GU: America has finally taken on the grim reality of Iraq

[grytpype]

A must-read article by Simon Jenkins in the Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1924581,00.html

America has finally taken on the grim reality of Iraq

The US is radically rethinking its exit strategy, while Britain waits zombie-like for new instructions

Simon Jenkins
Wednesday October 18, 2006
The Guardian

The Baker report on an exit strategy from Iraq, leaked this week in the US, is as sensible as it is sensational. It rejects "staying the course" as no longer plausible and purports to seek alternatives to just "cutting and running". Stripped of political sweetening, it concludes that there is none. America must leave Iraq without preconditions and hope that its neighbours, hated Syria and Iran, can clear up the mess. This advice comes not from some anti-war coalition but from the Iraq study group under the former Republican secretary of state, James Baker, set up by Congress with President George Bush's endorsement. Students of Iraq studies should at this point sit down and steady their nerves. Kissinger is in Paris. The Vietnam moment is at hand.

...

For all the abuse which Europeans regularly heap on the American political process, it has one strength, its capacity for course-correction. A constitution heavy with checks and balances enables it to respond to new circumstances with brutal pluralism. Three years ago America went to war on a lie, a wing and a prayer. That war has clearly failed and consensus is disintegrating. Congress subjects serving and retired generals to searing cross-examination. Senior figures go to Baghdad and, when they break free of their minders, report independently. There is none of the executive deference of Britain's parliamentary committees and tongue-tied "loyal opposition". America's debate on Iraq is now a grim, grinding encounter with reality.

The debate must contemplate the painful but not unfamiliar experience of imperial retreat. As in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia the moment is delayed but the deed will be efficient. The Baker commission, appearing in full after November's congressional election, realises the senselessness of the present bloodbath. It reportedly accepts that the continued presence of foreign forces does not prevent but adds to the chaos. American troops are in occupation but not in control. Their departure can hardly undermine security, except possibly that of Baghdad's green zone, and that is largely privatised.

A measure of the collapse is the astonishing suggestion that America find a new regime in consultation with Iran and Syria. This can only mean accepting some degree of confederacy, looking to the shadowy militias, warlords and sheikhs for provincial and regional leadership. Last year's Iraq constitution negotiated by the American ambassador in Baghdad, Zelmay Khalilzad, remains the best template for this. It is significant that Maliki, in a recent interview with US Today, referred to the possibility of giving Sunnis and Shia muslims some of the autonomy enjoyed by the Kurds. Given the sheer scale of civil violence rife in and around Baghdad the price of such autonomy may be population migration, but that is happening on a massive scale already: Iraq is partitioning itself. It might at least presage a sort of political reconstruction, without which peace and prosperity are inconceivable.

What is humiliating for Britons is that not a whisper of such lateral thinking can be heard from the government. Downing Street is intellectually numb, like a forgotten outpost of a crumbling Roman empire. It can see the barbarians at the gates yet it dare not respond as it knows it should because no new instructions have arrived from Rome. As for parliament, the opposition, academics, thinktanks and most of the media, a zombie-like inertia is all. Last week's row over controversial remarks by the army chief, Sir Richard Dannatt, was concerned not with what he said but whether he should have said it. Every one is waiting for the US to move.

...

[kenny blankenship]

1. Doncha think Bush will insist on splitting the diff between c&r and stc?

If he can't stay the course do we believe he will cut and run just because Daddy's lawyer friend says there's no winning strategy to be found?
I think he's going to stay as promised in Iraq for the rest of his term--redeploying US troops away from the conflict (but keeping them in the country) and letting the gov't in Baghdad degenerate into a murderous dictatorship. Hell, I expect that he'll try to pick the New Saddam himself rather than just let one emerge.
Many dangers for Democrats in these developments. Don't get entangled in Bush's fall, silly donkeys!

[grytpype]

2. He won't listen. He never does.

He'll just smirk and say ol' Jimmy Baker is a weak cut and runner, and we are gonna stay in there until the job is done. And there's no way he's going to go crawling to Syria and Iran for help.

I think we'll have to remove Bush from office before we can pull out of Iraq.