Wait it Out

I mentioned this in a sarcastic mode, but Kevin Drum's right that it's worth considering the possibility that the essential "plan" in Iraq is just to stay there, in force, vaguely allied with whichever side (or sides) we perceive to be willing to ally with us, until, eventually, the civil war ends, a brilliant victory is portrayed, and the hippie peacenik scum are told to beat it. After all, civil wars do end if you just wait long enough.

On the other hand, the Tamil Tigers have been fighting for about thirty years and there's no particular sign of Sri Lanka's civil war coming to an end. Peace does seem to possibly be dawning in Northern Ireland (although not totally) but the current phase of fighting there's been going on for almost forty years. Meanwhile, at times it seems to me that the US military is leaning in the direction of exacerbating problems by introducing more and deadlier weapons into the area while tending to fragment political authority as elites lose authority (but gain guns) through association with us.

Comments

I think peace *has* dawned in Northern Ireland - the article you links to appears to rule out sectarianism in the recent pipe bomb attacks.

Posted by DavidS | September 3, 2007 9:21 AM

C'mon, the "plan" is to last until Jan. 20, 2009 without (a) withdrawal in "defeat" or (b) something happening in Iraq that was such an unmitigated disaster that even our somnolent press couldn't whitewash it. Then it's someone else's problem. That's been clear for a while, hasn't it?

Posted by Glenn | September 3, 2007 9:25 AM

Don't forget that our presence there is intrinsically inflammatory, pissing off both nationalists in Iraq and al-Qaeda sympathizers throughout the world. This indicates that us remaining to wait out the civil war may backfire when (a)the civil war ends because everyone unites around ejected the hating foreign force and (b)even if the post-civil war government was pro-American, our forces there would still experience significant amounts of violence aimed at them.

Posted by another problem | September 3, 2007 9:34 AM

"I think peace *has* dawned in Northern Ireland - the article you links to appears to rule out sectarianism in the recent pipe bomb attacks."

Also, the Troubles in Northern Ireland was never as violent and deadly as in Iraq today.

Posted by Reality Man | September 3, 2007 9:36 AM

I think the Administration and US armed forces have genuinely convinced themselves that it is somehow in Iraqi interests for US forces to remain in Iraq, much in the same way that executives at health insurance companies convince themselves they are doing something to help sick Americans. Viewed objectively, however, what's happening is much like what Drum says: the payoff of staying in Iraq will be that whenever the civil war burns itself out, there will be a large US military presence in the country that will be able to dictate or strongly influence the eventual government's foreign policy alignment (and its oil contracting). History suggests that such US influence will make the eventual government weaker rather than stronger, dividing the interests of power elites from those of average Iraqi constituents, and will fuel long-term hatred of the US in Iraq and across the Arab world. This is what has happened in other countries where the US has tried to exercise undue influence, from Latin America to South Vietnam, and even the Philippines and South Korea to some extent.

There may not be a single person in the US government who acknowledges this as a conscious aim; but if they end up with a weak, unstable, pseudo-democratic Shia-dominated Iraq where the US maintains bases and where American oil executives fly in to do deals and get preference over Russian or French ones, they will be quite happy with the results, and will creatively imagine the story of US intervention as one of a "struggle for freedom for the Iraqi people," which for various reasons, all the fault of the Iraqis themselves of course, was only partly successful.

Posted by brooksfoe | September 3, 2007 10:10 AM

Will it have a similar trajectory to the Philippines? Conquered in 1898, insurgency until 1913, US military bases until 1990?

Posted by stm177 | September 3, 2007 12:52 PM

"Peace does seem to possibly be dawning in Northern Ireland..."

Worth noting that, according to Michael Gordon's latest in the NYT Mag, one of the generals in Petraeus's counter-insurgency brain trust in Iraq is a British veteran of 8 tours in Northern Ireland.

Posted by Fred | September 3, 2007 1:42 PM

"Troubles in Northern Ireland were never as violent and deadly as in Iraq today"....
Maybe a little googling of 'Cromwell' or 'Battle of the Boyne' would correct that illusion. The origin of the 'troubles' was an attempt to actually exterminate Irish Catholics. About 450 yrs ago. Possibly would argue against the rationality of someone who wishes to wait until "whenever the civil war burns itself out", eh?

