Politics of Evasion

In a strange convergence, William Greider in The Nation endorses (without calling it that) the Jonah Goldberg referendum plan for Iraq, doing us the kindness of specifying what question he wants to see. Namely, Iraqis should choose between these three options:

1. I ask that all coalition forces be withdrawn within six months of the date of this referendum.

2. I ask that all coalition forces be withdrawn within one year of the date of this referendum.

3. I ask that the government of Iraq determine some time in the future when all coalition forces should be withdrawn.

Like any referendum-based plan for Iraq, this seems to me to founder on the details. Ask three questions and there'll probably be no majority. And suppose option three winds in a plurality grounded in overwhelming Kurdish support but clear majorities of Iraqi Arabs want us to leave in a six or twelve month timeframe. Then withdrawing loses legitimacy (we held a referendum!) but staying also loses the relevant sort of legitimacy in the Arab-populated areas where we're actually operating (we voted for y'all to leave and you're still here). Ultimately, this whole notion strikes me as a rather desperate casting-about, a desire to somehow evade the rather ugly policy choices facing the nation.

Call it the populist counterpoint to David Ignatius' call for "less partisan bickering" as the solution to Iraq.

Comments

How about having that referendum in the US?

Posted by Mal | October 25, 2006 12:58 PM

Did Ignatius really say that? O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful, wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all hooping!

Can't we all just get along?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 25, 2006 1:47 PM

Having been a resident of the most initiative crazy state in the country for my whole life, I suggest that vox populi is not the way to go to determine policy or to run a country. Polls are one thing to incite policy makers to make policy, but they are not policy themselves. I give you Proposition 13 which has turned California into a centralized government in a decentralized culture.

Posted by Ernie Fazio | October 25, 2006 1:52 PM

If there were a referendum like this, the cheerleaders would call it illegitimate because there isn't a choice that says:

4. Let the liberators stay for as long as they like.

Posted by Mike | October 25, 2006 2:10 PM

If one really wanted to get a useful result out of the referendum, one would have to ask it in a series of yes/no questions, like a flow chart.

That is, 1. Should coalition forces be withdrawn on a certain date? 2. If question one recieves greater than 50% 'yes' vote, then should that date certain be 6 months from date of referendum, or one year from referendum?

Of course as Matt implies, it could be that Goldman and Greider don't actually want to get to a definitive answer.

Posted by Robert Earle | October 25, 2006 2:13 PM

The Jonah Goldman referendum plan is actually a very good idea. Iraquis will vote for the US to leave and this will completely avoid the "democrats stabbed America in the back" criticism.

It also allows the US to pretend we were successful. We aren't going to make things better so we may as well leave now.

"Should coalition forces be withdrawn from Iraq?"

Posted by joeo | October 25, 2006 2:34 PM

Goldberg's arguments in favor of a referendum are disingenuous given the predictions of catastrophe he and other conservatives have made until now if the U.S. "cuts and runs." Does anyone honestly believe that all of the horrors war proponents have foreseen if we leave Iraq (Al Qaeda gets a new base of operations, the death of democracy in the Middle East, regionwide war between Shiites and Sunnis, etc.) won't happen simply because the Iraqi people cast ballots?

I don't see it.

Posted by rutherdan | October 25, 2006 3:27 PM

This is idiotic. I understand the appeal to Republicans (we didn't lose the war) and Dems (troops home sooner) but you don't give foreingn governments control over our policy. If it is right to withdraw then it is what we should do no matter what the Iraqis vote for. If the Iraqis vote for 'liberate us for ten more years' we would all realize what a dumb idea this is.

Posted by slay the corpse | October 25, 2006 3:40 PM

you don't give foreingn governments control over our policy.

uh... slay the corpse, we're talking about our occupation of someone else's country here. That is precisely the sort of situation in which giving a foreign government control over our policy is appropriate, because it's their country. Is it even logically possible, in your view, for continuing the occupation of Iraq to be the right thing to do if a majority of Iraqis want us to leave post haste?

I think the problems Matt points to could be solved by just eliminating question 1 from Greider's plan: after all, just becuase our deadline to leave is one year off, doesn't mean we couldn't get out earlier. I imagine that if such a referendum carried majority support in Iraq (as it surely would), we'd be getting out ASAP.

Posted by Rich C | October 25, 2006 4:17 PM

stc arrivves as an univited guest to your house and stays for months. When you politely ask him to leave, he responds indignantly that he doesn't give other people control over his decisions . . .

Posted by rea | October 25, 2006 6:49 PM

hey geniuses - either it is in America's interest to stay in Iraq or it isn't. rea - you are absolutely right invading and occupying a country is just like crashing on your friend's couch for a few months. Did you learn that analogy at Fletcher?

Posted by slay the corpse | October 26, 2006 5:12 AM