Tendering the articles of surrender, singing the Baghdad Blues
UNITED NATIONS — Facing a “grave and deteriorating” situation in Iraq, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group has called for a fundamental change in U.S. policy in the ongoing conflict. Yet while the recommendations of the long awaited Report have yet to be debated or accepted, there’s a clear realization that neither a precipitous or immediate troop withdrawals nor an ethnic division of the country will be in the cards. Nonetheless the Bush Administration faces growing Congressional and public pressure to change course in Iraq.
Strife in Iraq is boiling to be sure, but much of the conflict in intra-sectarian fighting between the Muslim Shiite majority and the Sunni minority. The hideous violence which plagues Baghdad is not primarily aimed at American or coalition forces but at fellow Iraqi civilians. The insurgents—criminal gangs, Muslim militia, ex-Saddam followers and hard line foreign Islamic fundamentalist terrorists—aim to make Iraq ungovernable. In that they appear to have brilliantly succeeded. But now what? The insurgents are ruining their own country and sowing the seeds of continuing intra-Muslim violence. Sadly the U.S. and coalition forces are caught in the middle and the muddle.
The 142 page report according to The Financial Times of London “is strikingly pessimistic in its tone and candid in admitting there is no guarantee that the adoption of its 79 recommendations would reverse the deterioration in Iraq.” The paper adds, “As a whole it amounts to a devastating repudiation of the Bush administration’s existing strategy in Iraq.” Still The Washington Times cautions editorially whether the report could offer “A Bipartisan path to Surrender?” The paper adds that indeed some of the documents “major recommendations in the report read like articles of surrender.”
Former Secretary of State James Baker and co-chair ex-Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton proposed 79 ideas for Iraq—none of them magic bullets to be sure. Some of the recommendations which include expanding American training of Iraqi Army and Police units are already taking place. Equally the transition from the U.S. forces doing the fighting to the new Iraqi army carrying out aggressive security operations is another fact. Pullout of (perhaps phased withdrawals) of American forces can presumably commence in 2008, coincidently the year of the next Presidential election.
Controversially, the report calls for diplomatic engagement with both Syria and the Islamic Republic of Iran to help achieve regional stability. Both countries border Iraq and logically have a stake in the region’s stability. But both Damascus and Teheran in my opinion equally have a stake in keeping the pot simmering as to entrap the USA in the Iraqi imbroglio.
Engagement of Islamic Iran to help extract American and British coalition forces out of Iraq has a strange déjà vu of Dr. Henry Kissinger engaging Maoist China in an a attempt to divide communist Sino/Soviet support to North Vietnam and in turn allow for the conditions to pull American troops out of South Vietnam. That worked—but look what soon happened! In Iraq there’s clearly an emerging Iranian Shiite sphere of influence in large parts of the country and inside the Maliki government in Baghdad..
Equally getting on better with the Assad dynasty in Damascus would logically seem part of turning down the heat in Anbar province, one of the most restive regions in Iraq, but what is Syria’s price? Does such a “constructive dialogue” allow for new spheres of influence over democratic but defenseless Lebanon? Morphing Hizbollah into the good guys? Pressuring Jerusalem to accept a comprehensive Arab/Israeli peace deal?
Among other prices to be paid for Iranian and Syrian “cooperation” with Washington will include allowing Teheran more flexibility and “understanding” of its nuclear program—in other words, don’t keep pushing us or our proxies in Iraq will really make things nasty for you. Syria wishes more leeway to pursue its policies in Lebanon.
As if the Report was not enough Secretary of Defense Robert Gates during his nomination when asked whether the U.S. was winning the war in Iraq replied “No Sir.” What a way to destroy military morale especially of those American units serving in Iraq. Could he have taken the studied Washington obfuscation and said “We are not Losing!” Soon a blizzard of media reports had Gates saying the U.S. is not winning in Iraq thus creating terrible political damage both to our military and to our Middle East partners.
The Iraq Study Group offers consensus and compromise to solve a bitter conflict. Even Michael Gordon of the New York Times conceded that the military recommendations “are based more on hope than history and run counter to assessments made by some of its own military advisers.”
Still somehow singing the bi-partisan Baghdad Blues equally offers melodious music for the Mullah regime in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the dynasty running Syria. While the Report aims to reverse the “slide towards chaos” in Iraq, sadly the plethora of recommendations don’t include the word “victory” Not to pursue victory as a primary objective in a war is to willfully court the very chaos and defeat we are trying to avoid.
|
