Democrats have failed their constituents often over the past few years in many respects, but their approach towards Iraq policy has been particularly wrong-headed. Yesterday, General Wesley Clark, in his opinion well-versed in strategic command, made some peculiar and contradictory remarks regarding Senator John McCain's capacity to be an effective wartime leader. Couched in the remarks was a noteworthy, hidden bit of rhetoric justifying a staged withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, for it echoed a muddled conclusion drawn by Senator Barack Obama as well as Senate majority leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: withdrawing US troops creates the incentive for an Iraqi government to take over running the security environment.
This is the most recent example of prominent Democrats perpetuating the naive caricature of themselves on matters of national security. The first strike against the Democrats was their supine response to a Bush administration beating the war drums. Rather than risk being assailed in the press as unpatriotic cowards, Democrats chose their reputations rather than the public good. They had the opportunity to take the moral high ground, wave the flag even prouder than the Republicans, by arguing on Constitutional principle that only the Senate could legally declare war. Even in a climate of fear, apprehension, and the interfering traffic of shoddy intelligence, a standoff pitting liberty versus security would have at worst stalled the Rumsfeld-Cheney clique, at best brought forth this generation's equivalent of union versus states' rights.
Secondly, Having abandoned both the moral high ground and pragmatism, the Democrats' self-relegation to sit silently in the backbenches permitted the administration to proceed unfettered in what have become international scandals in the handling of prisoners and suspects. Closer scrutiny may not have prevented extraordinary renditions, Guantanamo military tribunals or Abu Ghraib, but the office of the Vice President and Defense Department could not have operated without impunity as it seemingly did. So, having failed to question the initial case for war, Democrats voted for war, thereby trading credibility to save a public image. That the US found itself in an intractable conflict which has cost the lives of soldiers and civilians because politics took primacy over best practice is repugnant. What is truly vexing is that Democrats have espoused a withdrawal strategy. No evidence points that hastening the Iraqi government to responsibility and self-determination, though laudable goals, will work especially since the gains of the Surge are potentially reversible.
Greek philosopher Aristotle, in his Politics, argued that when confronted by the perceived transgressions of parents or the status quo, the tendency of a younger generation (or in this case second actor) is to expiate the sin by going to the extreme. Rather than confronting its own collective cowardice to challenge administration claims or to investigate them more thoroughly, Democrats opted to go with the flow, and when the plan started to go a little crooked, the only way to right their and the administration's wrongs would be to pull the troops with no regard for the compound error. Now, Iraq policy, along with the economy and energy policy, is one of the crucial issues of the November election.
One wonders where the logical link is that if the US withdraws its troops, then Iraqi government forces and police will fill the void. Iraqi soldiers are still ill-equipped and ill-prepared to maintain order without assistance from coalition forces. Moreover, leaving the security environment unresolved is as reckless as destabilizing the country in the first place. Without acceptable terms of mineral resource revenue division, human rights law, and a legal and coherent constitution, Iraqi government officials will have neither the trust of their peers or their people. Without adequate infrastructure, efficient delivery of basic services, and greater assurance of public safety, American intervention will be for naught. Coalition presence is necessary until the economy can stand without a prop. The ultimate goal for Iraq is independence and a greater sense of sovereignty, but it is dangerous to think the prospect of a coalition withdrawal will make the fledgling Iraqi federal government act faster. Moreover, an impatient approach smacks of disingenuous high-handedness where the Iraqis must adapt to being on their own based on an American ultimatum.
The strategic signal of staged withdrawal for the purpose of prodding Iraqi politicians into action is incoherent to the mutual aims of Iraqis and coalition forces. Ideally, Iraqi services, law and order will catch up to the vacuum to be left inevitably by troop withdrawal. However, accelerating the rate of change of autonomy is not a simple exercise. Such reasoning is as dangerous as that of administration war hawks who believed that bringing democracy will be a cure all. Iraq is a complex situation that is the doing of American politicians.
Brave servicemen have died obeying a commander in chief who believed the bullshit. The sense of duty and courage of all the fighting personnel is indeed commendable, and their continued efforts in civilian defense and nation building are necessary to ease hostilities. Prolonged military presence in the Persian Gulf is necessary, for any alternative will compound the initial error. To avoid the strategic quicksand, Democrats ought to examine not the potential effect of withdrawal, but muddled logic presupposes the readiness of Iraq to stand on its own against internecine strife and pressure from its eastern neighbor, Iran. The stance taken by Democrats is more posture, more fake toughness. Most worrying is how ill-conceived the idea is given that the fundamental reasoning is so egregiously flawed.
