The war debate in Washington is bogged down. Partisan rancor is one
reason why, and bipartisan desire for US hegemony in the oil-rich
Persian Gulf is another. But many Americans are vexed by a nobler
concern: that a “precipitous” US departure from Iraq would
leave intensified civil war, ethnic-sectarian cleansing and massive
refugee flows in its wake. This concern is legitimate.
Unfortunately, the sad fact is that Iraq’s civil war and humanitarian
emergency have grown steadily worse as the US military deployment
there wears on. For tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Iraqi civilian
dead and more than 4 million Iraqi displaced, the calamity has already
arrived. And it continues during the “surge,” the colorful
charts of Gen. David Petraeus notwithstanding. According to the Associated
Press, more civilians—1,809—were killed in August than
in any other month of 2007, and according to the UN, every month an
additional 10,000 or more Iraqis flee their homes seeking refuge.
Neither Petraeus nor the Bush administration has provided one convincing
reason why the surge can put an end to this strife.
A sadder fact, indeed, is that the US occupation of Iraq feeds the
civil war. It does so both directly, because the US military is “standing
up” security forces of the new Iraqi government that double
as sectarian death squads, and indirectly, because US occupation is
a major grievance of the Sunni Arab militias fighting the Shiite and
Kurdish parties in power in the Green Zone. No one should be fooled
into thinking that this grievance has gone away by the stand of Sunni
Arab groups against al-Qaeda. As shown by the killing of Abd al-Sattar
Abu Risha, the sheikh photographed with a smiling George W. Bush during
the president’s Labor Day junket to al-Anbar province, it remains
deadly dangerous for Iraqis to consort with the main foreign invaders.
Prolonging the occupation, in short, merely postpones the consequences
of ending it. It is long past time for both parties in Washington
to quit calibrating the effects of the war on their political fortunes,
and start contemplating what the US can do to minimize those consequences.
The US should first cease its own offensive operations in Iraq, and
desist from training and arming Iraqi militias wearing the uniforms
of the nascent army and security forces. Then, after announcing the
firm intention to leave, the US should allow the UN to broker a ceasefire
among the Iraqi factions, to be followed by a pan-Iraqi summit (without
any Washington-driven deadlines) on sharing power and natural resources.
Of course, such endeavors will be difficult and hardliners will try
to derail them, but they deserve a chance to succeed.
Outside the borders of Iraq, the US should sit down, again under UN
auspices, with Iraq’s neighbors for extensive talks on eliminating
external interference in Iraqi affairs. All countries should pledge
to interdict weapons and money headed into the hands of combatants
in the civil war, and decline to back any Iraqi faction bent on imposing
its own will. Of necessity, such talks would require the White House
to drop its hostile rhetoric aimed at Iran and Syria, and agree to
bargain in good faith with those countries about bilateral sticking
points. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries should forgive the entirety
of the debt bequeathed to Iraq by the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein.
Lastly, the US should lead efforts to extend UN protection and aid
to all of the Iraqis made refugees since the 2003 invasion, whether
they have fled their homeland or not. Jordan, Syria and other countries
hosting large numbers of Iraqi refugees should receive whatever amounts
are necessary to care for the forced migrants. No doubt the US will
pay the lion’s share, and that is as it should be: The war does
not merit an “open-ended commitment,” but the refugees
do.
But none of this can occur without a timetable for a complete US withdrawal
from Iraq, simply because the world is not going to help the Bush
administration fix a country it persists in breaking. The United States
cannot bring peace to Iraq by itself, but there will be no chance
for peace until Washington gets out of the way.
---
Chris Toensing is editor of Middle East Report, published
by the Middle East Research and Information Project in Washington,
DC.
The
debate over the war in Iraq follows a yellowing script: The minute
someone suggests that the US move to withdraw its troops, war supporters
cry “Havoc!”
True to form, when no less a figure than Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki stated he wants a timeline for a US pullout, John McCain
summoned the specter of dire consequences. “I’ve always
said we’ll come home with honor and with victory and not through
a set timetable,” McCain said. In his major foreign policy speech
on July 15, Barack Obama affirmed his support for a withdrawal timetable,
adding that the US must “get out as carefully as we were careless
getting in.” Obama’s position is the correct one, but he,
like many other war critics, has done too little to counter the refrain
that withdrawal is simply
“cutting and running,” a recipe for disaster. Full
Story>>
At
the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) earlier this month, presidential candidates
John McCain and Barack Obama competed over who would become the “candidate
for Israel.” The match came to a draw when both candidates
pledged undying and unconditional support for Israel. While their
support for “Israel right or wrong” was unquestionable,
at the end of all the commotion, the most pertinent question for
Americans and the world remained unasked and unanswered: Who is
the candidate for peace? Full
Story>>
Quick: Who is the strategic victor, to date, of the war in Iraq?
Nearly everyone outside the Bush administration (and perhaps some
within it) would answer: the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The
catastrophe of the U.S. occupation of Iraq has bolstered the
clerical regime in Tehran, while souring ordinary Iranians on
the prospect of U.S.-delivered “democracy.” The occupation
has done so by emplacing Iranian-backed Shiite Islamists in power
in Baghdad and cooling the jets of those in Washington hoping to “shock
and awe” Iran's mullahs. Full
Story>>
Libya's Fat Cat The Topeka Capital-Journal Januwary 11, 2008
Chris Toensing
Few
dictators in the world are sitting prettier in 2008 than Col.
Muammar Qaddafi of Libya. In a region full of potentates and presidents-for-life,
his reign is supreme. Having seized power in a 1969 coup, he has
ruled his country for longer than any other Arab head of state.
And now, as wintry January begins, the colonel has quietly completed
his journey back in from the cold. Full
Story>>
