There is one cliché about the killing field
that is US-occupied Iraq that rings true. There
is no “good option,” no magic wand that
will make the violence bedeviling the country disappear.
The question ought to be which of the bad options
offers the best hope for achieving a sovereign Iraq
with a minimum of additional suffering for the Iraqi
people.
Asking that question means examining the assumptions
behind President George W. Bush’s vow to keep
US troops in Iraq until “the Iraqis are able
to take the fight to the enemy”—that
is to say, indefinitely. Leaving aside the unspoken
US strategic goals served by a prolonged military
presence in Iraq, and leaving aside the tremendous
violence visited upon Iraq by the US itself, there
are three flaws in the spoken logic of what Bush
says is the best of the bad options available to
him.
If US soldiers are providing security in Iraq,
then why is the heavily patrolled road leading from
Baghdad to the airport, and the US Army’s
Camp Victory, still the most dangerous stretch of
highway in the country? The logical answer is that
US patrols attract rather than deter violent attacks.
The Pentagon’s recently announced plan to
consolidate the once rumored 14 “enduring
bases” in Iraq into four “contingency
operating bases” away from major population
centers sounds like what the military calls a force
protection measure.
The US presence obviously is not protecting the
hundreds of Iraqi police and national guard recruits
who have been slaughtered as they stand in line
to sign up. Nor are the Marines keeping Iraqi civilians
safe, even on the occasions when they now deploy
in force to do so. On the day of the Iraqi elections,
when the most unexcitable journalists in Baghdad
marveled at the effectiveness of US security measures,
the Defense Intelligence Agency recorded almost
300 attacks that killed 46 Iraqis. Note how lonely
are the voices who now seriously argue that the
US should send more soldiers so as to better protect
the civilian population. Far too many Iraqis now
know US troops as bulldozers of Falluja, trigger-happy
guards at checkpoints and torturers at Abu Ghraib.
Second, US occupation is a potent force generating
opposition to the post-Saddam political order. What
sincere efforts the victors in the Iraqi elections
have exerted to include those who boycotted the
elections in the government have foundered because
the boycotters demand a timetable for the departure
of foreign forces. The tentative agreement of Sunni
Arab opposition groups to participate in the constitution-drafting
process was brokered by Shi‘i cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr, who is trusted by the boycotters because
of his vocal opposition to occupation.
Last but not least, the heavy US troop presence
encourages the very zero-sum sectarian politics
that we are warned would paralyze Iraq if the US
“cuts and runs.” Indiscriminate raids
and detentions in the “Sunni triangle”
have not only bred more anti-occupation guerrillas,
but also encouraged Sunni Arabs to organize as Sunni
Arabs as the Iraqi government fails to restrain
US military action. The Shi‘i religious parties
in the transitional government do not demand a withdrawal
because their US backing affords them time to entrench
their political power and, through the Interior
Ministry, a grip on the coercive apparatus of the
renascent Iraqi state. In the late spring came convincing
allegations that Interior Ministry men have staged
assassinations of Sunni Arab imams, some in reprisal
for killings of Shi‘i clerics. The US inches
closer and closer to backing one side in an Iraqi
civil war.
There is no panacea for the ills that afflict
today’s Iraq. Neither sectarian conflicts
nor Baathist revanchism nor acts of terrorism would
necessarily vanish if there were no US occupying
soldiers. But a continued US military presence cannot
eliminate any of these dangers to Iraq’s future.
It can only sharpen them.
US occupation is a major cause of the violence
plaguing Iraq—not the only cause, but definitely
not the cure. Washington should announce a withdrawal
of US troops on a timetable to begin forthwith.
This is the option likely to lead to the least violence
and the most democracy in the long run.
