A Responsible Exit Strategy

PORTER: IRAQ, EXIT STRATEGY THE THIRD OPTION IN IRAQ: A RESPONSIBLE EXIT STRATEGY Gareth Porter Dr. Porter is an independent historian and foreign-policy analyst who has published studies of negotiations to end wars in Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines. His latest book is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam (University of California Press, 2005). he U.S. military occupation of moreover, is still resisted by a large major- Iraq is the subject of a political ity of the political elite. In the first clear stalemate at home, despite its test, on May 26, an amendment calling on Tlack of public support. A CNN/ President Bush to devise a plan for with- USA Today/Gallup Poll survey in mid-June drawal from Iraq was defeated in the showed that 59 percent said they opposed House of Representatives 300 to 128. “the U.S. war with Iraq,” while only 39 Thus Congress is far more supportive of a percent said they favored it. Even more long occupation than is the populace. This significant, the percentage opposing war has enabled the Bush administration to act with Iraq had increased by 21 points since as though it were immune to the polling mid-March. A Harris Poll taken in June data, declaring that it has a “victory revealed that 63 percent of the sample strategy” rather than an “exit strategy.” favored bringing “most of our troops home The wide gap between public opinion in the next year,” while only 33 percent and the split in Congress on Iraq is in large favored waiting until a “stable government” part the result of a failed national discourse had been established in Iraq. on Iraq. The political elite now have only This popular opposition to continued two choices: either to set a unilateral occupation might be dangerous for the timetable for troop withdrawal or to give administration, but two factors tend to the administration unlimited time to build muffle its political impact. First, the divide adequate Iraqi security forces to replace in the country is highly partisan: Republi- U.S. troops – and to determine when they cans still support the president by a 3-to-1 are adequate. This stark choice has left margin; while Democrats disapprove 7-to-1 even most opponents of the initial invasion and independents 2-to-1. This gives a willing to tolerate the administration’s Republican president plenty of room for policy of indefinite occupation, because of maneuver.1 their fear of the unknown consequences of Movement toward an exit strategy, a defeat for U.S. policy in both Iraq and 1 Porter.p65 1 8/5/2005, 5:59 PM MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. XII, NO. 3, FALL 2005 the United States. of the policy problem as one of defeating a The choice between unilateral with- threat to a democratic regime from an anti- drawal and indefinite occupation is artifi- democratic insurgency composed of cially narrow. It excludes a third option Saddam loyalists and foreign Islamic that would limit the period of U.S. occupa- terrorists. The administration’s definition tion but avoid the pitfalls of unilateral of the problem has enormous appeal to withdrawal. The third option would use the Americans, who viewed the January 2005 political-diplomatic leverage inherent in the parliamentary elections as an inspirational U.S. occupation to draw the Shiites and story of people choosing democracy in the Sunnis into serious negotiations on a face of terrorist threats. But it has ob- comprehensive settlement of political and scured the underlying problem in Iraq, military issues, or, failing that, to negotiate a which is a sectarian conflict between military settlement with the leaders of the Sunnis and Shiites that is already becoming Sunni insurgency. By actively pursuing a a civil war. Even worse, the peace policy, the United States can estab- administration’s policy of backing the Shiite lish a terminal date for its military occupa- government against the Sunnis rather than tion, help avert a Sunni-Shiite civil war, and promoting reconciliation between the two deny foreign terrorists the use of Iraq as a groups has actually encouraged the emer- training camp for an indefinite period. gence of that civil war. It must be acknowledged from the To call the regime produced by the outset, however, that it impossible to adopt January elections a liberal democratic such a policy alternative without a funda- regime is to confuse elections with the real mental change in the official definition of essence of a liberal democratic regime. the problem. The present understanding of The requirements for such a regime are the problem can only lead to worsening not yet present in Iraq and are unlikely to violence and the long-term continuation of sprout in the barren soil of a war-torn the foreign terrorist presence in Iraq. country divided by sectarian strife. Neither Indeed, the Bush administration