Ending the War

As those who've read Michael Crowley's shrewd article on Barack Obama and Iraq, it's far from clear that an Obama administration would, in fact, act expeditiously to withdraw all American troops from Iraq. It might, but then again it might not, and I actually suspect it's something of a Schrodinger's Cat situation where the candidate himself knows he best not think too hard about the question lest he end up alienating someone. But barring some dramatic change in the regional situation, we really ought to move expeditiously to withdraw all American troops from Iraq. How to get it done? Nick Beaudrot recommends supporting challengers who've embraced the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq:

It's important to elect as may Democrats as possible who believe that they were sent to Washington to end the war, so that there's sufficient pressure on the Democratic President that we don't end up with some sort of semi-withdrawal where we're still conducting some sort of significant mission in Iraq come 2010 or 2012.

Well I certainly hope that works. On the other hand, if congressional Democrats weren't willing to force partisan enemy George W. Bush's hand, it's hard to imagine any kind of Democratic congress, no matter how bolstered with fresh liberal blood, forcing the hand of a President Obama who'd get more benefit of the doubt on this stuff. Realistically, whatever levers exist will probably have to act more directly on the White House. And, no, I'm not sure what the answer is.

I will say that the legitimate strategic arguments aside, there's a perfectly good cynical argument for leaving, namely that if you run and win an electoral mandate to say "Bush screwed this up and we should leave" and then we leave and then the situation looks like a mess, that's on Bush as per the election results. But if you stay and kinda sorta leave but really keep a lot of folks around and say "I have a better plan for Iraq" and then the situation looks like a mess, that's on you as per your claims to have a smart plan for Iraq. Now I certainly hope the next president will consider substance as well as politics, but inevitably he (or she) will consider politics as well as substance, so anyone who thinks leaving is strategically correct had probably best be able to muster a political argument as well.

Comments

Sadly, I think you're right, Matt. Which is not to say that on general foreign policy matters, Obama isn't better than Clinton, just that on the specific matter of Iraq it's hard to imagine him doing much different or being particularly bold.

Posted by Ryan | May 1, 2008 3:55 PM

I'll post on this, but this one seems obvious. If the war isn't really over, half of the netroots will join forces with anyone disenchanted with the next President to start a Feingold-Schweitzer '12 movement and make things really tough. Hell, I'd get on board with that.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | May 1, 2008 4:00 PM

When will we see a plan from Obama to end the other major war we're engaged in, in Afghanistan? All the arguments that Matt has against Kagan's definition of victory in Iraq could easily be applied to the situation in Afghanistan, and yet Dems are committed to ensuring failure in Iraq, but continuing to try to win in Afghanistan. Why?

Posted by Fred | May 1, 2008 4:16 PM

While I'm also not convinced that Obama is dedicated to withdrawing, that doesn't mean that the analogy to Bush is apt.

Bush really, really, really doesn't want to leave Iraq. Really doesn't want to, a whole lot. So it would have been incredibly difficult to end the war while Bush still sat in the oval office. I agree that the Dems' pitiful efforts weren't really enough, but they probably couldn't have forced his hand.

Obama in contrast, will be much less invested in staying. So a strong push by a Democratic congress could well help ease things in the right direction.

I'm not entirely optimistic, but I still don't think that the analogy to the '07-08 congress means much.

Posted by ResumeMan | May 1, 2008 4:28 PM

Matt -

I think you're missing the point here. In 2006, the Democrats were able to win with the support of those opposing the war by being very vague about what they planned to do, either politically or policy-wise. The entire idea of the Plan is to approach this differently than in 2006 - so "it didn't work in 2006" doesn't tell us much.

Besides, where any presidential candidate or President is willing to be on an issue is party a product of where their party is. Do you really think that the strength of the anti-war forces in Congress will have no impact on an potential Obama administration?

Posted by David Kaib | May 1, 2008 4:34 PM

Right now, Barack Obama is campaigning on leaving Iraq. The Democratic Congress in 2009 will have a mandate to leave Iraq. Everyone wants to leave Iraq and wants to leave Iraq responsibly.

