Contrary as Usual

Ray Close

With the notable exception of a few politicians with guts and confidence, (most notably Howard Dean), almost every independent analyst of the Iraq situation that I am aware of today slavishly endorses some variation of the Bush strategy of "staying the course". In taking that position, most of these analysts at least have the honesty to apologize for their inability to suggest a workable alternative, and admit that they retain only tenuous and diminishing hope that the "good guys" in Iraq will eventually be able to establish a reasonably stable central administration in Baghdad, reverse the present inexorable slide toward civil war, contain and then defeat the insurgency, gain full federal control over independent regional and ethnic militias, develop a system of governance that will pass as reasonably "democratic", and finally, preserve and protect a unified Iraqi state that is a loyal and compliant ally of the United States --- allowing the U.S. and Britain to limp away from the scene with a modicum of honor and a minimum of humiliation.

I prefer not to associate myself with the Bush "strategy" that he describes in heroic speeches as "staying the course". It is neither honest nor realistic, in my view. Honest realists (to the extent that any still exist in Washington and London) are all fully aware that military "victory" with the number of troops that we have on the ground in Iraq is impossible, that we are rapidly approaching a "tipping point" where the majority of the American and British people will actively resist the growing human and financial costs of the Bush/Blair war strategy; that turning the problem over to the international community is a forgotten dream; that the United States cannot (or will not) administer and finance a major long-term economic redevelopment program that would win the support and gratitude of the Iraqi people; that none of the individual leaders of each of the major political and ethnic factions in Iraq today is willing to make the concessions and compromises necessary to achieve peaceful consensus among the population at large; and that, in conclusion, there is no "honorable" exit strategy available to any coalition led by George W. Bush. If that combination of negatives does not add up to "mission failed", what more accurate term could be chosen?

I see the situation as a classic "Catch-22". Our presence in the country is not advancing Iraqi or American interests, but we remain stubbornly committed to digging the hole deeper with every word uttered by administration spokespersons. Meanwhile, countless perfectly intelligent American and British citizens continue against their own better judgment to subscribe meekly to an empty, demonstrably futile (and still essentially
undefined) "strategy" with the noble-sounding but empty title of "staying the course". Yesterday, when President Bush again committed America and its coalition allies to achieving "total victory" over all forms of terrorism, speaking as if that were a goal he believes can be attained under his personal leadership, he demonstrated again not only his ignorance but his silly vanity ---- and his detachment from reality.

Alternative strategies, admittedly, are exceedingly hard to devise and even more difficult to implement. I have no one-dose "happy pill" to prescribe. But if we are honest and realistic enough to recognize and acknowledge that Bush's present course is doomed to failure, and since he shows no sign whatsoever of truly comprehending the extent of the disaster that he has created, we CANNOT in good conscience continue to sit still while increasing numbers of innocent people die every day and billions of dollars are spent on military operations that achieve nothing constructive.

The most reasonable hope, in my opinion, is that a courageous and forthright leader of the Democratic Party here in the United States will emerge in the very near future who will have the political courage and vision to articulate clearly the extent of the disaster inflicted on the people of the Middle East and on the United States and its partners by the policies of the Bush Administration, and promise that a totally new and different U.S. Middle East policy will be implemented starting the day after the January 2009 presidential inauguration. A new "back to the drawing board" policy would necessarily have to include announcing now a phased withdrawal of US military forces from Iraq to begin immediately after the next inauguration. The whole list of desirable new initiatives that must accompany that announcement is obvious to all of you who know the region well. With specific reference to Iraq, the two most important and urgent actions, I think, should be these : (1) the issuance of an absolutely firm and unequivocal assurance, made as soon as possible, that the United States seeks no long-term strategic military bases in Iraq; and
(2) that the United States will undertake a major long-term economic assistance program to rebuild the Iraqi economy --- free of all political conditions without regard to the composition and political orientation of any Iraqi government that emerges in the years ahead.

These urgent and immediate pronouncements by a credible Democratic candidate for the presidency would, I believe, begin to take much of the wind out of the sails of the anti-American insurgency, and generate widespread support from the American and British people and the world community, including Arabs. Faced with a credible promise that "Brothers, there's a new day a-coming", I think there would be a significant atmospheric change in the whole region, providing renewed incentive to many Iraqis (and other Arabs) to support national unity and to cooperate more effectively with the counter-insurgency. At the present time, the widespread belief that American objectives in Iraq are primarily self-serving, and that those Iraqis who cooperate with the Americans are simply opportunists and stooges, severely undermines positive incentives to support the fledgling central government.

The same applies equally to the attitudes of Iraq's neighbors toward the government in Baghdad. If Iraq is viewed as an American satellite, it will face inevitable hostility and competition within the region, whereas a credible American plan to withdraw would alert those neighbors to the dire consequences to themselves of failing to act urgently to support a stable and independent Iraq --- a goal that most of them now privately favor, but with which they are reluctant to associate themselves openly as long as doing so would be seen as kowtowing to an American president whom they and their people whole-heartedly despise. Let me put this in a different way:

Once there is a clear admission on the part of an American national leader of our country's failure to achieve any of the primary objectives of the Bush strategy in Iraq, and a credible promise is made of radical change in that policy by a new Democratic administration, this will illuminate the road ahead in a way that will encourage Iraqis of all political and religious persuasions immediately to see their present condition from a completely new perspective --- namely, as an opportunity to shape their own future with confidence, and with an awareness of urgent shared responsibility to meet the challenges ahead by themselves.

Today the leadership in Baghdad needs, more than anything else, to be given assurance of their own individual dignity as much as of their national sovereignty. They must be challenged to overcome the frustration and sense of impotence that foreign occupation and tutelage have inevitably imposed on them. Without that dignity, and without that confidence, no one can expect them to pull together and make the common sacrifices that will assure them a secure and stable future as a nation. If they fail to rise to that challenge when given the opportunity, this would only confirm that an outside superpower would be unable to achieve the same objective for them by military force.

My own experience with the people of the Middle East is that a large majority do not hate America "for who we are and what we stand for" so much as they wish desperately that American policy would reflect steadfast commitment to its own ideals of justice and fairness. I reject totally the assertion that genuine friendship and cooperation between us and the peoples and governments of that region is an impossibility. Thousands of American and British people who have lived and worked in the Middle East certainly share the same conviction and reject the negative premises on which the opposite set of expectations is based.

I readily admit that what I am suggesting is an EXTREMELY difficult course, and one that many would say was idealistic but impractical, given well-known American domestic political realities. Many readers of this message may be convinced that hostility toward American policies instituted by Bush is already too deep and too widespread among the Arab peoples to overcome in the foreseeable future merely through a change of regime in Washington. I acknowledge those tremendous obstacles, and respect those doubts. But I challenge skeptics to make their own critical evaluation of the present Bush strategy, and then persuade me that the foreseeable consequences of staying that course are anything less than catastrophic. At least this suggestion offers a glimmer of hope.

Ray Close is a retired CIA analyst with extensive experience in the Middle East. Thanks to Jonathan Clarke and the Committee for the Republic for bringing this commentary to our attention.