Undermining Iraq and the U.S.
The Senate is moving toward debate on a resolution to restrict U.S. activities in Iraq to:
- protecting Americans there
- training Iraqi personnel
- engaging in limited counterterrorism operations.
This follows House Speaker Pelosi’s stated standards for continuing engagement – whether U.S. military involvement in Iraq:
- makes the U.S. safer
- makes the U.S. military stronger
- makes the region more stable.
The first set makes the second set impossible.
The Senate is moving toward debate on a resolution to restrict U.S. activities in Iraq to:
- protecting Americans there
- training Iraqi personnel
- engaging in limited counterterrorism operations.
This follows House Speaker Pelosi’s stated standards for continuing engagement – whether U.S. military involvement in Iraq:
- makes the U.S. safer
- makes the U.S. military stronger
- makes the region more stable.
The first set makes the second set impossible.
“Limited counterterrorism operations” is an oxymoron. You can’t know who the terrorists are if you stay in your base. You can’t encourage civilians – the sea in which the terrorists swim – to be brave enough to reject the radicals if their support group is in hiding. For the Senate to garrison our forces would substitute their judgment for that of Gen. Petraeus. Remember him? The man the Senate unanimously approved to be the senior military professional in the theater? Far from withdrawing from the Iraqi people, his plan is to engage them. And at a propitious moment – at least some Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province have come to regret their alliance with al Qaeda. Gen. Petraeus took Prime Minister al Maliki to Ramadi this week to meet those same tribal leaders in an extraordinary move to get the Prime Minister out of Baghdad to talk to his countrymen and encourage the Sunnis to see themselves as countrymen.
Almost at the same time, an oil revenue distribution law was hammered out through negotiations among Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish politicians. It still needs to pass the Parliament, but it stands as the first and only oil revenue distribution deal in the entire Middle East. Perhaps in response (we don’t believe in coincidence) Royal Dutch Shell yesterday announced the first major post-Saddam energy deal.
Sen. Feingold said, “Congress authorized this war, and it is in our power to bring it to a close.” Not really. We can quit, of course. We can desert the Iraqi government and the people who put their lives on the line to help take back their country. We can leave al Qaeda and Iran to split the spoils. We can watch them gloat on al Jazeera and CNN, calling more disaffected young men to join the (variously) Sunni and Shiite jihad. We can hope Saudi Arabia doesn’t make good on its threat to fund Sunni irredentists in response to a Shiite threat.
But the war in Iraq won’t be over, and anyhow, what about Ms. Pelosi’s standards for a safer United States and a more stable region? Why would anyone take us seriously after we abandon Iraq and the war continues – as it inevitably will? And what would that do to regional stability, particularly as regards our interests in Iran?
Ultimatums make bad policy by trying to impose what cannot be imposed. Under the best of circumstances – and we have not provided them – stability in the region is a long way off and doesn’t only depend on Iraq. If Ms. Pelosi wants regional stability, she might suggest that the Iranians, Saudis, Kuwaitis or Omanis divvy up their oil revenues with their people. She might tell Saudi Arabia and Egypt to stop dithering and HELP the Iraqi government. Or she might tell the Democrats in Congress the same thing.