Barack Obama is far from Bush on this matter and reading Crowley's piece it seemed to me he missed the key fact that there is a substantial difference in having a president who wants out of the mess in Iraq and one who believes we need to "win" in some fashion.

Right now, out of all the actors left on stage i think Obama has the clearest intention to leave. He has a program to the right of Edwards who would leave no residual forces, but it is a program that would dramatically reduce stress on the military and allow him to work to broaden support for allies to work as peacekeepers by (1) making the argument a peaceful Iraq is one delivering oil and (2) will have abandoned the pre-emptive attack posture of the previous adminstration.

Posted by Rhoda | May 1, 2008 4:46 PM

McCain says that withdrawing from Iraq is surrendering to the terrorists. Obama should say that victory over the terrorists means surrendering to Europe, making a grand tour to ask our old allies for their help and the rest of the world. A great deal will become possible diplomatically for Obama which will never be possible for Bush. We should convert the Baghdad Embassy into a headquarters of the United Nations. We need Alaska style oil revenue sharing for individual Iraqis and internationalization of the security. Don't see any other way.

Posted by wetzel | May 1, 2008 4:50 PM

"Will withdrawal be good for Israel?"

Unfortunately, this is the true question that goes through the minds of our congressional leaders. Nancy Pelosi was booed at the AIPAC conference.... She quickly pulled the plug on legislation that would have forced the President to go to congress before any attack upon Iran.

The Iraq war was for oil, Israel, and logistics (airbases), not democracy, kurdish freedom, or WMD. An Iranian controlled Baghdad would not be tolerated by Israel. American troops are in Iraq for the long haul. Probably 50-70 thousand.

Any less than 50k troops in Iraq will be a replay of Dien Bien Phu. Remember that one?

Posted by del | May 1, 2008 4:50 PM

"A Schrodinger's Cat situation"? WTF?

Posted by right | May 1, 2008 4:58 PM

Hate to say it but I'd be curious to hear Matt's answer to Fred's question about Afghanistan. I mean sure, the initial invasion was arguably much more defensible than in the case of Iraq, and yes we have NATO on board, but is our actual current strategy there any more wise, and/or the prospects of success any better, even with the hypothetically greater quantity of resources we'd have available were we to withdraw from Iraq like Matt recommends?

Posted by Ryan | May 1, 2008 5:11 PM

Consequences of the last Democrat "cut 'n run":

"At least 65,000 Vietnamese were murdered or shot after "liberation" – the equivalent in terms of Vietnam's population at the time, of killing three-quarters of a million people in today's U.S. The new communist regime ordered somewhere between one- third to one-half of South Vietnam's population to pass through its "re-education" camps, where perhaps as many as 250,000 died of disease, starvation, or were worked to death (the last inmates were not released until 1986).

That number does not include the thousands of "boat people" who tried to flee the totalitarian nightmare of communist Vietnam, and perished at sea.

Cambodia's fate was even worse. At least one and a half million innocent Cambodians were butchered or starved to death in the Khmer Rouge's killing fields and re-education camps, put to death by a fanatical regime that believed that anyone who wore eyeglasses must have "bourgeois intellectual tendencies" and be shot.

The scale of moral collapse and suffering went beyond Indochina. The pullout had a ripple effect on U.S. power and prestige, just as the proponents of the so-called "domino theory" had warned. American foreign policy, crippled by remorse and self-doubt, stood helplessly as others rushed into the power vacuum.

Marxist-Leninist regimes emerged not only in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, but in Ethiopia and Guinea Bissau (1974), Madagascar, Cape Verde, Mozambique, and Angola (1975), Afghanistan (1978), and Grenada and Nicaragua (1979). Soviet troops were welcomed in Fidel Castro's Cuba for the first time since the 1962 missile crisis. Cuban troops traveled freely to Africa to prop up Marxist regimes there.

In 1979 the Ayatollah Khomeini was able to establish his brutal theocratic rule over Iran, confident that America, having learned "the lessons of Vietnam," would never intervene."

