The Dems’ plan for Iraq

February 21, 2006

For months, national news outlets have gone to great lengths to point out that not all Dems agree on how best to deal with the war in Iraq. I’ve never fully understood the criticism — not only do top Republicans disagree on Iraq, but Dem unanimity seems unnecessary — but party leaders have responded by hoping to get at least most of the party on the same page before the 2006 elections.

Will it work? Roll Call quoted a senior congressional Dem saying, “There’s a recognition, pragmatically, that [a unified stand on Iraq] ain’t there, it hasn’t been there, and isn’t going to be there.” But according to the Boston Globe’s Rick Klein, a unified approach may be a little closer than expected.

After months of trying unsuccessfully to develop a common message on the war in Iraq, Democratic Party leaders are beginning to coalesce around a broad plan to begin a quick withdrawal of US troops and install them elsewhere in the region, where they could respond to emergencies in Iraq and help fight terrorism in other countries.

The concept, dubbed “strategic redeployment,” is outlined in a slim, nine-page report coauthored by a former Reagan administration assistant Defense secretary, Lawrence J. Korb, in the fall. It sets a goal of a phased troop withdrawal that would take nearly all US troops out of Iraq by the end of 2007, although many Democrats disagree on whether troop draw-downs should be tied to a timeline.

Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee chairman, has endorsed Korb’s paper and begun mentioning it in meetings with local Democratic groups. In addition, the study’s concepts have been touted by the senator assigned to bring Democrats together on Iraq — Jack Reed of Rhode Island — and the report has been circulated among all senators by Senator Dianne Feinstein, an influential moderate Democrat from California.

Korb’s report is available online (.pdf) and it’s certainly worth reading. And if Dems rally behind this approach, I think it’s an all-around winner: militarily and politically.

Reed, an Army veteran and former paratrooper who has been charged with developing a party strategy on the war, said the plan is attractive to many Democrats because it rejects what he calls the “false dichotomy” suggested by President Bush: that the only options in Iraq are “stay the course” or “cut and run.”

“It’s important to note that it’s not withdrawal — it’s redeployment,” Reed said. “We need to pursue a strategy that is going to accomplish the reasonable objectives, and allow us to have strategic flexibility. Not only is it a message, but it’s a method to improve the security there and around the globe.”

If all of this sounds kind of familiar, there’s a good reason.

In November, Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.) unveiled his redeployment plan that drew the ire of the White House and Bush’s allies. The Korb report is similar, but as Slate’s Fred Kaplan noted, it “fills in the blanks.”

Korb and Katulis begin with the same premises that Murtha does: that the U.S. military presence in Iraq is inflaming the insurgency, uniting nationalists with Islamo-fundamentalists, and bolstering America’s terrorist enemies worldwide; that the Iraqi government is using U.S. troops as a crutch; that maintaining 140,000 troops for another year will destroy the U.S. Army; and that, therefore, on several grounds, it is best for all that we get out.

They call for a phased, two-year plan, drawing the troops down to 80,000 by the end of next year and dispensing with most of the rest by the end of 2007. However, they don’t call for a total withdrawal. By their plan, all 46,000 members of the Guard and Reserve will go home next year, but most of the active-duty soldiers and Marines will be “redeployed” to Kuwait or Afghanistan. Even after that, many American troops will remain to train, advise, help secure the borders, and provide logistical and air support to the Iraqi regime.

Dems don’t entirely agree on establishing a timeline for these events, but most of the party seems to agree with the broader principles of “strategic redeployment.”

If the goal is to give the party an alternative approach to present to the electorate, Korb’s plan is perfect for the Dems. If the goal is to stop Republicans from asking, “What would Dems do differently?” this addresses that too.

It sounds like a decent plan, although as I have noted before, no matter what we do or don’t do, if any troop levels are reduced in any small way al-queda/insurgents will proclaim that this is evidence that they have beaten the great america. Not that I care about that. But even if Bush pulled out only 5,000 troops, the “other side” will claim victory. So, let’s get out under a reasoned and well-thought out plan. This plan seems to present that.

