The public dialogue on the Iraq War continues to careen between
the heights of optimism and the depths of pessimism. The bipolar
nature of the debate was on display in Washington last week at the
Heritage Foundation’s blue-ribbon panel discussion on “Iraq: The Way Ahead.” The event was a very downbeat
observance of the fourth anniversary of the conflict in
Mesopotamia.
There was plenty of intellectual firepower deployed at this
gathering. Frederick
Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), one of the
authors of the President’s troop surge plan in Iraq, and an uber
neoconservative, was joined by Kenneth Pollack of
the Brookings Institution, a well-known expert on the Middle East
and an unabashed proponent of nation-building of the liberal
interventionist school.
Rounding out the panel was
Anthony Cordesman, Center of Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), a leading military and foreign policy expert of the
Realist persuasion.
The only omission on this impressive expert panel might be the
full-throated proponent of the “cut-and-run” school, retired Army
Lieutenant General William Odom, a Senior Fellow at the Hudson
Institute, who has written provocative articles such as “Victory Is
Not an Option” and “Know When to Fold ‘Em.” That said, the actual
panel provided an energetic airing of differing views on the
current controversy.
On the continuum between sunny optimism and manic depression,
Kagan a military historian, pushes the limits of the former
position about as far as one can, given present circumstances. He
was a scathing critic of the Bush Administration’s conduct of the
war until it embraced his own ideas about the surge.
Kagan argues that, historically, America does very badly at the
beginning of its wars, but eventually gets it right in the end. He
also believes interventions such as Bosnia and Kosovo demonstrate
that the U.S. can ameliorate terrible situations abroad. He sees
some evidence that the surge is going well, but he concedes we will
not know for some time. He points to the support of the Iraqi
government and the militias’ reluctance to engage U.S. forces as
positive signs. Moreover, he notes that the troop build-up is still
underway.
Kagan simply cannot countenance defeat because that possibility
is too awful to contemplate in terms of the Middle East and the
spillover effects of terrorism, which will look elsewhere for
mischief making. He believes that the greatest danger is “pulling
the plug on the operation too early.” He is also working on a
follow-up plan to complement this initial troop surge, a proposal
for expanding the effort, presumably, to non-military areas.
Pollack, another tough critic of the Bush Administration for its
failures to date, hopes the surge will work, believing it is the
right approach to fighting this war. He believes it is the only
option “promising a happy ending.” Like Kagan, Pollack believes the
consequences of withdrawal would be “catastrophic.” It would be the
ultimate “booby prize” for the next president.
Nevertheless, Pollack fears that it may be too little, too late,
to succeed. He has no faith in the Bush Administration’s competence
to do this job. He has even co-authored an alternative to the
surge. A recent program at Brookings referred to it as Plan B:
A Containment Strategy for Iraq in Civil War, which speaks
volumes.
Pollack notes that the insurgents’ “going to ground” can be an
indicator consistent with either victory or defeat. “We don’t know
what we will get,” says Pollack. It should be no surprise that the
insurgents would not confront superior U.S. forces.
As good as it is, “the military cannot possibly win this”
conflict alone, argues Pollack. The U.S. is hopelessly
underinvested in terms of personnel and resources to do the job of
nation-building for the Iraqis, regarding whom he has little
confidence. The U.S. needs to “stand up to the Iraqi government”
and not hide “behind the charade of Iraqi sovereignty.”
Cordesman secures the pessimistic end of the continuum. He
declared Iraq to be in a civil war two years before the Pentagon
admitted it last week. From his perspective the surge may or may
not work, but he doubts it. If it succeeds, it will simply
establish Shiite dominance to the benefit of Iran.
Regardless of whether or not this new tactic “works,” Cordesman
sees the U.S. consigned to an everlasting purgatory in a region
that is, was, and always will be a geopolitical mess. He believes
Iraq was a broken, failed state since it inception. He first
started working there in 1971 and views the government to be “a
command kleptocracy,” which is totally alien to Americans.
Cordesman does not believe that Iraq will be more of a center of
terrorism than, say, the Afghanistan-Pakistan area. And even if the
Shiites win the civil war, there are 40 or 50 countries in which Al
Qaeda can operate. Cordesman believes ultimate Shiite dominance may
be “a kind of victory,” but hardly optimal for Sunnis. He is also
doubtful of any containment strategy. The best we can manage is
“constant damage control.”
In the words of the French existentialist, Jean Paul Sartre,
there is No Exit for the U.S from a very conflicted region
that has vital energy resources essential to our economy. Indeed,
it will be at least ten more years before the U.S. approaches
anything resembling relative energy independence, which Cordesman
characterizes as “an illusion.”
There is a kind of weird convergence between the realist
Cordesman and the neoconservative Kagan in their shared belief that
the U.S. will be immersed in Iraq for the foreseeable future. In
the question-and-answer session of the Heritage program, Kagan
conceded that he believes the U.S. should maintain “an open-ended
commitment” in that country (Quaere: would he hold this position
even if the surge failed?). Cordesman basically sees the same fate
for America, but envisions a more modest mitigating role, hardly a
triumphal imposition of Western-style democracy or influence.
Cordesman, along with Pollack and probably Kagan, find it
“refreshing” to see a Secretary of Defense with “the ability to
cope with reality.” This may be the one positive note in this
otherwise depressing discussion. No one along the entire policy
spectrum — including the White House — is chanting the
stay-the-course mantra any longer. Indeed, for a leading
conservative establishment such as the Heritage Foundation to
sponsor such a robust debate on the war is, well, refreshing. But
that is about all there is for an optimist to grasp onto.