Posted by chris ford | May 1, 2008 5:16 PM

Schrodinger's Cat is the perfect analogy, in the sense that a candidate's Iraq policy doesn't actually exist in one state or another until it is observed, ie implemented.

Incidentally, after months of being simultaneously punished and not punished, Pavlov's dog learned not to chase after Schrodinger's Cat.

(from a friend)

Posted by Gabriel | May 1, 2008 5:19 PM

Oh, and:

Dems are committed to ensuring failure in Iraq, but continuing to try to win in Afghanistan.

I'm certain the first half of this statement is incorrect (ending an endeavor which it was wrong to start is not "failure") and I suspect the second half is incorrect, too -- most Dems probably don't think much about Afghanistan one way or the other. If they did, I'm not sure they'd remain keen on that mission for long.

Posted by Ryan | May 1, 2008 5:20 PM

Definitely a Catch22 situation for any Democrat who becomes president and wants to change the untenable military situation in Iraq. If we change the argument to the economic feasibility of sustaining the war and our economy doesn't shoot up fast enough - the Republicans hit us. If the violence goes up upon our withdrawal and Iraqi citizens and our soldiers take more of a hit - the Republicans can hit us on that, too. If another terrorist attack occurs, we get hit on being weak and on not understanding the full force of these evildoers by the Republicans. If the Iraqi government turns more theocratic, we take a hit for not promoting democracy.

It all comes down to that Democratic congressmen needed to have been stronger in their opposition to this fiasco from the beginning, but they weren't and now no solution can be ideal. The war on terror was intended to last indefinitely making profits for the military industrial complex. It's going to be hard to take away that cash from all the companies that are profiting immensely - from the oil industry to Blackwater.

Posted by Julene | May 1, 2008 5:23 PM

It might, but then again it might not, and I actually suspect it's something of a Schrodinger's Cat situation where the candidate himself knows he best not think too hard about the question lest he end up alienating someone.

Having just read your book, I would say you are projecting here. With the exception of one well-argued passage on the concert of democracies proposals, it's an extraordinarily controversy-free little tome. I will admit that it does take some balls to write a whole book that purports to advise Democrats on the foreign policy they should defend, and yet steers clear of any concrete discussion of the state of the actual world. But I do know now that whatever the hell is going on out there, and whatever we actually do about it, we should enunciate our commitment to "rules and norms." Got it.

Posted by Dan Kervick | May 1, 2008 5:29 PM

What Rhoda said.

Would a newly elected Democratic president challenge his own party's base in Congress?

Posted by Mike | May 1, 2008 5:32 PM

best be able to muster a political argument as well.

Really? Its seems like the political argument is the easier of the two. You know, like, well over half the country is upset with the War in Iraq and wants it to end?

Posted by Adrock | May 1, 2008 5:33 PM

Pace Schrödinger (and Gabriel), we currently both (a) have troops in Iraq and (b) have withdrawn them. It’s only when we check that the condition collapses into either (a) or (b). That’s why the news media give the whole problem so little attention. It really is for our own good.

Posted by tinman | May 1, 2008 5:39 PM

If Obama doesn't get our soldiers out of Iraq in his first term, he won't get a second term. Americans didn't suddenly turn liberal. They just want this Iraq disaster over with. If Obama can't deliver that, they'll see no reason to keep him in office.

About Afghanistan, the difference was that invading Afghanistan was justified, legal, and supported by the entire world; whereas invading Iraq was unjustified, illegal, and opposed by the entire world. I never believed the operation in Afghanistan would accomplish anything; but it was politically necessary. If staying there a while longer accomplishing some more nothing is politically necessary for getting us out of Iraq, then fine, we should stay a while longer - and then get out of there.

Posted by Gary Sugar | May 1, 2008 5:46 PM

Forget '12. Neither Democrat, as President, could refuse to withdraw from Iraq without destroying the party long before the 2010 Congressional elections. Either Clinton or Obama would be envying Bush's current approval ratings.

