Comments on Informed Comment: Exit Plans Senator John Kerry argues that the Uni...

According to Cleveland Plain Dealer, John Murtha s...

2006-04-08T15:08:00.000-04:00

According to Cleveland Plain Dealer, John Murtha says clearly and simply that the war is lost. IMO, this is is exactly what Kerry had to say. Unfortunately, with time, conditions for withdrawal from Iraq get only worse.

Professor Cole, you dismiss Arthur Greif's suggest...

2006-04-06T16:43:00.000-04:00

Professor Cole, you dismiss Arthur Greif's suggestion re: a California style referendum on the basis of this...

"The problem is that the Cheney administration does not want an honorable way out, they want petroleum contracts for their Houston cronies."

... yet fail to address whether or not you believe that would constitute an honorable exit strategy. If, in fact, you agree with Greif, then to state that "Exit with honor will be the hardest thing the United States of America has ever done in its over two centuries of history" strikes me as a bit of an overstatement.

The answer is right in front of us (perhaps) but has been rejected by you (and I suspect many others), on no other basis that presuming Cheney et. al. have dishonorable intentions and do not want to do the right thing.

I'm not saying "they" do have honorable intentions, but the very presumption of certainty that they don't or can't be persuaded to have them, I believe, ends the discussion before it has begun.

I might also add that I surmise that they themselves believe they have honorable intentions (if only such honor means taking care of your friends before anybody else) and will tend to turn a deaf ear to anyone who tells them they don't, if only because you are telling them something about themselves that they know not to be the case.

I wrote a blog post back in February that addresses this very issue Bush From the Inside Out: One of Us :: Part 3 of 5. Here is a relevant excerpt...

It's hard work being President. I believe President Bush works hard even on the ranch. It's the Internet Age after all. But he's letting us down and we need to let him know that. We need to look inside and find a way to tell him that and trust that it will matter to him too. Make Bush a demon and he will be a demon because it's easy to see the bad. It's there right along side the good. Hitler, kids, thought he was good. I hate to break it to you. The terrorists believed they were doing good. "Them's wiretapping words !" So too does Bush...

I suspect the same words hold true for Cheney as well as Bush.

Karl von Clausewitz wrote that war is politics by ...

2006-04-06T14:10:00.000-04:00

Karl von Clausewitz wrote that war is politics by other means.

While Iraq is a security problem, the solution has to be a political solution.

Part of the political solution has to be for war supporters to admit they were wrong. This admission should include truthful statements about the motives of the politicians that supported the war.

How badly do Americans want a solution? Are we willing to repudiate Democratic and Republican leadership?

Based on my discussions with Democrats the answer is "no". If the Democrats aren't willing to oust war supporters like Kerry, it's a bit fanciful to think Republicans are going to punish the GOP pols that stood with Bush.

Establishment Democrats whine that the grassroots want too much. Democrats who supported the war were wrong. Most them were both grossly ignorant of military strategy and unforgivably cowardly.

For a UN peacekeeping mission to work there needs ...

2006-04-06T13:57:00.000-04:00

For a UN peacekeeping mission to work there needs to be an agreement to which Iraqis can be held accountable. This agreement needs to have some sort of legitimacy.

To build on Arthur Greif's proposal, the referenda should be primarily a referenda on the agreement the UN peacekeepers would be enforcing.

If the referenda passes then the U.S. military will leave.

The problem is that it seems impossible to write an agreement that would have 45+% support among Sunni, Shia and Kurds.

Afterall, it doesn't do much good to have an agreement that is overwhelmingly supported by the Shia, but mostly opposed by the Kurds or Sunnis.

This is the Chinese fingertrap. There are no good solutions.

You said "exit is easy", but exit with honor is th...

2006-04-06T13:21:00.000-04:00

You said "exit is easy", but exit with honor is the hardest thing we've ever done.

I disagree. Exit is hard, whereas exit with honor, at this point, is impossible. The exiting itself may be the only honorable thing we can salvage.

The reason exit is hard is because we won't face up to the fact that honor is no longer an option. Once we do, exit becomes easy.

All wishful thinking. There'll be no putting Humpt...

2006-04-06T09:49:00.000-04:00

All wishful thinking. There'll be no putting Humpty together again.

This is a great Op-Ed on a number of levels. The p...

2006-04-06T01:11:00.000-04:00

This is a great Op-Ed on a number of levels. The plan is sound and the anger is genuine. We all feel the same way: it is time to get the Hell out.

