What If...

Folks know that I like counterfactuals, so I thought I might muse on a point that I think's gotten too little attention. Thus far, discussion of tactics in Iraq has tended to focus on either the question of whether things could have gone better had we gone in with a larger force and better counterinsurgency tactics in 2003, or else on how big of a positive impact the "surge" had over the course of 2007. Another point worth considering, however, is whether smarter policy back in 2005 couldn't have avoided the mass bloodshed of 2006 and early 2007.

After all, January 2005 would have been a very logical time to start packing up our bags and going home. After deposing Saddam and putting a new governmental framework in place, the United States came to be faced with an anti-American insurgency. We were having little success in actually beating the insurgents, but the violence in Iraq wasn't causing the huge levels of destruction that we would see later. What's more, at that point in time it wasn't considered acceptable for mainstream figures to muse about staying in Iraq for 100 years or to editorialize that keeping troops in Iraq is more important than defeating al-Qaeda in Central Asia because Iraq "contains some of the world's largest oil reserves".

Instead, the reason given for why we had to stay in Iraq was that if we left Iraq there would be civil war, sectarian violence, and ethnic cleansing. Since we know all of that happened anyway it seems reasonable to second guess the decision-making that led us to stay. What would have happened if sometime in November or December of 2004 the Bush administration announced that while it wasn't prepared to schedule a departure from Iraq, it was looking forward to negotiating a timetable for withdrawal with the new Iraqi government to be elected in January? Well, it seems to me that a few things would have happened. One is that Sunni Arabs would have participated in the elections at a higher rate. Another is that insurgent groups would have had much less reason to make common cause with AQI. And a third is that Muqtada al-Sadr would have been deprived of us best "wedge issue" to use against the other Shiite parties.

We would have bequeathed to Iraq, I think, something that looks a lot like Iraq today -- a chaotic situation where the government has little capacity and where things could fall apart in various ways, but where there isn't the kind of ongoing boiling-over civil war that in fact came to haunt the country.

Comments

"What would have happened if sometime in November or December of 2004 the Kerry administration announced that while it wasn't prepared to schedule a departure from Iraq, it was looking forward to negotiating a timetable for withdrawal with the new Iraqi government to be elected in January?"

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Posted by doofman | July 23, 2008 1:38 PM

Or, and I know this is crazy, but hear me out anyway.

We could just have not gone into Iraq at all.

Hey, as long as we're rewinding the hypothetical time machine and all ...

Posted by justinb | July 23, 2008 1:40 PM

You could raise the same point about January 2007, when the surge actually began.

The Anbar Awakening had already taken hold in the west. And with US troops headed for the exits, the Anbaris would have established full control. In Baghdad, the Sunni extremists would have kept the Shi'ite militiamen from ethnically cleansing their neighborhoods. But, if Petraeus were in charge, he would have been able to find enough anti-Al Qaeda and anti-Sadrist civilians to form neighborhood defense patrols anyway.

The key was not the surge. The key US move was putting Petraeus in charge. The extra surge troops certainly helped by giving an extra Marine brigade to Anbar, more manpower in Baghdad, freeing up Iraqi soldiers for Diyala and Mosul. But the tipping point against Al Qaeda had already been reached before the surge took full effect. The key was the Sadrite ceasefire, which resulted from completely unrelated issues (intra-Shi'ite fighting in Karbala and Najaf). Had Sadr gone ahead with his ceasefire anyway, Baghdad would have calmed down a bit and the ethnic cleansing would not have been so devastating.

The surge helped. But there was a real cost in terms of the total ethnic cleansing of Baghdad. The map of Baghdad in December 2006 vs. August 2007 is striking. The mixed neighborhoods were gone. That made the concrete barrier strategy work.

Posted by Elrod | July 23, 2008 1:50 PM

Agree with justinb. We sent the inspectors into every nook and cranny of Iraq that could possibly have held a nuclear weapons facility. To all but the most grievously addicted fantasist, we should have just mopped our collective brows with relief and called off the dogs. The next time Saddam committed a fresh outrage, we send a smart bomb to where we think he is. If it missed the next time we send 3. Etc. Continue as needed. Meanwhile, we lift the friggin' embargo, and start washing ourselves all that cool Iraqi oil. At 2001 prices!