Posted by JMG | May 1, 2008 5:53 PM

Now Matt this really really is silly.
Yes Obama could blame everything that goes bad in his mythical administration on Bush.
God knows Obama already blames everyone else for all his screw ups.
And Bush has certainly set an exemplary example for passing the buck.
Sadly for Bush and Obama the public aren't quite as stupid as you seem to suggest and hope.
Having run on ending the war, troops out in 16 months, all that bs, then Obama will immediately come under pressure to begin significant withdrawals.
If he does not he will deserve and receive hell from all quarters.
His honeymoon would be incredibly brief.
And, whether Obama withdraws troops or not, if things in Iraq worsen it will be Obama's responsibility.
That comes with the job.
And you can bet that next year, after the inauguration, Iraq will see a major uptick in violence as Iraqis test the new president.
Sadr et al. are going to have much less patience with Hussein than the "progressive" keyboard squadron allows for.
And then it will really get fun here as Obama begins to talk about raising taxes.
It will almost be worth four more years of his vaudeville show just to see Obama's ignominious end.
"Worse than Bush"! What an epitaph he'll earn and deserve...

Posted by JTHB | May 1, 2008 6:11 PM

"And you can bet that next year, after the inauguration, Iraq will see a major uptick in violence as Iraqis test the new president.
Sadr et al. are going to have much less patience with Hussein than the "progressive" keyboard squadron allows for."

Toward the end, it becomes unclear -- what is this patience with Hussein? Barack Hussein?

The situation in Iraq pretty much stabilized, and there is not much war there than WE WANT. There was a ceasefire with Sadrists, and Maliki broke it, probably goaded by us. They can patch it up again.

Analogy with Vietnam: comparison of the "post-liberation" carnage in Vietnam with "pre-liberation" suggests that withdrawal was the right thing. And this is doubly true in Iraq: we are aliens and strangers there, and we cannot solve their problems, it is not even clear that we try.

Posted by piotr | May 1, 2008 7:07 PM

"Pace Schrödinger (and Gabriel), we currently both (a) have troops in Iraq and (b) have withdrawn them. It’s only when we check that the condition collapses into either (a) or (b). That’s why the news media give the whole problem so little attention. It really is for our own good."

I like this very much, but I don't think Schrodinger's Cat is supposed to apply to "macro" objects and states of affairs. It's not that when we look the situation collapses into (a), it is (a).

That being said, I'm not sure what Matt means by 'a Schrodingers Cat situation' here. Schrodinger was actually trying to alienate those who advocated the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics because they didn't think hard enough of about its consequences.
Against this, of course, one could claim that jettisoning the principle of non-contradiction for specially circumscribed purposes is perfectly legitimate provided people don't misuse the concept. Like say, arguing that an invasion was necessary to remove WMDs until it was necessary to drain the swamp of terrorism until it was necessary to promote freedom until it was necessary to increase oil production, depending on the moron doing the justifying.

Posted by Jack | May 1, 2008 7:17 PM

The Democratic candidates are both making "ending the war" the centerpiece of their plans, along with pledges to "start bringing our troops home."

Obama is going to start withdrawing combat brigades right away, and he will keep withdrawing them on the schedule he's proposed as long as Iraq doesn't blow up. But surely there is some intentional flexibility built in over what exactly is "the war", and what are "combat brigades" etc. What exactly do troops have to have as their mission to count as part of a "combat brigade?" Are those exclusively Army units?

Clinton has been quite direct about what she plans to leave behind in Iraq. She has said she will leave "specialized units" behind to fight Al Qaeda "and other terrorist organizations in the region." Of course, she voted for Lieberman-Kyl, which declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist organization.

Under what conditions could the candidates be said to have fulfilled their promises to "end the war" ? Suppose the next president withdraws troops down to about 40,000 or so, redeploys the rest into some of those fancy new bases in stable areas of the country, including around our gargantuan embassy, and then stops and stands pat. Suppose the country doesn't blow up, the government continues to gain power and establish control over broader parts of the country, political reconciliation moves forward, etc. Suppose US casualties are reduced to near zero - no higher, lets say, than the typical casualty rate from troops stationed at any of our bases around the world. Won't most people accept at that point that "the war" is over?