The wording is concise and the points made have more than a few barbs aimed directly at the administration. The Senator has thrown down a gauntlet that I hope and pray the stupid Rethugs are Pavlovian enough to pick up.

If they go on the attack, it will only serve to highlight their pro-War stance at a time when the country has turned away from support of this war. It should be intresting to see how the Repugs react. Last year, both B & D attacked Senator Kerry and I doubt they wll be able to resist this year.

Any way this plays out, it can only help Democrats in the elections in November AND it is going to get some focus back on the war where it SHOULD be.

Its kind of puzzling why removal of US forces from...

2006-04-06T01:01:00.000-04:00

Its kind of puzzling why removal of US forces from Iraq should create a military vacuum that must be filled by forces from other countries.

The US has created a 230,000 man Iraqi army. That's almost twice the size of the US forces (and probably has a lot less non-combat overhead). By any measure the US forces have failed to provide broad based security to Iraq, and have failed to reduce the affectiveness of the Sunni based insurgency. So what level of competence does the Iraqi Army have to achieve to replace the US forces? Heck, they won't need a single interpreter.

The US command in Iraq is always bragging about how well the Iraqi Army is coming along, while at the same time saying its not quite ready to go it alone - meaning that the Iraqi units must be under US control in combat operations. Seems like a game that can go on forever if Bush/Cheney want it to.

So if the Bush administration really wants to leave Iraq in style here's a simple plan:

Declare the Iraqi Army ready to assume the security responsibilities that had belonged to the Coalition. Provide follow-on logistic support and a small advisory cadre. Then leave.

No one can guarantee that any plan for Iraq will prevent a future bloodbath, but, I think the elected government, aided by an indigenous 230,000 man army, will have a better chance of subduing internal strife than a collection of foreign troops with no prior experience in modern day Iraq.

Iraq has had enough humiliation over the past 15 years. Why pile more on by assuming that their problems can only be solved by gravitas suits in 6 + 3 or 7 + 9 or 8 + 7.

Any of these withdrawal plans are just political i...

2006-04-06T00:57:00.000-04:00

Any of these withdrawal plans are just political in nature. Kerry could have said this about 2 years ago when he was running for president. On the flip-side, I'll support any plan that gives any specific date for pulling the troops out, whether it's tomorrow or in 2 years. The troops will never be pulled until a specific date is given.

I like that the forum has detoured into the territ...

2006-04-06T00:28:00.000-04:00

I like that the forum has detoured into the territory of devising solutions. While the offerings so far are ridiculous, this new tangent is encouraging.

The solutions offered so far were obviously developed without any appreciation for political context. That can be a productive brainstorming technique, but in the real world (which I don’t inhabit, either, but have read many reports about) the only way a solution or approach gets implemented or even attempted is if it finds a champion. For example, if Steven Cambone, a powerful player at DOD, believes he can gain acclaim and respect by offering to, lets say, put Iraqis in charge of the New Iraqi Army, then it has a chance of being tested. For those who haven’t heard, the New Iraqi Army actually reports to American officers, not the Iraqi Minister of Defense.

So, in that real world we all think we know something about, any solution devised by Bush-haters must not show any trace of that contempt. Rather, to get considered by those who can actually implement it, the approach must make Bush or one of his appointees look like a hero. Whoever develops the approach will probably have to give up any claim to the idea, and let the Champion take credit. And, since Bush has already set the overall end state in concrete – Victory in Iraq, as I recall – any solution must appear to support that overall objective.

Consequently, I think that only small, incremental improvements developed by and reflecting the values of the [multiple choice: rational, liberal, Christian, humanist, conscious, conscientious, etc.] Left can be slipped past any Bush administration officials, the True Believers in their eventual triumph over the long march of History. For, you see, Bush and his supporters really do believe that they are acting on and acting out the Will of God. They expect to be exonerated in, oh, a thousand years. So, rather than this War being a clash of civilizations, it’s a clash of religious extremists who, on both sides, grossly and willfully misunderstand the basic tenets of their respective faiths.

What is there to recommend the incremental approach ? Well, after they left the CPA Policy office in late 2003, two officials (one detailed from USAID, the other from the British Army) confessed by email as they left, in retrospect, that they had put too much stock in the rantings of Señor Senor (channeled through Jerry Bremer) and not enough in what they learned in high school about the Golden Rule, world history and common decency. They regretted not at least giving outside suggestions a fair hearing.

