Juan Cole: "Exit Plans" (on Kerry's Exit Plan for Iraq)

[Inland]

http://www.juancole.com/

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Exit Plans


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The problem with Kerry's and Greif's exit plans is that they are only that-- exit plans. It isn't hard to get a US exit. We just pull up stakes and go home. What is hard is not to leave chaos behind us, of a sort that will throw the whole Oil Gulf region into war.

A practical exit strategy has to stipulate what comes next. As regular readers know, I think where we start is by splitting the military command in Iraq, as we did in Afghanistan (there we have NATO ISAF and the US). We need a UN command in Iraq, and need a multinational force (probably in the main Arab League) that can go on helping the Iraqis maintain a minimum of social peace after the US is out.

The US needs to get out. Its troops are a constant provocation of the local population, stirring insurgency rather than quieting it. They have never developed the kind of local intelligence or even language skills that would allow them to do real counter-insurgency. When hot civil war nearly erupted in February, US troops could not intervene between Sunnis and Shiites anyway, without becoming a party to it. So what good are they in such a crisis? Better to get them out of harm's way. Moreover, the Bush administration is both incompetent and corrupt, and therefore cannot hope actually to accomplish anything good in Iraq. The longer the US is there virtually unilaterally, the worse the final crash and burn is going to be. But the US has a responsibility, having thrown Iraq into civil war, to make the best arrangements it can for the aftermath.

The six neighbors have the highest stakes in Iraq-- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Iran. They should immediately be called to a 6 + 3 meeting with the United States, Britain and the Arab League to begin the work of constituting a post-US multinational force that might hope to keep ethnic and religious militias from marching against one another in the thousands and killing milions.

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[wisteria]

1. he didn't read all of Kerry's plan- he apparently just skimmed over it.

Or, he just wants to make his own points.

[MrPrax]

3. Yeah I noticed that as well...

I wasn't a big fan of Kerry or his 'plan' initially, but it does have merits. The one key is that the US actually places an actual date on when it will leave--this should go a long way helping a new government form.

But I stopped bothering with Cole after his support for carpet bombing and other flaky shit basically--he seems to be trapped by the same armchair 'paternalism' as the Bush administration.

[fedupinBushcountry]

2. This is what happens

when pundits don't listen. Geez, they think they know it all. I think he needs a transcript of Kerry's speech. I swear they are more intersested in being Monday morning quarterbacks , sorry Juan but the least you could have done was called the Senator to answer your questions instead of assuming he is wrong. :banghead: