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June 27, 2005
Last Plane Out
Jay Tea has a post on an exit strategy for Iraq, and how the best exit strategy is none at all.
[L]et's presume we do set a deadline for our withdrawal from Iraq. Immediately we give a HUGE boost to the terrorists' morale -- "all we have to do is hang on until December 2006 (for example), and we win by default!" The immediate result of a timetable for withdrawal will most likely be an immediate decrease in deaths, but that will be merely the calm before the storm, as they will be saving up and resting and re-grouping and re-arming for the civil war that will break out the instant the last American leaves Iraq.But there's a far more compelling reason why setting an "exit strategy" or a "timetable for withdrawal" is such a bad idea: they don't work.
Yep, that's about the size of it. The thing is, the debate on whether or not we should have an exit strategy is meaningful only in its domestic political implications. The entire debate is merely a device the Democrats are using to attempt to undermine the Republicans in advance of 2006: they're setting up debating points for the mid-term elections. (Of course, they'd be quite happy to hit the jackpot and get us to withdraw, as the shame, malaise, resulting Iraqi civil war, lack of US ability to influence international events, and eventual massive attacks on the US could all be easily laid at Republican feet - which could be an electoral godsend for the Democrats for years to come. And they are already thinking about the domestic political implications, though Kevin Drum seems to think that they would be quite negative for the Democrats, and he is probably correct in the longer term.)
In practical terms, it doesn't matter unless the Democrats retake both the House and Senate in the mid-terms. Even if the Democrats won the next Presidential election, and assuming that the insurgency wasn't utterly defeated by then, a Democratic administration would not withdraw from Iraq, nor would it face much pressure to do so. The Democrats are not stupid, and the administration would recognize the disaster that withdrawal prior to victory would be. And since the advocates of withdrawal would trust a Democratic administration and would be deprived of Bush hatred as a motivator, they would not have to face large scale domestic political opposition based on being in Iraq (where problems could be blamed on Republicans, and successes claimed for Democrats).
The problem with the Democrats in Congress using withdrawal from Iraq as a political issue in this manner is that the message is not left in the United States. The enemy sees the debate, and the enemy sees weakness. This causes him to escalate his efforts, in an attempt to push the US into a panicked withdrawal, as we made from Viet Nam, Lebanon and Somalia. (The enemy's analysis of our character may be wildly off, but bin Laden did have a point about recent history.) Given that the enemy's only hope is to redo what Hizb'allah did with Israel - outlast us, followed by claiming that they drove us out when we do leave - it serves the enemy's purposes for American politicians to be calling for withdrawal before victory.
The Bush administration will not pull out prior to victory, and that victory is likely to be manifest prior to the next presidential election. No matter who wins in 2008, the US will be in Iraq until victory is assured. And for that reason, the only practical outcome of the debate is to get more Americans - and far more Iraqis - killed as the enemy escalates the violence to get the press coverage they pray (literally) will weaken our resolve enough for us to withdraw.
Withdrawal won't happen, but that doesn't bring back the dead.
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