Right now, someone I know has got Ambassador Khalilzad reconsidering the ethnic cleansing approach that is part of the new “USAID Transition Strategy 2006-08.” This appears to be a confidential agency document not available to the public. A careful reading of the recent advertisement for “Focused Stabilization: Strategic Cities Initiative” (available thru www.Grants.gov) reveals that the plan as of November 2005 was to destroy every major Sunni city in the al-Anbar Governate and put each one under the command of a Kurdish militia unit. So, while there don’t appear to be any limits on the evil that this administration can devise, they also appear to be amenable to suggested changes that make them look good, even if they are the right thing to do.

Respectfully,

First, everyones comments are way to long. Second,...

2006-04-05T23:58:00.000-04:00

First, everyones comments are way to long.

Second, I know prof. cole has to say oil, but I also know that everyone really knows the reason the Bush admin wants bases in Iraq is to secure the region for the benefit of Israel.

The neocons had been pushing for the regime change in Iraq for more than 10 years, well before 9/11.

As Juan said, the US made most of the Iraq mess, s...

2006-04-05T23:40:00.000-04:00

As Juan said, the US made most of the Iraq mess, so the US has a responsibility to the outcome. We can't do any good there with soldiers. The best we could do now is give serious money to solving the problems we made.

How to do that? God knows. (Maybe not even God.) I'm with Chris and Cervantes (of course! ;-}) about the hopelessness of rational solutions. Just for starters, I can't believe that someone with as deep a knowledge of the region as Juan Cole would suggest the Turks as "peacekeepers" in Iraq. The mind reels. Americans have turned themselves into an irritant. Turks would be an allergen.

So, I guess that leaves disaster as the only possible outcome...unless we're lucky and that meteor hits as described earlier.

Some very astute and honest comments about the nat...

2006-04-05T23:34:00.000-04:00

Some very astute and honest comments about the nature of a possible withdrawal scenario.
I am not convinced of the gravitas of Kerry's plan or do I see much focus or balance in the Cole proposal.
I feel they are a little thin on specifics and do not take into considration many factors necessary for giving Iraq the space to get out of the mess we created and to form a humane society.
I would be open to using some of the ideas in the Kerry and Cole exit strategies to slightly augment some of the elements of my independently formulated plan.

Maybe some of the readers could help me by suggesting which of these elements i could use.

Kerry on the Iraqi exit strategyThe first paragrap...

2006-04-05T21:42:00.000-04:00

Kerry on the Iraqi exit strategy

The first paragraph of Kerry's op-ed in the NYT says: WE are now in the third war in Iraq in as many years. The first was against Saddam Hussein and his supposed weapons of mass destruction. The second was against terrorists whom, the administration said, it was better to fight over there than here. Now we find our troops in the middle of an escalating civil war.

The problem is, what we have in Iraq is mutiple stages of the same conflict, not multiple wars. Also, it is pointless to discuss the guerilla war in the ME in terms of generic "terrorists" without considering what factions are actually involved. Maybe it made sense in Vietnam, but I am not sure about this. However, as far as ME is concerned, it certainly cannot be done. As a former officer, Kerry must understand all this.

Also, it is quite clear that this administration has just one plan: to go on with their course regardless of anything. Any changes can happen only by the end of this decade.

The conclusion is, although this article includes the right language "exit" and "deadlines", IMO, unfortunately, it is still not particularly productive.

Only slightly OT: Surely the time has come when th...

2006-04-05T21:06:00.000-04:00

Only slightly OT:

Surely the time has come when the Bush and complicit corporate media stonewalling about Iraqi civilian casulties must fail?

How many have died?

And what about their "sacrifice" Mr Bush? You never speak of it, yet you decided they would give their lives for your discredited theories.

But they are never spoken of.

How many? Bush admitted 30,000, didn't he?

Or is it far far more.

How many women. Children?

Professor Cole,In Officer Candidate School, West P...

2006-04-05T21:02:00.000-04:00

Professor Cole,
In Officer Candidate School, West Point, and the Army War College they teach that one of the traps that general officers fall into is fighting the last war. I think you need to look at your experiences in Lebanon and realize you cant refight that. you cant go back and correct the mistakes. Perhaps because the people who fought in Lebanon were also fighting the last war.

