James Kroeger, author of
The Republican Nemesis explains
how we can get our troops out of Iraq in 3-6 months:
Three years after he started the Iraq War, George Bush has made it known that America’s troops will be staying in Iraq for at least another three years. Although Democrats in Washington have been quick to complain about Bush’s conduct of the war and about the way he 'lied us into it', they still seem to be having a difficult time coming up with an alternative plan for getting our troops out of Iraq much sooner. They may not yet realize it yet, but there really is a 'responsible' way for America to end its occupation of Iraq <em>in as little as 3-6 months</em>. Here’s how you do it...
The reason why we can’t simply abandon Iraq is because possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would die in the civil war that we’d be leaving behind us. But the fact that Iraq has crucial security needs right now does not establish the case for keeping U.S. troops stationed in the country, not when you realize that our presence there is one of the primary causes of the militarization of the Iraqi population.
How do we (A) remove one of the causes of the violence---our presence there---while (B) providing the Iraqi people with the security they need when we are gone? Answer: arrange to have some other ‘foreign troops’ occupy the country when we leave. The question is who do we get to take over such a thankless task?
One possibility would be the United Nations, but there is reason to believe that most of the nations that criticized our decision to go into Iraq (France, Germany, Russia, and China) would not be eager to send their own troops into the mess we created. So who else? Right now I’m thinking the best approach would be to arrange for some kind of Grand Coalition of Muslim Nations to take over the security duties. It’s the kind of challenge that a competent State Department would be able to pull off.
If the foreign troops that are occupying Iraq all come from Muslim nations, the fundamental cause of the current insurgency---the presence of 'Infidel' troops in Muslim lands---would no longer be stoking violent passions. Al Qaeda would finally be deprived of its Number One recruiting pitch (“Help us drive the Infidels out of Muslim lands!”). This would leave only the ‘sectarian violence’ between Sunni and Shiite for Muslim security forces to deal with.
In order to end the fighting between Sunni and Shiites in Iraq, it may be ultimately necessary to partition the country into two separate countries. Why two countries (Sunni and Shiite) and not three (Sunni Arab, Sunni Kurd and Shiite Arab)? Because an independent Kurdistan would provide Turkey with a strong incentive to send its troops into northern Iraq after we have left. If we can avoid that headache, we really should. It ought to be a lot easier for Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds to put together a working relationship than it is to bring all three factions together.
This particular two-state solution would, of course, inevitably lead to a close alliance between the new Arab Shiite nation and Iran. Maybe that would be a bad development or maybe it wouldn’t. The uncertainties of that direction are probably enough for us to make an earnest effort to maintain the status quo---preserve Iraq’s current borders---and hope that George Bush’s vision of a compromising ‘unity government’ might still have a chance to work, once our soldiers are no longer around, inciting the passions of all the parties involved.
If a one-state solution is to have any chance of succeeding, the Muslim occupation army that replaces us must be able to provide the Iraqi people with the kind of security that America’s tiny occupation army has thus far been unable to provide. Our forces in Iraq may be powerful enough to defeat any attacker, but we do not have anywhere near the kind of troop strength in Iraq that is necessary to disarm the population and end all insurgent activity.
If a Grand Coalition of Muslim Nations is to succeed where we have failed, they may very well need to station as many as 1-2 million troops in Iraq in order to crush all militia activity. That’s how you end the kind of violence that we are seeing today in Iraq. You can’t ‘pussy-foot’ around. The sooner we can establish a massive and powerful presence of Muslim occupation troops throughout Iraq, the sooner the sectarian fighting will be brought to an end.
If America wants to succeed in preventing civil war when it pulls out its troops, it must be willing to pay the expenses (within reason) of the cost of the Muslim occupation army as a sort of penance for creating the mess. We just might find that the EU would be willing to help us with the bills since they would no longer have to feel embarrassed to be associated with us. We would be paying the Muslim Coalition to prevent the outbreak of civil war and to give Iraq’s politicians the time to put together some kind of viable government.
Removing ourselves physically from the region would not mean an end to our influence in the area. If America underwrites the expenses of a Muslim Coalition Occupation Army, it will still have a tremendous amount of influence on the decisions that are made by coalition members. We could always ‘sweeten the deal’ if the Muslim occupation authorities were to enable Iraq to actually put together some kind of democracy. We would want to strongly suggest that that a failure to enable the democratic process to continue could prompt America to cut off its funding of the occupation.
Set up in the proper way, a Grand Coalition of Muslim Nations would likely be seen by all Islam as a great opportunity to demonstrate to the world that they can succeed where America failed in bringing peace to the Iraqi people. Our soldiers wouldn’t be dying there and we would finally be able to put this embarrassing part of our history behind us. Just think of how nice it will be to once again enjoy the respect of the rest of the world.
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