What percentage of war opponents will then be very dissatisfied with that outcome? What percentage will be reasonably satisfied?

Posted by Dan Kervick | May 1, 2008 7:34 PM

Suppose US casualties are reduced to near zero

That's what Obama has to achieve to satisfy the people who will vote for him. He can achieve that goal by withdrawing almost all US soldiers from Iraq as he has promised. Any other approach would be so much less likely to reduce US casualties to near zero within three or four years, he'd be crazy to try it. There will be a lot of pressure on him from the generals, the war profiteers, and nationalist fanboys, so who knows, maybe he will try something crazy.

Posted by Gary Sugar | May 1, 2008 8:23 PM

I just realized today that I (and everyone I know who supports Obama) thinks he's basically bullshitting everyone about a great many things and secretly doesn't believe half of what he says.

I don't like Hillary who I don't know one way or another if she's bullshitting about a great many things but suspect based on pulling in Bill's old political team will resurrect the old triangulationist handbook and I get screwed no matter what's in her heart of hearts.

I have absolutely idea what McCain believes in anymore but his media story is that he says exactly what he believes no matter how damaging. So straight-talk express is going to be running against a campaign based on putting one passed everybody.

Obama needs to make a call on Iraq for that reason alone.

Posted by Ed Marshall | May 1, 2008 8:32 PM

Oh come on, Matt. If a Dem president leaves Iraq and it becomes a mess, you can bet that will be blamed on the Dem, not Bush--they've already got their "stabbed in the back" meme all ready. Because of this, I don't think any President is going to pull out of Iraq quickly, even though he/she should. It's like why Gitmo won't be closed, even though that also should be done--the political downsides of both moves are just too great. McCain is actually in a much better position to do both of these than any Dem, for Nixon-going-to-China reasons--no one's ever going to question his patriotism or willingness to protect America, even if they should--but of course he won't.

Posted by beckya57 | May 1, 2008 9:05 PM

Gary Sugar - Any other approach would be so much less likely to reduce US casualties to near zero within three or four years, he'd be crazy to try it.

The goal of the US military is not to have Zero Casualties - It is to protect the nation and it's people and serve the country's vital interests. The annual death rate of the military under Bush II is less than the annual military deaths under Jimmy Carter before Reagan upgraded equipment and safety.
If the military is doing it's job, as it trains in a high risk, high kinetics environment it SHOULD have some deaths showing they are training on the edge and getting better, even in peacetime.

If you want a job with Zero Deaths, don't volunteer to be a soldier, construction worker, firefighter, an ironworker, a fisherman....be a Lefty running a vegan store, a government apparachnik in a safe building pushing paper, or be safe inside a school trying to teach unmotivated kids stuff Asians their age mastered a year or two earlier.

Posted by chris ford | May 2, 2008 12:35 AM

There are two real problems here that are likely to be far worse than Obama's simply being late to withdraw from Iraq.

1) The Iraqis are going to force a withdrawal within the next two years anyway, assuming the Sunnis and Sadr's group win big in the provincial elections this year and the parliamentary ones next year. This, however, could give good cover for Obama if the Iraqis actually finally ASK the US to leave.

2) Bush and Cheney are going to attack Iran. Now, while it is likely that this will result in the US being forced out of Iraq, the alternatives are even worse - namely a major war BOTH in Iraq against the Shia supporters of Iran AND Iran. And since Obama is an Iran hawk, the problem for him is 1) he might not get elected; and 2) if he is, what's he going to do about a war he's inherited - a much hotter war than Iraq was?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 2, 2008 1:25 AM

Crowley's article is a good one, and long overdue. No one who believes that we just got into a war in Iraq in 2003 due to "Bush lies" is going to like facing reality in the future any more than they have up to now, which is to say not at all.