Exit without honor will endanger the security of t...

2006-04-05T20:57:00.000-04:00

Exit without honor will endanger the security of the United States for decades.

I am sorry Professor, that rhetoric cant stand. Firstly, the security of the U.S. is much more directly threatened by the weakening of the military through stop loss orders, 3 to 4 tour service hitches, VA budget cutting and misusing the National Guard and Reserves, to include create this crazy IRR (indiv. ready reserve) back door draft business. And the systematic disregard for the troops by secty. rumsfeld. Not to mention invading Iraq without a plan. and embroiling the mid-east in a civil war.

As a veteran, Professor, when I start hearing the words XXXXXX With Honor, I want to start slapping people. You know what the difference between a Exit from Iraq and a 'Honorable' Exit from Iraq is? More Dead Soldiers. period. You should know better.

I fully agree that a multinational (UN or Arab Lea...

2006-04-05T20:52:00.000-04:00

I fully agree that a multinational (UN or Arab League or both) force should be ready to fill the vacuum. But US "honor"? Are you kidding me?

I don't think the issue of US "honor" should be given any consideration at all. How on earth can the USA possibly withdraw from Iraq with honor, given all that has happened already? Why should one more day go past while the US agonizes about preserving its blessed "honor"?

The only way the USA can possibly regain any semblance of honor from this sad debacle is through an extremely unlikely package including the following as a minimum:

- complete military withrawal including withdrawal from bases,

- full monetary reparations to the Iraqi people,

- a wholesale apology to the Iraqis, the UN and the global community,

- the arrest and imprisonment of the Bush administration officials and their neo-conservative advisors who orchestrated this mess,

- a pledge by the new US administration (post-Bush) to abandon the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, and the practice of "rendering" detainees to torture regimes,

- US support for the International Criminal Court, and rendering of the above persons to that court,

- disclosure of all information relevant to the invasion,

- closure of Guantanamo Bay and other military gulags.

There is only one alternative "exit with honor" strategy: a US revisionist history, full of lies, such as we have seen far too many times in the past.

US OUT NOW!

I am posting comments on one of your remarks:"The ...

2006-04-05T16:53:00.000-04:00

I am posting comments on one of your remarks:

"The six neighbors have the highest stakes in Iraq-- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Iran. They should immediately be called to a 6 + 3 meeting with the United States, Britain and the Arab League to begin the work of constituting a post-US multinational force that might hope to keep ethnic and religious militias from marching against one another in the thousands and killing milions."

I think this is a good idea because it involves all the nations that have a stake in Iraq's future, and specifically that of the Kurdish and Shiite power blocs. These Six nations probably already have some form of operational intelligence presence in Iraq, in addition to their diplomatic presence (if any).

The country that is not included in your list of 6+3, and one that has a tremendous interest in Iraq's future is Israel.

The Israelis are already present in Iraq as military and intelligence advisors, and their intelligence agencies are probably already running false flag operations in Iraq to find and bust-up the anti-Israeli militia and terrorist groups seeking a base in Iraq.

There is a clear diplomatic problem in inviting Israel to the table - At least Four of the Six countries you mention will NOT sit across a table with Israeli officials, at least not in public. But the very obvious fact on the ground is that Iraq has now become a part of the Arab-Israeli conflict, given that the Iraqi invasion and occupation was devised and designed by Likudian-Bushiites – all Arab and Muslim states know this, even if pro-Israel groups might find this claim offensive.

In any multi-national efforts on Iraq, therefore, Israel has to be involved officially. Otherwise, Israel will only be able to continue to be involved undercover - which means through acts of sabotage and murder, as it has in other Arab / Muslim conflicts.

The Iraqi conflict simply can not be resolved unless Israel is fully engaged in complying with the international community’s decision-making on Iraq, and given Israel’s reluctance to comply with any international jurisprudence, Iraq might prove to be a very tough egg to put back together.

I agree that you are proposing the only reasonable...

2006-04-05T16:39:00.000-04:00

I agree that you are proposing the only reasonable exit plan -- UN command of a mostly Arab peacekeeping force - but the possibility of the Bush administration allowing that to happen is approximately the probability that a meteorite will crash into the White House during a NSC meeting and take out Bush, Cheney, Rummie, Condi and Hadley simultaneously just after the November election, assuming the Democrats take over the House. Then, president Pelosi might do it - though I doubt it.