While we're dealing in counter-factuals ...

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 23, 2008 1:52 PM

We would have left Iraq. The Iraqi security forces would have been unprepared to counter the Shiite militia and al Qaeda. The Shiite militia would have taken over part of Iraq, and al Qaeda would have taken over other parts. We would be powerless to stop that from happening, as would the elected Iraqi government. Civil war unlike anything we saw in 2006/7 would have occurred and would still be occurring today, and likely would be spilling over into other countries. Al Qaeda, with its new sanctuary in Iraq, which we would be powerless to do anything about, would have enagaged in several more high profile terrorist attacks, killing thousands upon thousands of people, including Americans. Oil prices would be far higher than they are today. Matthew and the Obamabots would be claiming that the Bush administration screwed up by removing the trooops too quickly without ever restoring peace or giving Iraq a sustainable government.

Posted by Al | July 23, 2008 1:53 PM

justinb, are you crazy? Sure, things are much worse under American occupation than they were under Saddam Hussein, but that's no reason to be a Saddam loving supporter terrorism. The ridiculous course of action you suggest wouldn't have given us hundreds of thousands of dead and millions of displaced. Can you really want to have that lack of blood on your hands?

You should be ashamed of yourself. Listen instead to the words of someone wiser (or at least totally fucking insane) when he tells you that Iraq was so unstable in 2002 that we had to go there and destabilize it for their own good (courtesy Will "Khmer" Allen).

Posted by Not as stupid as Will Allen | July 23, 2008 1:54 PM

Jim Henley was the first to use the line in this context:

Our names shouted in a certain dawn...a message...a summons...There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said... no. But somehow we missed it. Well, we'll know better next time.

There never was a moment. In January 2005, Bush had his political capital and he was going to spend it on having history vindicate him.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 23, 2008 1:57 PM

@Al: Except, y'know, the Shiite militiamen wouldn't have been too fond of AQI. Both groups would have been plenty busy with each other after we left - the civil war you posit may have occurred, but there's no reason to think this would have been coupled with a series of terrorist attacks by a much-reviled minority in a hostile region brimming with freshly victorious nationalists.

Instead of picking a realistic scenario, you proceed to sputter out every negative end possible from the withdrawal. This is why you'll always be a middle-management troll.

Posted by really? | July 23, 2008 2:16 PM

Once the initial invasion occurred, I think a period of violent ethnic segregation was inevitable. Saddam Husein played the roll of the lid on the pressure cooker. Once he was gone, even if we had troops on the ground in the numbers that Shinsecki advocated, I don't think it would have mattered.

Posted by jacob | July 23, 2008 2:26 PM

Another is that insurgent groups would have had much less reason to make common cause with AQI

This presupposes that insurgent groups banded together with AQI to drive the Americans out. The uniting of various insurgent groups under the umbrella of the Islamic State of Iraq was a rejection of the Iraqi central government - in some cases this may have been rent-seeking behavior, in others ideological or sectarian.

Posted by PVA | July 23, 2008 2:32 PM

Another is that insurgent groups would have had much less reason to make common cause with AQI

This presupposes that insurgent groups banded together with AQI to drive the Americans out. The uniting of various insurgent groups under the umbrella of the Islamic State of Iraq was a rejection of the Iraqi central government - in some cases this may have been rent-seeking behavior, in others ideological or sectarian.

Posted by PVA | July 23, 2008 2:35 PM

Insofar as the invasion and subsequent occupation initiated a major power shift between Sunnis and Shia in Iraq, no significant change in levels of violence would have resulted from either going in with more troops or implementing "better" counterinsurgency policies in '05.

With or without the elections, with or without the post-invasion occupation and CPA bungling, we would have still been left with a Shiite dominated government and security force/s (ISF). Following aggressive de-Baathification it was only natural that a SCIRI-Badr dominated ISF would start detaining large numbers of Sunni who were determined to hang onto power, and that disenfranchised Sunni would dominate the anti-US/anti-Shia govt. insurgency. AQI is just the name du jour of this insurgency.

