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March 16, 2006
Is the Prospect of Civil War in Iraq Grounds for Military Withdrawal?
There is a crescendo of claims coming from the political left, with which I normally identify, that Iraq is slipping into civil war. More concerning than these claims are the supposed implications of this civil war. Of course, it is true that the intensity of ethnic strife appears to be accelerating and calling it civil war may not be far from the mark. What concerns me is that many seem to think that the prospect of civil war in Iraq should lead to or somehow justify a precipitous military withdrawal.
To me the issue is much more complex and morally difficult. To be sure, Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who exploited long-standing ethnic strife to further his personal ambitions. Such strife did not start with the American invasion of Iraq. However, its current form is the direct result of an unjustified and, to my mind, immoral war coupled with incompetent execution of an occupation. In short, our invasion removed the political structure that prevented civil war. Then failed to restore many basic services to even prewar levels and further failed to instill an overriding sense of national unity. With the best of planning and execution, those goals would have been difficult. Under the current leadership they have been proven impossible. But to precipitously withdraw will only compound our culpability. We cannot morally walk away with a shoulder shrug and a "my bad" or a "your bad" or a "you're bad."
Elsewhere I have stated in some detail what I think needs to be done. Without rehashing those details, I think there are five elements that must be put in place, not to absolve us from moral responsibility, but to prevent further moral error. In bullet form here is what I think we need to do.
- Renounce any desire for any long-term presence in Iraq.
- State clearly and repeatedly that invading Iraq was a grievous error.
- Increase our military presence in Iraq to the level that we and whatever allies we can muster are able to provide security and training to Iraqi military and police so they can perform at the equivalent level of our own military and police.
- Pay for the rebuilding of Iraqi infrastructure but allow the work to proceed under Iraqi leadership, using Iraqi labor.
- Infuse sufficient capital into Iraq to capitalize an economy that will sustain an average annual income of over $5000.00 per year or so.
Why I think these are the correct actions is spelled out in my previous post. Done competently, these things will cost a lot of money and certainly additional America lives. I dearly wish that the further lose of life could be eliminated but I see no way it can be avoided. All of us will have to pay for the moral failure of a few. However, we elected those few and in a democracy, we cannot just walk away from our responsibilities because of a close election that did not go the way some of us hoped. Even if we believe that one or both of the elections were in someway stolen, we still are guilty of allowing the election to get close enough to steal. There is no doubt that taxes will need to be raised. We will need to pay for this grievous error for a long time but we have a further obligation to pay for it in our lifetime.
Posted by DuaneSmith at March 16, 2006 10:01 AM | Read more on Current Events |
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