"History, from Algeria to Vietnam, suggests that no military solution to a spreading insurgency is possible."
Oh really???
The author of this piece must not have heard of post WWII Malaysia... or the Phillipines... or the US Civil War.... The problems begin when a military solution is exchanged for a political solution.
What if America Just Pulled Out?
NY Times | September 26, 2004 | ROGER COHEN
EVEN by its own disturbing standards, this was a hallucinatory week in Iraq. Beheadings, kidnappings, bombings, outbreaks of deadly disease and everyday mayhem were accompanied by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's upbeat statement to Congress: "We are succeeding in Iraq."
Are we? The discordant images and messages captured a central difficulty of defining an Iraq policy. In the absence of any semblance of agreement on what the situation is, or even who is behind the insurgency, setting a course is problematic. But with more than 1,000 Americans already dead, and more dying each week, one question has begun to be posed with growing insistence: Should American forces leave?
There are several arguments for getting out, or at least setting a timetable for doing so. The status quo is unacceptable. History, from Algeria to Vietnam, suggests that no military solution to a spreading insurgency is possible. A major counteroffensive would almost certainly require a large addition to the 138,000 troops in Iraq, an unattractive prospect to politicians of any stripe.
A decision to withdraw would focus the minds of Iraqis, and perhaps their neighbors, on the need to grapple seriously with establishing security and an inclusive political system. It would also remove a chief target of the insurgents - American infidels in uniform - and so presumably undermine their cause.
"A withdrawal plan says to the Iraqis: you want this to be your country, you must make the deals to keep it together," said Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. "If we are there to fight, they won't do this. So a timetable should be established."
But the counterarguments are also powerful. Withdrawal in the absence of stability would amount to a devastating admission of failure and a blow to America's world leadership. The credibility of the United States, already compromised, would be devastated. More than 1,000 young lives would appear to have been blotted out for naught.
Iraq might descend into all-out civil war and split into three pieces, one Kurdish, one Shiite, one predominantly Sunni. Neighboring states, particularly Iran and Turkey, would be drawn in. A failed state - or the vestiges of one - would draw terrorists as surely as a honey-pot draws bees.
There is a troubling recent precedent for such a retreat. When the Soviet Union, confronted by an intractable insurgency, pulled out of Afghanistan, Kabul soon became terrorism central. The Taliban took control, offering sanctuary to Al Qaeda and terrorist training camps. The Soviet Union, sapped by its Afghan adventure, never fully recovered.
Is this the trauma the United States wants from its foray into Iraq?
"Iraq would be worse than post-Soviet Afghanistan," said Philip Gordon of the Brookings Institution. "Its oil and geostrategic importance ensures that. The Lebanese civil war dragged in Syria, and just as surely the civil war that would result from an American withdrawal would drag in Iran and Turkey. You'd see ethnic strife that would make Kosovo look like a picnic. It's hard to fathom how bad it would be if we left."
Under President Bush, the prospect of such a pullout appears remote for now. He told Mr. Allawi this week that, "America will stand with you until freedom and justice have prevailed." The president has shown no sign, at least in this electoral season, of wavering from the we-will-stay-the-course message that has been constant since the invasion last year.
John Kerry, the Democratic candidate, has tried to stake out a distinct position, saying he would aim to bring American forces home within four years, beginning next year. But while lashing out at the administration for what he has portrayed as disastrous incompetence, he has been cautious on the question of withdrawal.
As Richard Holbrooke, a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Kerry, put it: "Troops are dying at an unacceptable rate, but to pull out now would be crazy and beyond dangerous. We have to work harder on a political power-sharing arrangement, because there is no military solution to this thing."
That proposition is not accepted by commanders in Iraq, who are focused on the rapid development of the Iraqi army. For now, the military is contemplating reinforcements not withdrawals. Gen. John P. Abizaid, the American commander in Iraq, told Congress last week that "we will need more troops than we currently have to secure the elections process in Iraq that will probably take place in the end of January."
He added that he hoped enough Iraqi or international forces could do the job, but "we can't discount" the possibility that more United States soldiers would be required. A temporary increase of troops, perhaps by as much as 15,000, might be achieved through overlap during the planned rotation of forces in January.
Another factor is behind the idea of possible reinforcements: Areas of central Iraq, in the so-called Sunni Triangle, are no longer under government control. At some point, probably toward the end of the year, they will have to be retaken. This may not be doable with current troop levels.
But American commanders are hopeful that the nascent Iraqi army - 50,000 combat-ready troops today and 145,000 by January, according to Mr. Allawi -will help do the job and then patrol cities like Falluja that are now strongholds of the insurgency. The retaking of places like Falluja is viewed as urgent because they provide havens for the resistance to plan, plot and pounce.
"Either you leave or you control the country," said Javier Solana, the former NATO secretary general who is now the European Union's foreign policy chief. In New York last week for the United Nations General Assembly, he met with several senior American officials. "You cannot be in a situation like this,'' he said in a brief interview.
Several factors complicate that situation for the stay-the-course school. Resentment of America is such that any Iraqis - and that includes Mr. Allawi - who ally themselves with the United States probably have dim long-term political prospects, to say nothing of the more basic difficulty of staying alive.
Relations between the insurgents and the rest of the Iraqi community often appear so seamless that it can be hard to know which side the police and soldiers being trained will end up fighting on.
An important potential source of reinforcement - Muslim troops from allied nations -remains elusive because of the American presence. Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, last week refused a request from Iraq's interim administration to send troops.
"We cannot be seen as an extension of the present forces there," he said. In other words, an explosion of anger from anti-American Islamic radicals in Pakistan would result from any Iraqi deployment. Saudi Arabia has been evasive for similar reasons.
America's Western allies are also divided. One foreign minister of a major European power suggested that the United States should reinvent its fight on terrorism through a three-pronged approach: set a timetable for Iraqi withdrawal while working to broaden Mr. Allawi's coalition; inject new energy into the quest for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement; focus on coming up with a joint American-European plan to engage with Iran and so defuse its nuclear-weapons program.
"Iraq," the minister, who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of his country's ties to the United States, said, "is the wrong battle and a losing one."
Insurgents in the predominantly Sunni cities of Falluja, Baquba and others know that this division exists, even if NATO is sending a small, noncombatant training mission to Iraq. The Western powers are weakened because they are less united than in many years. That gives the insurgency more leverage.
Are these difficulties insuperable? If so, should American forces pack their bags? No believer in the ultimate beneficence of American world leadership can easily accept that outcome. But one thing is certain: Independent Arab states like Iraq are largely a 20th-century creation, places with vivid memories of colonial rule and a visceral abhorrence of the presence of foreign troops.
"Independence and freedom from foreign forces is a major political value," said Abdel Monem Said, director of Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. "So the insurgency enjoys some support in the Arab world, because someone must resist, some manhood is needed."
Robert Cooper, a British diplomat and author, said: "If you don't even know exactly who you are fighting, winning can be very tricky. So we have to go. But how to get out is the great question. Somebody should write a book about military withdrawals because they are so much more difficult than invasions."
