Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Jul. 31, 2007 (McClatchy-Tribune News Service delivered by Newstex) -- The following editorial appeared in the Dallas Morning News on Monday, July 30:
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If it were clean, neat and simple, it wouldn't be war. There is no easy way out of the Iraq conundrum, which is why we presented in this space Sunday a 'Plan B' as a starting point toward a solution.
Skeptics will abound. Withdrawal advocates will see our plan as a hawkish effort to keep Iraq militarized under the U.S. thumb. Stay-the-course proponents will view it as a step toward capitulation.
We think it's the best approach to remain engaged against al-Qaeda, get our troops out of harm's way and let Iraqis work out their differences free of foreign interference. Certainly, the plan raises many questions. Let's answer a few:
Question: Won't a U.S. redeployment open the way for massacres and sectarian civil war?
Answer: Mass-scale bloodshed may not be inevitable. Shiites and Sunnis have a long history of strife but also have co-existed all over the Muslim world.
The chief elements of Iraq's current sectarian strife were introduced from outside: Amid widespread looting and burning in April 2003, U.S. commanders enlisted Iraqi Shiite clerics to form vigilante squads and police neighborhoods. Those squads eventually became militias, armed with U.S. acquiescence. At the same time, U.S. troops swept through Sunni areas to disarm and arrest suspected insurgents. Unequal treatment caused Shiite-Sunni tensions to grow.
Even so, Iraqi Shiite and Sunni militia leaders realized as late as 2004 that they gained nothing by fighting each other when their shared goal was to end the U.S.-led military occupation. There was rapprochement, but it ended when radical foreign fighters, some linked to al-Qaeda, took advantage of Iraq's unguarded borders and launched a wave of bombings against major Shiite shrines and crowded marketplaces.
Iraqi Shiite and Sunni religious and political leaders, as well as public opinion polls, have consistently said that the U.S. troop presence is exacerbating domestic tensions. Moving U.S. bases to a border cordon should reduce that irritant.
Q: Why redeploy when the troop surge may be working?
A: We're reluctant to pronounce the surge a success. Statistical graphs of Iraqi violence since 2003 show a pattern of lulls and spikes. There's yet to be a sustained break in the pattern. Other elements of the surge clearly have failed. By the White House's own assessment, Iraq's performance has been unsatisfactory on most of its 18 benchmarks. The political stalemate is worsening, and last week a major Sunni bloc threatened to quit the government. This doesn't justify continued sacrifice and suffering by U.S. troops.
Q: Will U.S. troops simply watch while Iraqis kill each other, like in Darfur?
A: The Darfur comparison is misleading. In Sudan's lopsided conflict, the central government is helping an allied militia roll over a weak group of ethnic minorities. Iraq's opposing sectarian and ethnic groups are militarily strong. The concept of mutually assured destruction is dampening any notions of territorial conquest.
Q: Why does this plan seek to apply the Afghanistan model of rural basing and helicopter-borne deployments? Afghanistan's terrain and population concentration doesn't compare to Iraq's.
A: In the Army-Marine Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which Gen. David Petraeus co-authored, both Iraq and Afghanistan are cited as examples of places where airborne deployments are preferable because ground convoys are so vulnerable to roadside bombs and ambushes. Key to Gen. Petraeus' clear-hold-build strategy is halting the ability of outside actors to feed internal violence by stopping them at international borders. Our plan is consistent with this doctrine.
Q: Wouldn't a U.S. withdrawal from Iraqi urban centers clear the way for al-Qaeda? Won't our intelligence sources dry up?
A: The enormous U.S. military bases around Baghdad and other cities have not altered al-Qaeda's ability to maneuver and explode bombs. U.S. successes against al-Qaeda resulted from targeted, precision raids. The most effective place to stop foreign fighters is at the borders, where they're entering.
Our intelligence sources won't dry up. Iraqis -- Shiites as well as Sunnis -- want to eliminate al-Qaeda's presence, and their cooperation might even grow as they see U.S. troops redirect their fight away toward foreign infiltrators.
The message our plan will send to Iraq is: We're not here to fight you unless you're helping al-Qaeda. We're going to stop shooting at you and disrupting your lives.
That's our best bet for getting Iraqis back on our side.
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(c) 2007, The Dallas Morning News.
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