What would really happen if we left Iraq?

[Shalako]

I still support our war on terror, but am losing my enthusiasm for staying in Iraq. What would really happen if we did a phased pull-out?

Popular opinion seems to be that the insurgents would lay low until we left, and then instigate a civil war. OK, but aren't the insurgents Sunni and the entire rest of the country Shi'ite? Wouldn't the Shi'ites toughen up a bit and trounce the insurgents? Heck, there might even be widespread genocide and the Sunnis would either perish or wise up and go live somewhere else. Then Iraq would be an islamic theocracy for the Shi'ites.

So we stay there, and get slowly picked off by the insurgents, because if we leave, the insurgents will get wiped out by the Shi'ites. It is starting to seem to me that we are protecting the insurgents by staying there.

Anyone got a clearer read on this one? Is it all just for democracy and/or geopolitics, or what? Thanks.

 

[TallPine]

What would really happen if we did a phased pull-out?

Supposedly, NY and LA will get nuked etc etc etc

 

[boofus]

Wouldn't the Shi'ites toughen up a bit and trounce the insurgents?

No, a heavily armed minority willing to use any means can easily rule the entire country regardless of how outnumbered they are. See: South Africa, Feudal Europe and Japan.

 

[rick_reno]

What would really happen if we did a phased pull-out?

Civilization, as we know it - would cease to exist. Fish would walk with man, dogs would mate with cats and pigs would take to the air. President Bush brought the fish event to our attention when he said ""I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." —Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 29, 2000.

 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

The war on terror would suffer a nearly insurmountable set back.

The U.S. would look weak. The terrorists would look strong. The terrorists would feel emboldened by their success, our weekness and their newfound prestige.

The libs would rejoice in the streets.

There would be more civillian deaths in our country.




This debate has been repeated over and over again throughout history. Do you find peace by negoting with and appeasing your enemies, or do you find peace by defeating your enemies?

Chamberlain vs Churchill, Carter vs Reagan, Tories vs Whigs, and on and on... It's obvious to me which of these two strategies have proven effective in the past. I don't understand why so many people are eager to ignore the lessons of history.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

Headless,

What you fail to mention is that Bush is no longer fighting the War in Iraq to win. He is fiddling around, accomplishing little at best, and putting Americans at risk.

 

[Firethorn]

Afghanistan. In about the same timeline.

 

[fallingblock]

It's the "feel-good" thing to do, HTG....

"I don't understand why so many people are eager to ignore the lessons of history."
**********************************************************

Everything difficult must be easily and quickly accomplished -

especially a war against fanatical opposition.

If, not, then just give up.

Didn't Vietnam improve after the U.S. abandoned it?

 

[f4t9r]

Lone gunman I agree

 

[Alex45ACP]

Blood will run in the streets.

Wait a minute, where have I heard this before?

 

[Lone_Gunman]

Didn't Vietnam improve after the U.S. abandoned it?

That's not the point. We were in Viet Nam to advance our interests. The fact that Viet Nam could be spared from communist oppression was just a nice side effect.

How was the US worse off when we abandoned Viet Nam? Aside from looking like we gave up, I don't think it did us any harm to leave Viet Nam.

Same applies to Iraq. I have little interest in saving the Iraqi people from themselves. Able-bodied Iraqis have the responsiblity to defend their own freedom, and should not need Americans to do this for them. Whether Iraq improves or no after we leave is up to them.

 

[junyo]

The U.S. would look weak. The terrorists would look strong. The terrorists would feel emboldened by their success, our weekness and their newfound prestige.

Regardless of any other consequence, this is the critical point. For all the nicities of civilization, a lot of rules are obeyed simple because the group making the rules can and will impose their will on the people they wish to follow that rule. You think France is our friend? France is our friend because they know that we have a greater ability to impose consequences on them, and a greater willingness to do so, if they are not are friend. The world is people seeking their best interest, and taking advantage of or manipulating those interest.

Once you fall into the liberal trap of wishful thinking, you assume that civilized people don't need such brutal and draconian principles to coexist.

Which ignores the simple fact that large portions of the world are not civilized.

This entire cycle can be traced back to the US's lack of political will in Vietnam, through to Clinton's failure to impose consequences during the Somalia fiasco. It showed the world that America could be beat, wouldn't suffer casualties, would run at the first punch. That's a dangerous thing to have people believing when you've been imposing your will around the globe for the last century.

So if nothing else, Iraq is an object lesson. Tell a guy you're going to kick him in the teeth if he does X, and then proceed to kick him in the teeth when he does, and while that guy likely won't love you, he won't do X (or Y or Z for that matter) the next time you warn him not to. Do that a few times witha few people and pretty soon, you stop having to actually kick people in the teeth, all the toothless SOBs serve as a warning. On the other hand, tell a guy you're going to kick him in the teeth if he does X, and then proceed to write him a stern letter expressing your concern when he does, and not only will he do X the next time, so will everybody else.