The thing with foreign occupations is how they don't stop annoying enough of the population to support the occaisional firebrand. When transient rebellions are put down their leaders become martyrs that inspire the next rebels. The more extreme the insurgency, the more likely there will be support.

Successful anti-insurgency ends with local clients (in India, the 'Raj') ruling in the interests of the foreigner so that the gov't has an indigenous face. Does that sound like Maliki? No, because no one in Iraq dares to identify their interests with ours. Therefore, we lose.

Posted by JohnMcC | September 3, 2007 4:59 PM

Why will we stay in Iraq?

Who do you think is getting that $10-12 billion a month it's costing?

Remember Everett Dirksen?

Not to mention that so long as you aren't actually clearly "defeated", the officer corps gets service medals and promotions for their "handling" of the situation in Iraq. The Pentagon officer corps LOVES this war! As long as it isn't "over", they haven't "lost." They love ANY war they aren't actually accused of losing.

The troops getting killed and maimed...not so much.

It's that simple. And it will equally true under the Democrats: same money, same officer corps.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 3, 2007 7:48 PM

Iraq is different from the cases of Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka for the simple reason that neither the Tamil Tigers nor the IRA had a benefactor willing to grant them such a huge supply of arms. The United States has effectively created in Iraq a country awash in guns (as if there weren't many guns floating around Iraq in 2002).
The US military has armed the various Shia and Kurdish factions, and is now -- in all likelihood -- arming Sunnis as well. Given the military's penchant for untruths, I doubt their claims to the contrary.
Few guerrilla or terrorist groups have had access to the kind of weaponry the various Iraqi factions exploit. The mere availability of guns could indeed perpetuate the violence in Iraq for some time, so long as there are also a steady supply of young unemployed men to use them.

Posted by Philippe Duhart | September 3, 2007 9:12 PM

"The mere availability of guns could indeed perpetuate the violence in Iraq for some time, so long as there are also a steady supply of young unemployed men to use them."

What about IEDs? A lot of the violence seems like Iraqis and foreign fighters blowing up mosques and pilgrims and Western patrols.

First war critics complain that there was no security post-Saddam. How do you impose security? As Saddam would tell you, with guns, among other means. Now they say there are too many guns.

Interesting snippet from Gordon's NYT mag piece:

"Capt. Ben Richards ... who was the first American officer to organize Sunnis in Baquba, told me that the Shiite provincial police chief had used ammunition as a means of political control. When the province received a large quantity of ammunition from the Interior Ministry, the police chief distributed 40,000 rounds to the predominantly Shiite police force in the nearby town of Khalis. Much of it is believed to have found its way to the Shiite Mahdi Army of Moktada al-Sadr. Richards said the Sunni police in eastern Baquba had received nothing."

In Northern Ireland, the Protestants, aligned with England, were oppressing the Catholics. In Iraq it's as if the Americans invaded N. Ireland, kicked the Protestants out of power, and installed the Catholics via elections. Except the Shiites (and Kurds) experienced worse oppression under the minority Sunnis, so yeah they're pissed and distrustful.

Posted by Peter K. | September 4, 2007 2:50 PM

Peace *has* dawned in Northern Ireland. And the reason they aren't going back is the eye-popping change in the economy.

Houses in Belfast are almost as expensive as, say, San Francisco: some areas, like the university area, have increased 8-fold in the past 10 years.

And a group that has done very well out of the property increase are former paramilitaries, who plowed their side-earnings from petty crime or takign their cut from the rackets that the paramilitary groups used to fund their activities into buying up former public housing sold at a discount to former public housing tenants. Those houses are now worth beaucoup bucks. So there's a substantial number of ex-terrorists who have a chunk of change in housing who wouldn't want to see it drop in price, as it would if violence resumed.

Posted by Sock Puppet of the Great Satan | September 4, 2007 4:07 PM