The future of American exit from Iraq
Known for its stance in favour of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, the New York Times editorial, as far back as in July last, caused a measure of stir in the United States. It wrote that: "It is time for the United States to leave Iraq without any more delay than Pentagon needs to organise an orderly exit." But according to most observers, "an orderly exit" is not a real option any more and, in any case, that is not where the logic of American politics leads to in the short run.
They think that it would still be possible to get 160,000 US troops out of Iraq without any terrible disorder. It would certainly not repeat the scenes reminiscent of the 1950 US retreat from Chosin reservoir in Korea. Neither will it face the disaster of the British retreat from Kabul in 1842. Of course, there will be embarrassing television clips showing jubilant Iraqi mobs looting the Green Zone, but the token British force in Basra and the US troops holding the supply line up to Baghdad can still get out south-ward via Kuwait, while the bulk of American troops could withdraw north to the friendly territory of Kurdistan and evacuate by air from there.
However, the problems remain with regard to the collaborators. Everywhere, in all crises, they constitute major difficulties for the escapees as well as for themselves. Tens of thousands of people in Iraq will probably be killed if they don't leave Iraq when their benefactors do -- from humble drivers and translators all the way up to politicians and military figures who are closely identified with American occupation.
But, given the current state, American perception about the Arabs vis-a-vis terrorism, the US will be rather reluctant to accept Arab refugees the way it did for the Vietnamese thirty years ago. As a matter of fact, Europeans seem more generous in accepting Arab refugees, while the major refugee burden falls on Jordan and Syria. If the US continues to remain callous about the predicament of the collaborators, the latter's fate is indeed doomed.
Yet, belying all these speculations as to an orderly (or disorderly) exit from Iraq, as well as the theatrics in the US Congress regarding the deadline for "troop drawdowns," there will be no withdrawals of the US troops from Iraq this year, and almost certainly the next year either. The New York Times itself did get one thing absolutely right. It prognosticates that Mr Bush's plan is to stay the course, and his strategy now is to pass the buck to his successor and dump the mess on him.
All political attention in Washington is now focused on the November 2008 elections. The event is too close for even a high speed American withdrawal from Iraq, and the time is so little to erase the memory of a failed war that such an action will yield no electoral benefit for the incumbent administration. Therefore, the Republican strategists now seem to be working on the assumption that their presidency is already lost. The same logic would dictate that the Democrats should push hard for an early withdrawal in the belief that the distressing scenes accompanying it would hurt the Republicans most. But the Democrats seem to be missing the point that, in spite of the risks involved, they will end up with a lot of blame for the US defeat in Iraq even if they win the election.
The Democrats are already in a fix. Even if they force a troop withdrawal now, the Republicans would accuse them of "stabbing America in the back." In case the pull-out comes after they win in 2008, then the disaster will happen on their watch and the public will have already forgotten who really caused it. So the Democrats' present mood is: Let's at least win the election before we are blamed for the mess.
In the meantime, General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, may withdraw US troops to various "enduring bases" the Americans have already prepared, and leave the locals to fight it out in the streets. It's all that can happen before early 2009. After the US election next year, we will see what happens to Iraq after the Americans, possibly finally, leave. It is estimated that close to 2,000 more American troops will die by early 2009 in the service of these political strategies underway.
Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.
Comments