Staying in Iraq until the job is done is critical for undoing decades of damage, and reseting the world expectations as to how a superpower should be treated. When the US says 'do X or else' the rest of the world be dam... darned, it's going to get done. Once we resolve to do something, you can't bleed the will out of us. We won't cut and run, and you can't beat us. There is ultimately no profit in terror against us, because we'll never give you what you want, and sufficiently provoked, we'll come to your country and break your stuff. All of those things impress upon rational actors the futility of being our enemy, thus leading to people attempting to accomodate and negotiate rather than blow themselves and others up.

Of course, only a portion of the world understands this, so they march for "peace" and apologize for the terrorists and keep terrorism alive with political victories. They're like the old lady that feeds stray cats then wonders where the pigeons went.

 

[AZ Jeff]

That's not the point. We were in Viet Nam to advance our interests. The fact that Viet Nam could be spared from communist oppression was just a nice side effect.

How was the US worse off when we abandoned Viet Nam? Aside from looking like we gave up, I don't think it did us any harm to leave Viet Nam.

Same applies to Iraq. I have little interest in saving the Iraqi people from themselves. Able-bodied Iraqis have the responsiblity to defend their own freedom, and should not need Americans to do this for them. Whether Iraq improves or no after we leave is up to them.

There are two flaws in your argument:

1. You say "it did us no harm to leave VN". By "us", I hope you mean United States citizens, 'cuz there are a LOT of Vietnamese who would disagree with being included in that statement.

2. You assume that, by us being in Iraq, we are accomplishing nothing of benefit to the US. It's an established fact that the terrorists were attacking us BEFORE we went into Iraq, so it's safe to assume they will continue even if we leave now. The only thing different by our presence in Iraq is that they are attempting to attack Americans in some place OUTSIDE the US. That is of HUGE benefit to the American populus in general. A SIDE benefit of our presence in Iraq is that maybe, just maybe, we will manage to establish the one kind of government over there that is totally anethema to Islamo-facists--a democracy.

In a nutshell--every time an IED or suicide bomber goes off over in Iraq, that's one less IED or suicide bomber who can do so over here. That ALONE is worth it. Take the fight to THEM, rather than have them take the fight to us (which they WILL do, given the chance.)

 

[GoRon]

The people and rulers of the middle east understand one thing more than all others.

The application of force.

Any help or assistance we have recieved from middle east regimes has been made with the calculation of what is worse, helping the US or letting the extremists be.

Pulling out would push the scales towards letting the extremists be.

The fact that the US showed that it had the balls to take over a middle east country and turn it over to a popularly elected government has done more to strengthen our postion in the middle east than all the years of "dialog".

 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Headless,

What you fail to mention is that Bush is no longer fighting the War in Iraq to win. He is fiddling around, accomplishing little at best, and putting Americans at risk.

I thought that too, once upon a time. Then I started ignoring the media's reports on Iraq, and relying instead upon what I hear from "normal" people actually living and working and serving in Iraq. The "non-media" folks I've heard from unanimously agree: the media is dead wrong about Iraq.

The short version is that Iraq is starting to look more and more like Afghanistan. It's not too late for us to lose everything we've accomplished (and pulling out now would do just that). But most of the hard work is done. Give it another year or two and even the libs in the American media won't be able to hide the signs of success. Wait and see...

 

[Geno]

Iran and Iraq would become one

Iran would LOVE for us to pull out. Now, even though I believe the Republicans see this "war" as their meal ticket to the White House because we're at "war", waggin'-the-dog doesn't cut it as "war".

All the same...we're there, and as long as Iran exists, or until Iraq is strong and WILLING to defend itself, we have to stay. The old saying, you made your bed...now sleep in it seems to fit.

Truthfully, it seems to me that the folks in Iraq believe that it's better to let brave Amerikans die, than to let Iraqui cowards die.

I've got an idea...let's pull out of Iraq....two directions...to the west-north-west and to the east-north-east (estimates only...don't have a map in front of me). Let's see...where would we be...oh my. They look like friendly neighbors.

Doc2005

 

[ElTacoGrande]

The war in Iraq is effectively over. The longer we stay the more of our soldier will die, but the outcome will be the same whether we pull out of there this Christmas or in 2010. Sorry to say it, but the 2000+ US soldiers who have died there so far have died for a mistake.

This was a war for resources, oil in particular. There's no such thing as WMD and there never were any in Iraq anyway. This was over oil.

So the question is, does it make sense to go to war for oil? Going to war and conquering places around the world to get resources is a strategy called colonialism. Colonialism ended because it stopped being cost-effective. The cost of supressing the natives exeeded the value of the resources that could be taken. Due to changes in technology, it became cheaper to just pay for the stuff. That's why colonialism came to an end around the middle of the last century.