has Sunni nor Shiite political and religious explicitly stated that it foresees just such a leaders have a fundamental commitment to prolonged war, with increased Shiite liberal democratic values and institutions, participation against the Sunni insurgents, whereas the Kurds do not see themselves as the objective of its policy. A responsible as part of Iraq at all. exit strategy, on the other hand, would call Given the role that armed force has for a shift in the primary purpose of the played over the last few decades in U.S. presence in Iraq from defeating the maintaining Sunni minority rule over the Sunni-based resistance organizations to Shiite majority, it should not be surprising ending the present conflict and heading off that the need for political violence is deeply a sectarian civil war that has already imbedded in Iraqi political culture.2 The begun. leaders and followers of the Baath party have viewed political violence as necessary REDEFINING THE PROBLEM to maintain national unity and stability, but Up to now, the political discourse on the leadership of the militant brand of Shiite Iraq has reflected the administration’s view Islam that now holds sway in that commu- 2 Porter.p65 2 8/5/2005, 5:59 PM PORTER: IRAQ, EXIT STRATEGY nity is no stranger to the use of violence for ment. They knew that most of the Shiite political purposes. After the Islamic faithful would vote for the ticket as a revolution in Iran, Shiite militants began religious duty in response to a fatwa from planning to use force to overthrow what Sistani. The top Shiite religious authority in they considered an “infidel” regime in Iraq, the marjiya, is determined to ensure Iraq.3 And in the present struggle for that the new constitution and subsequent power, both Sunni and Shiite political elites law will not violate the highly restrictive appear to believe that Iraqi politics is a sharia law.7 Its commitment to tolerance zero-sum game in which maintaining of minority beliefs and rights is less clear. political power depends on actively using Ironically, the Bush administration had state organs of repression against their not even intended to hold national elections enemies.4 when it invaded Iraq. Instead it had As Ambassador Peter Galbraith has planned to set up a hand-picked govern- noted, tolerance and willingness to compro- ment and postpone direct elections indefi- mise – two key elements of a liberal nitely, fearing that the Shiite parties, which democratic system – are not apparent in they viewed as much too close to Iran, the political culture of either the Sunnis or would use them to gain power. The the Shiites in Iraq.5 The Baathist ideology administration’s plan was derailed only that undoubtedly still strongly influences the because the Shiites proved that they were Sunni elite is dismissive of liberal democ- capable of mobilizing a very large opposi- racy, but the two main militant Shiite tion to the U.S. occupation if it refused parties are hardly more committed to direct elections.8 It was only after the liberal ideology. The Dawa party waged elections became a fait accompli that the armed resistance to Saddam’s regime administration cast them as a strategic part based on Leninist organizational methods, of an offensive against Islamic terrorism and the Supreme Council for Islamic and for democracy throughout the Arab Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and its armed world. militia, the Badr Corps, were born on The administration has also refused to Iranian soil under the tutelage and protec- recognize that the Sunni insurgency was tion of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. not organized against an existing demo- Even taking into account doctrinal differ- cratic state but against a foreign occupa- ences between Iraqi Shiite ayatollahs and tion that had excluded all those Sunnis who their Iranian counterparts, the ideology of had even remote ties to the previous Iraqi the Iraqi Shiite political movement has far state. Although the initial organization of more in common with that of the clerical an armed resistance was planned in establishment in Iran than it does with advance by Saddam’s security services, liberal democracy.6 the insurgency almost immediately swelled The insistence of Grand Ayatollah Ali to much larger proportions because of a al-Sistani and the Shiite political leaders on combination of Sunni anger at the tactics direct elections in 2003-04 reflected a used by the U.S. occupation forces in the realistic calculation that those elections Sunni region and a fear of marginalization would give them the majority in parliament and revenge at the hands of the Shiites.9 needed to form a Shiite-dominated govern- Adnan al-Janabi, a leading Sunni tribal 3 Porter.p65 3 8/5/2005, 5:59 PM MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL.

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