Democrats and Republicans Now Scramble for an Iraq Exit

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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Judging by the talk these days, it appears both Republicans and Democrats are scrambling for an exit from Iraq.

The Republican version of cut and run emerges in bits and pieces from recent statements by the commander in chief and top GOP senators, who now say they will adopt whatever strategy the U.S. military commanders recommend for Iraq. The commanders, also in bits and pieces, are creeping over to the view that with sectarian war upon us — because the Iraqis have proved oblivious to democratic practices — America has done its share and it is time to pull out.

Unable to match this collage of a plan, the Democrats are opting for what they say is a clear-cut plan advocated by Senator Biden and foreign policy denizens such as the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Leslie Gelb, to partition Iraq into Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish mini-states — and then cut and run.

Either way, both parties and their strategists cannot be let off the hook without a clear understanding that if getting into Iraq was a mess given the false premises advanced for war, getting out based on convoluted ideas would be catastrophic.

The war in Iraq has morphed into a conflict of destiny for the region — one that bears new consequences for American interests, particularly oil and natural gas.

A lot more rides on how America leaves this first major conflict of the 21st century. The magnitude of the clash will draw a long shadow over America’s international influence in the coming decades, as major foreign policy issues loom even larger than the war against communism.

Among such issues is the march of global jihadism; North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear blackmail, with still more countries attempting to join the nuclear club; the pursuit of a globalized economy and the maintenance of America’s supremacy in it; the management of relations with China; and the perennial Arab-Israeli conflict.

The future, in other words, is mostly foreign policy, which will have a significant impact on America’s well-being. America cannot hope to prevail unless it anchors Iraq.

What is a victory in today’s Iraq?

By any definition, it has to include the return of a modicum of internal stability within a functional democracy whose territorial integrity and independence are respected by its neighbors.

It follows, then, that America can only leave Iraq by demonstrating to friend and foe that it can create some order in a neighborhood of failed states — not by abandoning it to total mayhem. The truth is, we are far from order in Iraq.

The country’s economy is in a shambles. Despite its legendary resources, Iraqi oil production is stagnating. And 40 Iraqis are assassinated by their countrymen every day. As a result, 2 million Iraqis have fled the country.

Leaving Iraq to descend from this into a civil war that may last a decade or longer guarantees, among other things, that the country’s Shiite majority of 60% will fall totally under the influence of a major jihadi country like Iran.

Meanwhile, its Sunni population will gravitate chaotically toward Syria and Saudi Arabia.

The sectarianism that emerged in Iraq and Lebanon will engulf the whole region, which is a kaleidoscope of ethnicities. Instead of one failed state, the experience will replicate itself with the Palestinian Arabs and Jordanians in neighboring Jordan, the Kurds in Turkey, and the Allawites and Sunni majority in Syria. The wide-eyed Wahhabi extremists of Saudi Arabia will be newly invigorated.

Beyond that circle, the chaos will surely spread to Lebanon, which, as we saw this summer, is far too close to Israel for comfort.

Apocalyptic, yes, but isn’t that what was said in the run-up to the invasion, when the neocons dismissed all the predictions that have now come true?

Beyond all that, it would be catastrophic for the leaders of the two greatest democracies in the world today, America and Britain, to hand over their foreign policy to their military establishments as a way of opting out without the participation of their electorate. No one voted for the American or British military to make policy.

If Mr. Bush and Prime Minister Blair want to cut and run from Iraq, they have an obligation to tell those who elected them why and what comes next.


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