This was an old-style colonial war for resources, almost a century after such wars stopped making economic sense. That's the mistake.

The hundreds of billions of dollars wasted so far could better have been spent on building nuclear power plants, buying solar panels, producing electric vehicles, constructing electric mass transit systems. For the money we have blown in Iraq we could have built the technology and infrastructure so that we would never need to import oil again. Let them drink it.

No more wars for oil. Not only is it the wrong thing to do, but it doesn't make sense.

 

[GoRon]

ElTacoGrande,
Interesting theory. On a side note, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale, you interested?

 

[Krenn]

after we leave:

First, iraqi police, army, and government posts will be blitzed.
Then, the police and army will retaliate... randomly, and based on their personal prejuidices.

Then, paramilitary groups who were not attacking the US or the government will join in by targeting whomever they have a grudge against.

after that, it will get ugly... open season for ANYONE who has a gun and is willing to risk retaliation.

After a month or two of all that, we have a few scenarios.

1: unity puppet government.
every region exiles undesireables. (I.E. minorities) to a neighboring province thats more sympathetic. each province becomse an entity to itself, answerable to no one. The national government exists only to keep another nation from generating an excuse to return.

2. Militia city-states. everywhere that a militia comes to exist, it take control and runs things as its leader wishes. the Kurds will maintain unity, and the Sunnis MIGHT. the Shia will probably wind up as at least two seperate groups.

3. A Clear Victory in the Civil war. Miracously, someone, ANYONE, will have a large enough, brutal enough, and well-led enough force to seize national control. They will be the new Hussein. Genoicide is a distinct possibilty.

4. Invasion by Iran. The mortal enemy of Iraq takes the oppurtunity to return after decades of truce.

personally, I think numbers 1 or 2 are most likely. 3 will only be possible if we leave AFTER bringing the Iraqi army up to decent standards, and BEFORE instilling a sense of national unity.

4 is the wildcard, but I don't think Iraq is whats on Iran's mind right now.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

We will just have to wait til Bush is out of office before we pull out, I suppose. Bush thinks he is on a mission from God to stamp out terrorism by occupying Iraq.

Whether the next president is Dem, or Repub, I expect whoever it is will pull the plug on this war.

 

[The Tourist]

I don't care what happens in Iraq. Our soldiers are dying, and I'm against any poorly thought out plan that trades time for their lives.

No matter what happens and no matter who climbs to the top of the dung heap, we can always go back later with an even better generation of smart bombs.

I want the soldiers home.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

I don't care what happens in Iraq. Our soldiers are dying, and I'm against any poorly thought out plan that trades time for their lives.

I guess Bush figures they joined voluntarily, so they must be OK with fighting and dying, even if it is just for political folly.

 

[rwc]

Shalako,
The Sunni/Shiite schism isn't so clear cut. The Kurds are largely Sunnis, the central and Southern Sunnis and Shiites are Arabs. The Iranians are Shiites, but also Persian. There are other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq as well.

Digression - The closest historical parallell I can think of off-hand would be the 30 years war ~ 1618-1648 in Europe. A mix of religious, ethnic, and national ideals all brought into focus and conflict. There are some interesting similarities from the religious/political/national alignments to the use of private armies. While I doubt we will be in Iraq in 30 years, I don't imagine McArthur would have predicted we would still be in Okinawa in the 21st century.

IMO - a pull out that isn't accompanied by IDF and IPF ability to "own" their battle space/streets would probably result in the Kurds setting up a de facto state in the North and the Shiites in the South doing the same thing. The 'Sunni triangle" would probably end up looking a lot like Lebanon with various militia factions struggling for power, but unable to project force outside their area. Think the former Yugoslavia where the violence largely peters out. That said, I don't see the UN volunteering for the job...

Krenn & the big taco - I think you are ignoring a couple important facts, (1) the electoral turn-out in every province was strong and (2) most Iraqis self-identify as Iraqis (as well as their religious group, tribe, ethinicity, town, ...). I hope that these facts will have the majority of Iraqis moving towards a form of representative democracy instead of the bleaker options. Inevitable? Far from it. Impossible? No. At this stage I would give it maybe 55:45. Bottomline - too early to tell.

The problem with looking at Iraq as purely a religious conflict (or a neo-colonial exercise) is that such views ignore the complexity of what is on the ground. While I have strong disagreements with many of the choices made that took us to where we are today in Iraq, I return to the belief that fighting to liberate people from dictatorship of any sort is consistent with our Constitutional values. While I do not believe we have an obligation to do so, it is far from wrong to try.

 

[davec]

Communist influence will spread all across south east asia from one country to the next. They'll all fall like dominoes.

 

[Standing Wolf]

It's an awful lot easier to start land wars in Asia than finish them.