather than belief how some people have interperated [sic] Nostradamus.

[BCPVP]

No. I don't have "The Solution". I think "put Saddam back in power" is a worse idea than just packing up and leaving. I had respect for you before. If you're seriously not joking, you've lost that respect.

[lehighguy]

It doesn't seem like a worse idea then just leaving. What will result from our just leaving is probably worse then what will result from putting Saddam back. Clearly the country is worse off now then before the war, so why not just set everything back where it was.

We couldn't even be blamed for what he might do, as we are simply admitting our error in deposing him in the first place. We are doing what everyone wished we did from the very beginning. If some new dictator springs up they would blame his actions on our war, this way we can just say that we set everything the way it was.

In a perserve irony, I think the Iraqis deserve Saddam after all this. If they really preferred the way thigns were then let them get what they want.

[ACPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
In a perserve irony, I think the Iraqis deserve Saddam after all this. If they really preferred the way thigns were then let them get what they want

[/ QUOTE ]

It is not perverse irony. It is the essence of human nature. First resist outside influences and second only when they are really sick of a system will they come up with a system that they can live with.

This was predictable and predicted.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
Clearly the country is worse off now then before the war, so why not just set everything back where it was.

[/ QUOTE ]
You can pretty much say this about any country post-war. You think Berlin and Tokyo were happy, wonderful places after WWII? That's the reason we're staying, to help the Iraqis get back on their feet. Leaving and putting Saddam back in power would not be leaving it as we found it because we wrecked several parts of it and have a responsibility to fix it (or help fix it).

[ QUOTE ]
We couldn't even be blamed for what he might do, as we are simply admitting our error in deposing him in the first place.

[/ QUOTE ]
Think about that for a moment. If we put Saddam back into power, we would most assuredly be signing the death warrants of many of those participating in their government now. If the police caught a known serial killer and then just released him, would you also claim that the police couldn't be blamed for any more killing that killer did?

[ QUOTE ]
In a perserve irony, I think the Iraqis deserve Saddam after all this. If they really preferred the way thigns were then let them get what they want.

[/ QUOTE ]
Because we all know that everyone in Iraq wants Saddam back...

Honestly this is one of the worst Iraq ideas I've heard. I still have a hard time believing you're serious.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
Things were so much better for us and the Iraqis when Saddam was in power. Saddam didn't have any WMDs so he was no threat to the U.S., but he did have plenty of power in his own country which he could use to keep all these little terrorist groups in line.

[/ QUOTE ]

Kinda makes you think about the wisdom (some called it obsession, really) with Saddam Hussein.

And it kinda makes you think whose strategic interests and security were actually advanced and strengthened by Saddam's removal. Cause sure as hell it wasn't America's...

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
This is one of the worst analogies I've ever seen. You think Napoleon was offering democracy? Napoleon?? Emperor Napoleon the ruthless warlord who overthrew the First Republic in France??? Yeah, those provincial Spanish, can't even recognize a liberator when they see one.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry but that's the record for ya. Dispute it if you want but there it is, staring at you.

Let me briefly elaborate: Napoleon was offering to the Spaniards something like an "enlightened monarchy", with his brother at the throne. That kind of monarchy would have been extremely better than the regime that Spaniards had known until then. As Luttwak points out (and as is well known), Spain was ruled feudally with almost all the peasants leading lives of misery, the likes of which one could see perhaps only also in Russia. Napoleon was not offering a parliamentary republic, but one would think that the Spaniards would jump at the opportunity to adopt the improvements offered by the French emperor through their French-imposed "king" Joseph -- and then take it from there.

But, no. The Spaniards, in 1808, chose instead to take up arms against the invader, in order to be able to decide their country's affairs on their own. They chose guerilla warfare, aka insurgency.

[nicky g]

[ QUOTE ]
What about just putting Saddam back in power. I'm all for it at this point (not joking).

He is secular, he can maintain order and prevent civil war, and as an added bonus we can claim that we left the country exactely as we found it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Apart from all the dead people and blown up stuff.

[nicky g]

On a BBC debate last week an ex-senior MI6 officer argued that most of the insurgents were nationalists rather than jihadis or Baathists, and that once the foreign troops left they would swiftly end any cooperation with the likes of "al-Qa'ida in Iraq" and boot them out. Perhaps a little optimistic but I think there's an element of truth to it.

Putting Saddam back in power is a stupid idea.

[twowords]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Things were so much better for us and the Iraqis when Saddam was in power. Saddam didn't have any WMDs so he was no threat to the U.S., but he did have plenty of power in his own country which he could use to keep all these little terrorist groups in line.

[/ QUOTE ]

Kinda makes you think about the wisdom (some called it obsession, really) with Saddam Hussein.

And it kinda makes you think whose strategic interests and security were actually advanced and strengthened by Saddam's removal. Cause sure as hell it wasn't America's...

[/ QUOTE ]

Care to finish that thought Cyrus?

[twowords]

[ QUOTE ]
Honestly this is one of the worst Iraq ideas I've heard. I still have a hard time believing you're serious.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup.