  • I think Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch hits the nail on the head in this piece. It’s not really so much about the “drawing down” or “withdrawal” of troops that one has to keep an eye on … it’s about those permanent bases built (and being built) in Iraq.

    Read this piece. It’s long, but it’s the first I’ve read that has details about the new bases, some of which are 20 sqaure miles in diameter, and house Starbucks, Carl’s Jr., and movie houses.

  • Hey CB,

    Sounds good to me…isn’t this plan similar to the one Juan Cole was advocating???

    I look at the permanent bases as long term instruments to effect a vassal state in Iraq – and it ain’t gonna be pretty…

    I think the Dems need to understand that they must look at Iraq in terms of stabilization…not subjugation.

  • Only problem is, as long as we have ANY troops their, we will inflame the hatred that is already spreading – the big F-up has already been made. However, as any good investor knows, sometimes when you make a bad bet, you cut your losses. It’s called sunk costs, and while we have a lot of them due to Iraq, it makes no sense to compound them by adding more problems to the list in a doomed effort to pretend the first mistake never happened. So, while this democratic plan will help save the Army from decimation, it will come at the cost of us looking kind of stupid and weak – however, it will not nearly come at the cost of prolonging the madness in its current incarnation. Osama made it quite clear a long time ago that despite the fact that these people have no state, they do have political aims, which is the removal of people like us (infidels, or whatever we are) from certain lands, along with a few other things. While this was already stated before the wrong war in Iraq, we flatly denied it’s legitimacy, fell for the half baked fantasy of the neoconservatives and their thinking that we could somehow create democracies in lands with none of the institutions, and which were not nearly far enough along the path to understanding the need for such things, disingenuously linked Iraq and the war on terror, and then rushed headong into a quagmire, thereby making the pre-existing problem worse still and creating another large problem – the potential failed state of Iraq. By ruling out that fundamental islamists have any legitimate political aims and ruling out any sort of negotiations because we find their tactics (ie terrorism) repugnant, and basically saying the solution is to exterminate them (war on terror) and treat them like garbage (ie torture), we just make the terrorism problem worse – by fighting the wrong war, we compound the error.

    The war on Iraq, disguised as the war on terror, could well turn out similar to the US war on drugs – completely unwinnable with the current strategy – let’s just hope it doesnt last so long and come at such expense. The ongoing war on drugs has cost about $20 odd billion a year, plus helped incarcerate a large slice of the African american population, and yet, in just a few years, we might have already surpassed the cost of that foolishishness with our adventure in Iraq. Just imagine this goes on as long as the drug war has… scary. Fortunately, it can’t, because the we will either need a draft (highly unlikely) or be forced economically into submission, because due to our current delapitated fiscal condition (thanks to the same Chimp), and what is ahead of us in terms of the baby boomer retirement and entitlements, there’s no way to keep this going in its current state because it is far too costly. Bush and co will try to string this out three more years, in some fashion, so they can blame the mess it turns into on the next people, and say, “see, if we had just stayed the course”. But it has to be shown that staying the course is impractical (economically idiotic) and in terms of a strategy, essentially unworkable, since only the Iraq people and government can create a democracy and a better life for themselves, and it appears that even while we stand by and watch, they have little intention to do so. The last thing that Bush can cling to is that the Iraqi people are better off now than under Saddam, and even this is looking pretty flimsy, since a minority dictator has been replaced by a repressive, theocratic group, who is helping its own people systematically hunt down the people they dont like. So the secular Iraqis lose out, and the Sunnis get rounded up, and at the current rate, will be lucky to end up in a position as good as the American Indians have been stuck with. Meanwhile, oil output and the economy are worse than they were before the war. A veneer of democracy doesnt score you too many points in my book.

