Four Outcomes

Ted Barlow’s latest post on Iraq is quite good, based as it is around Orin Kerr’s “four outcome” model of US behavior in Iraq:

1) The U.S. beats back the insurgency and democracy flowers in Iraq (call this the “optimistic stay” scenario),
2) The U.S. digs in its heels, spends years fighting the insurgency, loses lots of troops, and years later withdraws, leading to a bloody and disastrous civil war (the “pessimistic stay” scenario);
3) The U.S. decides that it’s no longer worth it to stay in Iraq, pulls out relatively soon, and things in Iraq are about as best as you could hope for, perhaps leading to a decent amount of democracy (optimistic leave), and
4) The U.S. decides that it’s no longer worth it to stay in Iraq, pulls out soon, and plunges Iraq into a bloody and disastrous civil war with the bad guys assuming control eventually (pessimistic leave).

I’m thinking that any hope of achieving #1 is pretty much gone, given the resources we have available. As Ted points out, increasing public disenchantment with the war means that any option that requires more troops, more force, and greater capabilities is off the table. More troops might have mattered two years ago, when attacks were relatively infrequent and the insurgency weak. Now, I doubt very much that they would make a difference even if they could be found. An infusion of international forces (French, German, Russian) MIGHT make a difference, but it’s not going to happen, and in any case such an infusion would now certainly be met with additional withdrawals by American troops. Thus, staying in Iraq is probably going to result in nothing better than option #2, combined with an Iraqi regime that is so dependent on US support that it will have difficulty standing against domestic and international foes.

That leaves #3 and #4, and I’m kind of hopeful about #3. I suspect that much of the motivation for the insurgency will disappear with the withdrawal of US forces. Not all, but much. I also suspect that Kurdish and Shiite militia/army organizations will be able to win their wars against the Sunni insurgency, such that the “bad guys”, if these are to be understood as the leaders of the insurgency, never take power. I suspect that we’ll never again see anything along the lines of a politically unified Iraq, except perhaps on paper.

It’s also important to note that withdrawal does not mean disengagement. The US should remain committed to assisting Kurdish and Shiite forces, although this assistance probably shouldn’t involve US ground forces in actual combat. Again, this is a potentially winning scenario, and quite different than the situation that held in 1972, when the other side was much stronger than our South Vietnamese allies. The Shiite and Kurdish populations of Iraq are larger, better organized, and have access to more resources than the Sunnis. They should be able to win even without our help, and US military and financial assistance should simply accelerate this victory.

Of course, we’re still firmly in the realm of the “best of a set of bad options”. I doubt that Iraq, as a political unit, will ever resemble a democratic state, although you’ll probably have democratic institutions and practice, to a greater or lesser degree, in both the north and the south. The humanitarian justification for the war is already gone, and all the wailing of Chris Hitchens can’t bring it back. The security justification is also long gone, as whatever emerges from the ashes of Iraq will hardly be less dangerous than Saddam Hussein, and Iran will certainly benefit.

I don’t really know how this will play out domestically. I am becoming increasingly confidant that Rove and Bush are prepared to sell out the neocons in order to win the 2006 midterms. I expect that we’ll start seeing significant troop withdrawals in the months leading up to the election, regardless of whether the situation in Iraq has changed. That this might result in chaos won’t really be their concern, since they can simply declare victory and hope that nobody pays attention as long as most the dead aren’t American. The neocons and other hawks will blame this, no doubt, on the mainstream media and the anti-war movement, such that it is. Publius has a great discussion of Hitchens latest tripe on the evil that the left does, and we can certainly expect a lot more along that line. I’m mildly hopeful that this strategy will fail, although it will probably be enough to keep the most committed of the conservatarian troops in line, for a while at least. Kevin is right that the Democrats still face some major Iraq problems. I am sympathetic with the hawkish wing of the party, those who believe that any dovish behavior feeds directly into the Republican “Democrats are pacifists” narrative. I certainly wasn’t sympathetic enough with it to think that the Iraq War was a good idea, though, and I was able to overcome my fear of hippies enough to see the plain and obvious disaster that awaited us.

Bush and Rove also understand that there is a disconnect between popular and elite attitudes among Democrats, and they’re going to go straight for it. The hawks, if they don’t back down, may soon find themselves to the RIGHT of the Republicans on troop deployments in Iraq. This will result in electoral disaster. Fortunately, I think there’s an out, if the elite can figure it out and the doves can hold off a bit. I don’t have a problem at all with letting people like Biden, Clinton et al off the hook when they play the “it would have been okay, but Bush screwed it up” card. That’s an EXCELLENT political strategy; it saves hawkish cred, while at the same time allowing a withdrawal and preventing the Republicans from outflanking us. It doesn’t solve the more basic problem with Democratic foreign policy making, which is that so many of the most important Democrats thought either thought that this would be a good idea or that they needed to go along because, hey, it was a war and wars are popular, but it helps us in 2006 and 2008, and buys time for a more complete re-evaluation.

One last note; this “get out of jail free” card doesn’t work for guys like Hitchens or Beinart. We need elected officials, we appreciate that they have to play the game, and we also need high level policy expertise. We don’t need “liberal” pundits who want to commit us to insane foreign policy adventurism. Those guys don’t get to come back. Hitch can hang with David Horowitz and the rest of the crew at the Corner all he likes, but if he starts feeling the need to be a “contrarian” again, he should find the doors closed and locked, with a NO TRESPASSING sign, a shotgun, and a large, angry dog waiting for him.