The US military is grossly unsuited for counterinsurgency, and would have aligned itself with the Shiites whether they went in "in force" or whether "better" counterinsurgency approaches were implemented. Not sure what "better" counterinsurgency practices means.

Even if we had gone in with overwhelming force and a heavier signature (i.e. killing a lot more than we did, both Sunni and Shiite) and replaced the CPA with a defacto dictatorship under Achmed Allawi things may have burned a little less hot but it would have been a slow burn. Better to let things get really crazy 05-07 in my opinion. You can't make an omelet without breaking a few million eggs!

Posted by Andy | July 23, 2008 2:46 PM

Dorm room bs session level thinking seems to be what is asked for by Our Host and that is what has been produced, including this:

Three big big factors created the horrors of '06 and the present tenuously satisfactory conditions. (If 15-20 bombings/day can be thought of as satisfactory.)

1. Upon entering Baghdad we immediately make civic order and safety our #1 concern and have enough civic-affairs troops to do so; they work in conjunction with existing Iraqi institutions. Specifically, this includes securing the borders of Iraq. Then we begin a serious, as-big-as-it-takes infrastructure program so that cooking oil, electricity, gasoline, etc are available.

2. We have created the conditions that keep the al-Aksa Mosque bombing in Feb06 from occurring. So there is no Shia-Sunni blood bath and ethnic cleansing. There are not 5 million refugees in-country and in Jordan & Syria.

3. The Saddam-Mujahadin would not morph into AQI. And if they do we have the confidence of the tribal sheiks and they do not allow the jihadis to inflict thousands of murders and sharia law on Sunni communities in the stupidist 'insurgency' ever fought.

This is frightfully expensive. Possibly $ hundreds of billions--which is what we have paid. And it would tie down large parts of our standing army--as the present policy has. But it would have been shorter and much less disruptive of our relationships with Muslim counties and peoples. We would have exited long ago with some dignity.

More of that Pabst in the cooler?

Posted by JohnMcC | July 23, 2008 2:47 PM

JohnMcC:

Upon entry into Baghdad Iraq's number one "civic" institution and employer, the Baath/Sunni Tikriti controlled military and associated bureaucracy had already dissolved. Securing the borders from the outset would have had little effect since most of the insurgency (98% according to CIOC-B's estimates!) has always been a homegrown affair. The idea of a foreign led and supported AQI is a myth. There was little to no hope of stabilizing things and delivering services after the invasion and in the early days of the occupation. Also, a minor quibble - it's Civil Affairs, and all they really do is write checks to corrupt Sheiks so the said Sheiks can funnel money back into an IED fund.

The Sunni insurgency has and had little to do with any lack of stability. During our halcyon WTF happens next days of "peace" in 03-04, the LACK of stability was a major driving factor behind a muted insurgency. Once things started to "stabilize" - elections, a Shiite majority, De-Baathification - is when the insurgency began. It had nothing to do with us until we threw our lot in with the Shiites that now run the place. It slackened when we started to pay the Sunnis in Anbar not to attack us - one of the less promoted aspects of the Awakening.

Posted by Andy | July 23, 2008 3:06 PM

PVA -

I think you're basically correct about insurgent groups and their associations w/ AQI, but the fact that AQI is also a semantic tool used to give wankers like Al a reason to rationalize continuing our occupation of Iraq should also be addressed.

Prior to 2007 is was SOP for intel and PA officers in Iraq to refer to all insurgent groups as AIF - or anti-Iraqi Forces. While somewhat silly, it's at least more accurate than the current SOP which calls for the blanket categorization of ALL Sunni insurgent groups as AQI. Prior to 07 there were some true blue AQI groups at work, but they were mainly affiliated with AMZ's org (Abu Musab al Zawqari). If Petraeus and his wonderkid staff should be remembered for anything it should be for their ability to re-massage the message and reframe the debate - now ALL Sunni insurgents in Iraq are AQI, and so any attempt to avoid a prolonged or permanent presence there can be construed as leaving the field of battle to Al Qaeda. Hence a rhetorical victory for ass wipe arm chair warriors like Al who have never likely had the balls to leave the safety and comfort of Ft. Livingroom.