"The war" was over years ago. We are now in Iraq under a unanimous UN mandate at the express request of the freely-elected government there in order to assist it in stabilizing the situation during the post-Saddam power struggle, which was inevitable.

We will be "out of Iraq" when Islamic terrorism is not longer a problem, and when the world runs on hydrogen fuel cells instead of petroleum. Neither of these things are going to happen during the next four-to-eight years no matter who gets elected.

Posted by Robert Powell | May 2, 2008 2:57 AM

Logistically, there is only one road that can really be used for withdrawal down to Kuwait (I doubt that Turkey is exactly going to let us cut through Iraqi Kurdistan into Turkey's Kurdish areas to the sea where our Navy can wait to pick up troops or something). That road can only handle so many troops at a time, so any withdrawal will be a form of phased withdrawal no matter what. The question then becomes whether or not Obama will be willing to risk his re-election chances on doing this. I think people will give him a pass about having troops at our embassy - after all, there are soldiers just at about every American embassy in dangerous hotspots worldwide and no one wants our ambassadors getting kidnapped or killed - but if he leaves residual forces that keep on chasing after the whack-a-mole new terrorist organization of the week, the Democrats will abandon him and the Republicans won't back him. As such, withdrawal will be pretty much required for him to be re-elected. The question is whether or not he is willing to be attacked from the right to do this.

It should also be pointed out that some percentage of forces withdrawn from Iraq could be re-deployed to Afghanistan, thus increasing the chance of success there.

"We will be "out of Iraq" when Islamic terrorism is not longer a problem, and when the world runs on hydrogen fuel cells instead of petroleum. Neither of these things are going to happen during the next four-to-eight years no matter who gets elected.

Posted by Robert Powell | May 2, 2008 2:57 AM"

And down goes American power. We can't borrow from the Chinese forever and our military can't sustain its current troop levels, which aren't high enough in the first place to accomplish anything, (unless a massive recession forces a lot of new high school grads into the military and a bunch of foreign countries suddenly decide to send troops), which basically means that your plan would sacrifice American power and hand hegemony over the world over the Chinese all over a nation of around 20 million people.

Posted by Reality Man | May 2, 2008 6:37 AM

Don't worry Matt I guarantee you won't see a President Obama scenario. If he gets the top ticket McCain will win. As it is now obvious to everyone that Obama crumbles like a house of cards when the full weight of the right wing machine is focused on him. And actually it's this same inability to defend himself that will ultimately deny his nomination.

You guys can keep bringing all your Ted Kennedy's out of the closet one by one if you like, it won't matter. The dems aren't going to lose thi year by nominating another empty suit.

That you are now acknowledging Obama has no plan to end the war, really says everything we need to know about this tragically flawed candidate.

Posted by patience | May 2, 2008 11:25 AM

"At least 65,000 Vietnamese were murdered or shot after "liberation"

Yeah, and about 2 million civilians were killed during the war. What is that in terms of population equivalence.

Posted by jeff | May 2, 2008 12:48 PM

"At least 65,000 Vietnamese were murdered or shot after "liberation"

Yeah, and about 2 million civilians were killed during the war. What is that in terms of population equivalence.

Posted by jeff | May 2, 2008 12:50 PM

The simple fact is the Bush administration has been so secretive and dishonest, none of the Presidential candidates know what's being hidden, so none can fully explain what exactly they will do until they get inside the WH and see how bad the cancer is.

Firm intentions to get out are about all I can really expect, much as I might wish otherwise.

Posted by Bullsmith | May 2, 2008 1:00 PM

The Reality, Man, is that a nation of 300 million people that has so much money that much of the world economy is based on our discretionary purchases, can easily afford a military big enough to actually win wars if we want to.

For most of my life our military establishment was predicated on having the ability to win two major wars in two different parts of the world at the same time. So now we're supposed to accept that we can't even support two allied governments in their own countries against rag-tag insurgencies with no infrastructure, little popular support, no plan for governance, and no chance of taking power?

I can't wait to see the general election commercials based on "No, we can't".

Posted by Robert Powell | May 2, 2008 2:38 PM