Good for John: Attaboy!by Wade SandersJohn Kerry’s...

2006-04-05T16:23:00.000-04:00

Good for John: Attaboy!
by Wade Sanders

John Kerry’s argument in today’s New York Times hits the nail on the head.

As someone who has known him since we both served on Swift Boats in Vietnam, I know that John at his best is a voice of reason and action and conscience.

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=2532

So other countries children shall now spill their ...

2006-04-05T16:08:00.000-04:00

So other countries children shall now spill their blood for US security and "honor"?

Mr. Cole, what are drinking?

On my honor as a buck sergeant in the National Gua...

2006-04-05T15:59:00.000-04:00

On my honor as a buck sergeant in the National Guard who spent nine months in 2004 in Mosul and Diyanah, Iraq, and before that got the most thorough liberal arts education you've ever heard of (including two bachelors degrees, in economics/urban-studies and biology, a year in Kenya with the Peace Corps (long enough to learn), and a law degree unsullied by a license to practice at the bar), Iraq will not tolerate the 3 + 6 solution. I'm picturing Mr. Jaafari reaching way, way under his bed to find his old dusty AK-47. Mr. Sistani is out behind his residence firing off a few RPG rounds to get his eye back.
On guard duty in Mosul we would often hear "happy firing" of Iraqis celebrating this and that with gun fire. I'm in fact pretty sure that whoever fired the occasional mortar round into the base knew they wouldn't hit anything since we wouldn't give them the time to correct their aim. They were just welcoming us to the country in their traditional fashion. Day, after day, after day. Until one of them said it with an explosive vest.
Ayuh, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
And the other nations in the region know that's what the Iraqis think, so the other nations won't touch your plan either. Why do you think the Arab League is so stand-offish? They say they don't want to be identified with the US occupation. Why is that? They must assume that Iraqis don't take kindly to occupations. The alternative explanation would be that they assume Iraqis don't take kindly to the US, period. Either way, they won't cooperate with anything that rouses that Iraqi ire. Let's think procedurally. If the Premier of Iraq invites 3 + 6, or whomever, to come in, after careful consultation in Iraq, "everything will be just fine". If it looks at all, to the Iraqis, like another palace coup, I think Iraqis will reject it. Putting that together with the current buzz that we're getting ready to "get the hell out of Dodge", it leaves the Premier, or Mr. Sistani, in the role of gathering that national consensus on whether to invite in a foreign military element. Maybe they should start contacting neighbors on that score. Your analysis treats them, the consensus leaders and the millions of consensus-members, as nullities. Do you think they're too traumatized to "reason together" for the national good? Too primitive? If you say they're under the sway of local despots, I think you're combining my two reasons for dismissing their opinions.
By the way, Yugoslavia didn't fall apart. Milosevic made his whole career out of destroying it, by setting his sights, or so BBC convinced me in the early 1990's, on Serb hegemony of the federal government, which on the one hand activated the other ethnic groups, and on the other was nothing but his personal rabble-rousing tactic, albeit a very successful one. He was the indispensible man in that twilight of gods. I don't see any force on the ground in Iraq comparable to that "greater Serbia" faction, nor any leader comparable in nihilism to Milosevic. I think it takes a lot to fracture a modern nation, and I think Iraq has been a modern nation for quite a while.

Professor Cole -Why anyone should imagine that the...

2006-04-05T15:38:00.000-04:00

Professor Cole -

Why anyone should imagine that the U.S. has any intention of withdrawing from Iraq continues to fascinate me. I think by now it ought to be clear that one of the principal goals for the invasion was to establish a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq in order to enforce hegemony in the region. Ironically, this goal arose partly out of the increasingly untenable status of U.S. military forces in Saudi Arabia, whose presence was one of the catalysts for Osama bin Laden's attacks on the USS Cole, the U.S. embassies in Africa and the WTC.

So, for all the talk about withdrawl or drawing down of forces, the suspicion remains that neither Republicans nor Democrats have any intention of actually removing a U.S. "footprint" from Iraq. The only way this will happen is if a combination of Iraqi resistance, U.S. domestic political pressure and U.S. economic weakness coalesce to force the hand of whichever regime is in power in Washington at the time.

Until then, hundreds will continue to die on all sides as a result of America's most recent imperial adventure. I, for one, hope that it will be the last.

Professor Cole -Why anyone should imagine that the...

2006-04-05T15:37:00.000-04:00