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Iraq: A civil war we can still win
8.9.2006
By Charles Krauthammer
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Friday, September
8, 2006
As the Democrats turn themselves into the antiwar
party, as popular support for the war continues to
sink, as some who initially signed on to the war now
heap scorn on the entire Iraqi project, the question
of immediate withdrawal must be confronted.
There are two rationales for withdrawing from --
let's be honest, abandoning -- Iraq: (a) Iraq is not
worth it, and (b) worth it or not, the cause is
lost.
The first rationale was articulated most recently by
John Kerry: "Iraq is not the center of the war on
terror. The president keeps saying it is. The
president keeps trying to push that down America's
throat. It's wrong, it's a mistake and it's losing
us the ability to do what we need to do in the
region." This is absurd. If the United States
leaves, the central government in Iraq will
collapse, and the beneficiaries will be Iran, Syria
and al-Qaeda, the three major terrorist actors in
the world today. It would not just be a
psychological victory but also a territorial one.
Al-Qaeda would gain a base in Mesopotamia; Syria and
Iran would share spheres of influence in what's left
of the Iraqi state.
We might come out of this with an independent
Kurdistan that could be a base for U.S. military
power, but it would be a shrunken presence in a
roiling area, a tragically small consolation prize.
One can argue that we should therefore have left
Saddam Hussein in place. That assumes a stable and
benign status quo ante . Both assumptions are false.
But assume for a moment that the critics are right.
That's the argument that should have been made --
that Kerry should have made -- four years ago,
before he voted yes, before he voted no, before he
voted yes on the war. At this point, it is simply
indisputable that the collapse of Iraq's
constitutional government would represent an
enormous gain for the forces of terror.
The other rationale for withdrawal is that the war
is lost and therefore it is unconscionable to make
one more American soldier die for a cause that
cannot be salvaged.
It is a serious argument from which we have been
distracted during the past several months by the
increasingly absurd debate over the meaning of the
term "civil war," and whether Iraq is in one.
Of course it is. It began when the Sunni minority,
unwilling to accept the finality of the Baathist
defeat, began making indiscriminate war on the
Kurdish-Shiite majority that had inherited the
country as a result of the U.S. invasion.
Iraq is not Spain in the 1930s or America in the
1860s, but whether the phrase "civil war" is to be
used is irrelevant. The relevant question is, can we
still win, meaning can we leave behind a
functioning, self-sustaining, Western-friendly
constitutional government?
And that depends on whether the government of Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki can face up to its two
potentially mortal threats: the Sunni insurgency and
the challenge from Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
The vast majority of Sunnis are fighting not for
ideology but for a share of power and (oil) money. A
deal with them is eminently possible and could
co-opt enough Sunnis to greatly shrink the
insurgency. Even now, the insurgents have the
capacity to massacre civilians and kill coalition
soldiers with roadside bombs, but they have never
demonstrated the capacity for the kind of sustained
unit action that ultimately overthrows governments
and wins civil wars. (See Castro, Mao, North
Vietnam.) Our ambassador in Baghdad has been urging
the Maliki government to make the bargain. He has
also been urging it to get serious about the growing
internal threat of Sadr's Mahdi Army, which is
responsible for much of the recent sectarian
violence and threatens to either marginalize or
supplant the central government.
The only positive element in Sadr's rise has been a
fracturing of the united Shiite front that can now
allow some cross-sectarian (Sunni-Shiite) deals and
alliances. But that requires a Maliki government
decisively willing to deal with the Sunnis and take
on Sadr.
Yesterday Maliki took over operational control of
the Iraqi armed forces, the one national security
institution that works. He needs to demonstrate the
will to use it. The American people will support a
cause that is noble and necessary, but not one that
is unwinnable. And without a central Iraqi
government willing to act in its own self-defense,
this war will be unwinnable.
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