    As for the war on terror, you cannot fight a war on a dispersed set of people with a common idea, that are bred in the Paris suburbs, Afghan hills, US inner cities, etc etc. To exploit this war to justify a new political ideology as the neocons did, is sinful. It’s just so idiotic that I cannot believe we have even gone on at it this long. Even if we think we must, we couldnt have picked worse tactics, and imposed a much greater cost on our own people, and others around the world. We’ve created a false democracy abroad, and undermined a legitimate one at home, which is the biggest casualty of these wars. So, in the end, we do have a false dichotomy foisted upon us (win or cut and run) but the real choice is pretty awful – 1) keep the current course, inflame the hatred around the globe, leave in a few years when the veneer of democracy is complete, then let it all unravel after we’ve bankrupted our own country, lost what is left of our legitimacy in the world’s eyes, achieve next to nothing in Iraq and pretty much ensure more terrorist strikes around the globe for years to come, 2) try the democratic plan, lose some face, save some money, possibly still prevent a civil war, which if you really care to know is quietly already under way, and preserve the veneer of democracy or 3) stop the nonsense, create a timetable, say to the Iraqis, show me what youve got, and what you really want to be and let them figure the mess out. Personally, I think if we left them to their own devices, many of the current excuses would go away, and we would see the true character of the Iraqis. Forced to fight an insurgency, knowing we might come help if necessary, then perhaps they could win after a long struggle – once the insurgency is shown to no longer have the legitimate aim (in their eyes) of removing US troops, it will lose some potency. Perhaps having an insurgency to fight would give them a reason to stop killing each other.

    The reality however, is that Iraq was never a single country, it is doomed to sectarian hatred for quite some time, and isn’t ready for democracy. The best outcome is a partitioning – the question is how we get there and who pays the most for it – America or the Iraqi people.

  • How can we have any credibility with the Muslum world as long as we are seen as oil hungry Crusaders? Bush uses inflamatory words that makes real political solutions in Iraq impossible with his “crusade to spread democracy”. Until Democrats can understand the depth of our hamfisted cultural provoking of insurgency, any action intended to nation-build will fail.

    To get elected a Dem will need to be tough on terrorists, but to be effective in defusing Iraq , the Dem will need to gain the respectful cooperation of the responsible elements in the Islamic world, yet Bush’s actions feed the irresponsible elements which makes an solution impossible.

    All this to say, our current policy does not seek a solution, but is a cover for building permanent bases.

    It seems like a chinese finger trap, the more you provoke, the greater the insurgency, the more you provoke in response.
    The Dem’s best strategy, to expose and unplug the corporate war machine that feeds the conflict for its own gain.

  • I’m not surprised it took so long to come up with a strategy.

    The only real viable one is to put 500,000 American Soldiers and Marines into the country.

    Do have the people and won’t pay the taxes to afford it?

    Than we are going to lose. It is just a question of how.

  • I want to scream…

    When in the hell are these people going to learn about message, cohesion and discipline?

    You don’t telegraph this, you don’t float trial balloons. You get all of the players to agree on something and you carpetbomb the media with it at a specified time. You make all of the principles talk about it in every press interaction they encounter.

    Until these people learn this, they’re going to continue to look weak and ineffectual. And they’re not getting another damn dollar of my money.

  • The thought probably never oocurred to either party that the war in Iraq is a jihad, holy war. If it has then why are they not addressing that issue a little more overtly. Don’t they know that holy wars cannot be won or peace negotiated without destroying the enemy’s God, ever? For the Muslims to make peace with America it takes the conversion of America to Muhammadism and all that accompanies it like the end of the republic and the Islamic clergy led by recently converted Pat Robertson to decide all issues. For America to win the opposite is required. There’s a problem right away. America is not a church state. Or is it?

    Anyone who has been just partially awake during the entire Bush administration can see that we’re trying as hard as possible to be some kind of church driven, clergy operated something, democracy being automatically ruled out for whatever it is. The president is “born again.” He was crowned, (monarch?) by his most holliness, Billy. Three of them, the one living in the white house and two former residents knelt before the dead pope’s casket. They weren’t verifying that he was really dead were they? Hello! Is anybody awake besides me?

    The democrats who have lagged far behind in the mad rush to holliness should enjoy a little bump up from what I am inviting you to review. It’s ancient history that proves the Bible is a hoax. It’s the same God for both contestants in Muslim land that is proved to be as phony as those twe dollar bills. The place to see proof the Bible is a hoax is: http://www.hoax-buster.org a voice in the wilderness of religious fanaticism that threatens to destroy the world in time.

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