Yesterday, Atrios offered a blunt-but-accurate assessment of the U.S. presence in Iraq: “When an occupying force is seen by a sufficient number of the people as an unwelcome occupier to be opposed, then there’s no way that occupier can be responsible for creating and maintaining order.”
The NYT’s Nicholas Kristof fleshed this point out in more detail today, noting that about a fifth of Iraqis believes the U.S. troop presence improves security in Iraq, whereas 69% believe our presence is making security worse.
We simply can’t want to be in Iraq more than the Iraqis want us to be there. That poll of Iraqis, conducted by the BBC and other news organizations, found that only 22 percent of Iraqis support the presence of coalition troops in Iraq, down from 32 percent in 2005.
If Iraqis were pleading with us to stay and quell the violence, maybe we would have a moral responsibility to stay. But when Iraqis are begging us to leave, and saying that we are making things worse, then it’s remarkably presumptuous to overrule their wishes and stay indefinitely because, as President Bush termed it in his speech on Tuesday, “it is necessary work.” […]
Just because President Bush says something doesn’t mean it is fatuous. It’s true, for example, that our withdrawal may lead to worse horrors in Iraq. But don’t ignore the alternative possibility, believed overwhelmingly by Iraqis themselves, that our departure will make things better.
I don’t doubt that there are Iraqis, many of them in positions of influence, who believe American troops should stay in the country for the indefinite future. But Kristof is surely right that most of the nation disagrees and wants us gone. Indeed, there’s ample evidence that an open-ended commitment fuels an insurgency that perceives us as long-term occupiers.
This isn’t exactly breaking news — we’ve known this for a while — but Kristof’s reminder is helpful, especially given the ongoing debate in Congress.
Kristof also explores the financial costs associated with a misguided war policy.
[T]he average cost of posting a single U.S. soldier in Iraq has risen to $390,000 per year, according to a new study by the Congressional Research Service. This fiscal year alone, Iraq will cost us $135 billion, which amounts to a bit more than a quarter-million dollars per minute. […]
We can’t afford universal health care at home — but we can afford more than $10 billion a month so that American troops can be maimed in a country where they aren’t wanted? If we take the total eventual cost of the Iraq war, that sum could be used to finance health care for all uninsured Americans for perhaps 30 years.
Or imagine if we invested just two weeks’ worth of the Iraq spending to fight malaria, de-worm children around the globe and reduce maternal mortality. Those humanitarian projects would save vast numbers of lives and help restore America’s standing in the world.
As a rule, I avoid this kind of argument. Budget policy is tricky, and policies cost what they cost. But with DOD appropriations on the table, war supporters are nevertheless confronted with an untenable proposition — they not only have to defend failure, they have to defend enormous investments in that failure.
It’s not unreasonable to ask them, “Is there a better use for those resources?”