One of the most vulernable areas for Bush is the situation (i.e. mess) in Iraq, considering it was an optional misadventure that has been botched ever since the collapse of the Baathist regime. Unfortunately, Kerry being Kerry, he’s been unable to adequately exploit this area to his advantage. I imagine the single largest contributor is that there is an activist base within the Democratic Party that wants nothing more than to dump the whole thing, bring the soldiers home, and pretend it never happened, not willing to face the obvious fact that to do so would be to allow the Islamic Fundamentalists carte blanche to overrun the country and establish a new base for operations. So while Bush may have completely botched the post-war, Kerry must remain committed to a stable government.
To that end, I’ll outline three steps he should endorse that, while potentially difficult to implement, may help prod things along. Certainly, they can’t make things any worse.
1. Push the current governing body for rolling elections in “stable” areas. This idea had been kicked around in the runnup to the end of June soverignty transfer and, I believe, generally remains a good one. If much of the violence remains within the Sunni triangle, the election of local leaders in the remainder of the country may help move along the process.
2. Internationalize security and reconstruction. Put the troops in stable regions under a NATO or other international command. The implementation of rolling elections with a plea from actual elected Iraqi leaders and a willingness to award reconstruction contracts by bringing transparncy to the process may be sufficient to engage some of the more reluctant allies.
3. If the first two items are successful, additional troops may be freed up to focus on the conflict hot spots. In addition, the idea of local elected leaders combined with real examples of the democratic process may help calm tensions in troubled areas.
Certainly there are many pitfalls to this, but there are few other options. Bush has squandered and mismanaged this process for the last two years, and for that alone he should be booted from office. But without Kerry announcing even the outlines of a vaguely different course of action, the Iraq issue becomes a draw at best in November.
2 replies on “On the Road to Ruin”
Here’s my problem with your comments:
1. To place the blame solely on President Bush and his administration ignores the obvious facts. There are a lot of factions involved in this struggle, and clearly the violence is ultimately being caused by the terrorists and their insurgency. I’m assuming that you didn’t really intend to make that point, that’s why you left it out.
2. Your second point is completely meaningless. Our attempts to “internationalize” the Iraq mission beyond the amount it already has been have failed for a number of reasons. Many countries don’t want to get involved to closely in the war on terror for fear that they will be attacked. Countries like Spain were there and they left once the attacks began… That’s exactly what the insurgency wants. So the Kerry mantra of “internationalizing” the effort is a bogus concept, simply political rhetoric which will never become applicable. I think this is pretty clear cut.
I need to read the comments more often. In any event, I’ll still reply to this, even if it is nearly a year late.
While we are not responsible for the initial violence, our response to it can have a significant impact on how a situation evolves. Should we choose to escalate the situation, as we have over the previous year, the cycle continues. Should we identify ways of de-escalating the situation, which is in our control, we may have had at least a chance of accomplishing some of this lofty rhetoric of democracy in Iraq. It was clear a year ago, and is still clear today, that the Bush administration had no plan. Kerry, I think, at least grasp this basic sentiment.
If we made the choice to respond in a way that reduces the tension (i.e. not engaging in large-scale attacks against urban areas), we would have been able to split the factions engaged in Iraq against the US. By splitting the factions, we isolate the various groups who are there solely to take aim at US soldiers from those who actually have political goals or personal grievances with the US. This would have given other countries the leeway necessary to (re-)enter Iraq, in order to help train Iraqi security forces and to have an international prescense supporting the political process. This would have lent legitamcy to the US forces in the country, helping to further reduce the insurgency.
Granted, my analysis outlines the optimistic scenario. This remained within the power of the Bush administration to pursue; however, they have, by now, very nearly lost the opportunity entirely.