There's no going back to the ways things were. The damage to America (the causualties, the reputation, the fuel to the fire of Islamic terrorism) is done and with 30k+ Iraqis dead, the rest of Iraq had better be doing much better than they were before in the longer run. So yea, terrible idea with Saddam. I think you only mention this as a better solution than a ten year US occupation or Iraqi civil war. I am defnitely not convinced either has to happen. Interesting article OP.

[jaxmike]

[ QUOTE ]
Edward Luttwak (http://edward-luttwak.biography.ms/) is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies -- and certainly not a dove. His article (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050101faessay84103/edward-n-luttwak/iraq-the-logic-of-disengagement.html) on Iraq, in Foreign Affairs magazine, offers his argument and proposal for America disengaging from the quagmire.

Here's a sample (with emphases added), which one would be advised to read carefully :

[ QUOTE ]
Given all that has happened in Iraq to date, the best strategy for the United States is disengagement.
<font color="white"> . </font>
The endless sequence of major acts of violence proves that U.S. military forces are unable to fulfill their security role.
<font color="white"> . </font>
While the U.S. armed forces are formidable against enemies assembled in massed formation, they are least effective at fighting insurgents. Insurgents strive to be especially elusive, and as targets diminish, so does the value of American firepower. This wasm demonstrated in Vietnam in many different ways over many years and is unnecessarily being proven all over again in Iraq, damaging the reputation of the United States, wasting vast amounts of money, inflicting added suffering on Iraqis at large, and taking the lives of young Americans, whose sacrifice, one fears, will soon be deemed futile.
<font color="white"> . </font> <font color="white"> . </font>
A withdrawl, however, would not leave the insurgents vitcorious : Even if the official Iraqi army and police remain as ineffectual as they now are, the Shi'a and Kurdish militias are far larger and better armed than the insurgents, and would crush them soon enough.
<font color="white">. </font>
Disengagement would call for the careful planning and scheduling of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from much of the country--while making due provisions for sharp punitive strikes against any attempt to harass the withdrawing forces.
<font color="white"> . </font>
But it would primarily require an intense diplomatic effort, to prepare and conduct parallel negotiations with several parties inside Iraq and out. All have much to lose or gain depending on exactly how the U.S. withdrawal is carried out, and this would give Washington a great deal of leverage that could be used to advance U.S. interests.
<font color="white">. </font>
The United States cannot threaten to unleash anarchy in Iraq in order to obtain concessions from others, nor can it make transparently conflicting promises about the country's future to different parties.
<font color="white"> . </font>
But once it has declared its firm commitment to withdraw--or perhaps, given the widespread conviction that the United States entered Iraq to exploit its resources, once visible physical preparations for an evacuation have begun--the calculus of other parties will change.
<font color="white"> .</font>
In a reversal of the usual sequence, the U.S. hand will be strengthened by withdrawal, and Washington may well be able to lay the groundwork for a reasonably stable Iraq. Nevertheless, if key Iraqi factions or Iraq's neighbors are too shortsighted or blinded by resentment to cooperate in their own best interests, the withdrawal should still proceed, with the United States making such favorable or unfavorable arrangements for each party as will most enhance the future credibility of U.S. diplomacy.
<font color="white">. </font>
The United States has now abridged its vastly ambitious project of creating a veritable Iraqi democracy to pursue the much more realistic aim of conducting some sort of general election. In the meantime, however, it has persisted in futile combat against factions that should be confronting one another instead. A strategy of disengagement would require bold, risk-taking statecraft of a high order, and much diplomatic competence in its execution.
<font color="white"> . </font>
But it would be soundly based on the most fundamental of realities: geography that alone ensures all other parties are far more exposed to the dangers of an anarchical Iraq than is the United States itself.


[/ QUOTE ]

The man makes sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

It doesn't suprise me that you would think so.

This is drivel. Unintelligent and uninformed drivel.

[lehighguy]

Germany and Tokyo are different. We defeated the people themselves, not the leaders. There was no one left to oppose. If your willing to kill half the population of Iraq in order to ensure a complete surrender then that is another route to pursue, but I don't think it's worth the effort.

The rest of the world knew that by not invading they were committing a sin of ommision. Anyone he killed would be a result of people letting him do this. They were ok with that because the alternative was worse, we should be too.

They deserve him. If they really don't want him back they shouldn't be giving us a hard time. If the majority really don't support the insurgents they should be actively helping Americans hunt them down. The Iraqi people are as responsible for teh insurgency as the insurgents themselves.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Kinda makes you think whose strategic interests and security were actually advanced and strengthened by Saddam's removal. Cause sure as hell it wasn't America's...

[/ QUOTE ]

Care to finish that thought ?

[/ QUOTE ]

You want to underestimate this forum's intelligence -- fine, I'll play along.

It is, of course, Israel.

And this is not something new. I have posted about the major winner of the Iraqi invasion a number of times here, and my remarks were met with ironies by the extreme pro-Israel faction of this board, along with sneers such as "Pay your tax donations to Israel and shut up!"

Which is always kinda heart-warming, y'know.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
This is drivel. Unintelligent and uninformed drivel.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, what else would you expect from Edward Luttwak, right?

/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Kinda telling, though, that all you could do as rebuttal was to hit the Quote button and graffiti an insult underneath Luttwak's text.