Posted by Andy | July 23, 2008 3:18 PM

PVA -

I think you're basically correct about insurgent groups and their associations w/ AQI, but the fact that AQI is also a semantic tool used to give wankers like Al a reason to rationalize continuing our occupation of Iraq should also be addressed.

Prior to 2007 is was SOP for intel and PA officers in Iraq to refer to all insurgent groups as AIF - or anti-Iraqi Forces. While somewhat silly, it's at least more accurate than the current SOP which calls for the blanket categorization of ALL Sunni insurgent groups as AQI. Prior to 07 there were some true blue AQI groups at work, but they were mainly affiliated with AMZ's org (Abu Musab al Zawqari). If Petraeus and his wonderkid staff should be remembered for anything it should be for their ability to re-massage the message and reframe the debate - now ALL Sunni insurgents in Iraq are AQI, and so any attempt to avoid a prolonged or permanent presence there can be construed as leaving the field of battle to Al Qaeda. Hence a rhetorical victory for ass wipe arm chair warriors like Al who have never likely had the balls to leave the safety and comfort of Ft. Livingroom.

Posted by Andy | July 23, 2008 3:21 PM

What if ...... After everything finally settles down, Iraq decides to align itself with Iran rather than the U.S.?

Posted by Mr. Warmth | July 23, 2008 4:13 PM

And from a purely self interested point of view for Republicans, if we had begun withdrawing from Iraq in 2005-2006, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would not now be running Congress and it's likely Barack Obama would not be the Democratic nominee for President.

Posted by flory | July 23, 2008 5:12 PM

When I see that picture I think of Jeff Davis importing Arabs and camels into the Southwestern desert to ensure that Twentynine Palms, Needles, and Yuma AZ would be the center of a slave empire.

Probably the only military move in US history that approaches the fatuity and futility of the invasion of Iraq. But it was a lot cheaper, and a lot more humorous.

Posted by Gene O'Grady | July 23, 2008 6:08 PM

There's horrific war in Darfur and Ceylon. When we move in to stop the bloodshed in those places, I'll concede the humanitarian impulses of the pro-war types.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 23, 2008 7:08 PM

There's horrific war in Darfur and Ceylon

Ceylon? That's worse than calling some place Czechoslovakia.

Posted by Al | July 23, 2008 7:22 PM

That's worse than calling some place Czechoslovakia.

Good thing I'm not running for President.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 23, 2008 8:32 PM

There was an article in Asia Times - which Matt could have read since I sent it to him - which explains that the ethnic cleansing which resulted in 2005, 2006 and 2007 was in fact assisted in occurring by US tactics in Fallujah in 2003 and 2004, especially the "Second Battle" in November 2004. By essentially devastating Fallujah during those operations, the US forced the Fallujah Sunni population into Baghdad, which aggravated the sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shia in that city.

Subsequent US operations in Baghdad - before "The Surge" - assisted the sectarian cleansing which occurred in 2005 and 2006 and reached its peak in 2007.

While it's likely that sectarian cleansing would have occurred anyway in 2005 and beyond, it is possible that it would have proceeded differently or less effectively had the US military not been present.

Here's the Asia Times analysis:

The fateful Battle of Baghdad
By Michael Schwartz
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JC27Ak02.html

In short, the US should have left almost immediately in 2003 before the insurgency arose, before Al Qaeda in Iraq could be formed and conduct operations against the Shia which aggravated sectarian tensions, and before sectarian cleansing could get under way.

Bottom line: The US shouldn't have invaded at all.

THIS is the only "counterfactual" that counts.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 24, 2008 5:39 AM

And, "smarter policy back in" 2000 would've kept Bush from getting appointed, & "avoided the mass" disasters of the last decade.
Now, a few notes on military errors of the Zhou Dynasty, and how we could have avoided...

Posted by Janus Daniels | July 24, 2008 11:44 AM

And, "smarter policy back in" 2000 would've kept Bush from getting appointed, & "avoided the mass" disasters of the last decade.
Now, a few notes on military errors of the Zhou Dynasty, and how we could have avoided...

Posted by Janus Daniels | July 24, 2008 11:48 AM