Who said Iraq had to be controversial?

Sat, 02/28/2009 - 10:48am

As the book club on Tom Ricks' The Gamble comes to a close, Barack Obama announced his future plans for Iraq. 

What's fascinating is the effect of the surge on the political reaction to Obama's proposal to scale down the U.S. presence to 55,000 troops by August 2010.  It has received bipartisan support in the United States.  Iraqi officials have by and large endorsed it (though see here and scroll down).  Obama has even earned the always-crucial Foreign Policy blogger vote. 

Think about this for a second.  If I had told you two years ago that there would be a broad domestic and international consensus on U.S. strategy in Iraq, you would have laughed me off the Foreign Policy web site. 

Ricks argues that the surge has not led to political achievements in Iraq, and he may very well be right.  What it has accomplished, however, is changing the political optics in three crucial ways.  First, it has given Republicans cover for supporting a withdrawal, arguing that it is being done from a position of strength rather than weakness. Second, it has blunted the Democrats' zeal for immediate withdrawal.  So long as things in Iraq are going relatively well, the political pressure to DO SOMETHING NOW! has abated.  Finally, the surge has given the Iraqi government the confidence to believe that a significant U.S. drawdown will not lead them back to the abyss. 

I don't know whether the withdrawal will actually prove to be good policy -- but the fact that we've reached a political consensus that it is good policy is nothing short of astounding. 

Daniel W. Drezner | Permalink | | Comments? Login or register
( filed under: )


Advertisement

 

I don't know whether the

by J Thomas on Sat, 02/28/2009 - 7:38pm

I don't know whether the withdrawal will actually prove to be good policy -- but the fact that we've reached a political consensus that it is good policy is nothing short of astounding.

We have no choice. We cannot sustain this level of combat.

We've known that for years, there's nothing new here. We had to draw down forces in iraq. No choice. If McCain had won the election he'd be doing it too. The only question is how he'd spin it.

So, why have republicans supported it instead of opposing the drawdown, knowing that it will happen anyway and they can blame any bad result on Obama for doing it?

I guess it's a popular idea, now, and they'd lose more support by opposing the drawdown than by supporting it.

Republicans are supporting it

by blue13326 on Sun, 03/01/2009 - 5:38am

Republicans are supporting it because it is nearly identical to Bush's plan.

The SOFA Bush negotiated states all US forces out of Iraq by 2011.

The left is already upset at the plan to keep 50K US troops beyond the withdrawal date.

Combat?

by Don S on Mon, 03/02/2009 - 5:51am

@J Thomas,

"We have no choice. We cannot sustain this level of combat."

More accurately it might be asserted that we cannot sustain the current level of committment in Iraq indefinately when forces are needed elsewhere. It's more a matter of too many troops committed to Iraq than those forces being in pitched combat as in WWI, WWII, Korea, or Vietnam. The fact that the US has too few foot soldiers right now to satisfactorially carry out all possible missions also contributes to the 'crisis'.

First we need to bring many of the forces home for a period of rest and retraining, while other forces go to Afghanistan.

Iraq was never intended to be an open-ended committment, although we may need to leave some troops there for many years. Everything depends on the details of such a committment, though. 50,000 troops in garrison duty a la South Korea is much easier to sustain than the same troops in combat, obviously. It seems to me that may be what we're facing in the coming years - garrison duty.

First we need to bring many

by J Thomas on Mon, 03/02/2009 - 12:36pm

First we need to bring many of the forces home for a period of rest and retraining, while other forces go to Afghanistan.

Yes.

Iraq was never intended to be an open-ended committment, although we may need to leave some troops there for many years.

The iraqis generally have wanted us to go away for about 5 years now. Do we care about legal standing? I guess we don't have to. "Being a superpower means never having to say you're sorry." But I can't help but think that if we stay after we promised we'd get out, we'll have to bring in a large army to thoroughly defeat the iraqi civilians. We might need to leave troops there for many years, but can we actually manage it? Colonialism is mostly dead, for good reason.

Republicans are supporting it

by J Thomas on Sun, 03/01/2009 - 7:27am

Republicans are supporting it because it is nearly identical to Bush's plan.

What difference does that make? They could still oppose it and talk about how awful it is to pull out troops now when we're almost winning. If they thought they'd do better that way.

It's not like Bush supported that plan, he just didn't find a way to avoid signing a SOFA agreement and the iraqis wouldn't agree to anything less no matter what he did.

You make no sense. Since

by blue13326 on Sun, 03/01/2009 - 4:34pm

You make no sense.

Since Obama's plan is essentially the Republican plan (as opposed to the one he laid out during the election), why wouldn't Republicans support it?

That's silly, Blue. This is

by J Thomas on Sun, 03/01/2009 - 5:26pm

That's silly, Blue. This is Obama's plan, as opposed to the ones Republicans laid out during the election.

It's a couple of months delayed, that's the difference.

Bush tried hard not to withdraw from iraq, and only signed the Withdrawal-of-Forces agreement (Titled "Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq") after the election.

I don't know where this urban legend came from that this is similar to some Republican plan. It isn't.

Prof Drezner needs to wake up

by nagee76 on Sun, 03/01/2009 - 2:29pm

"Think about this for a second. If I had told you two years ago that there would be a broad domestic and international consensus on U.S. strategy in Iraq, you would have laughed me off the Foreign Policy web site."

No, I have to laugh you off for making assertions that are not backed up by any facts or are just plain meaningless.

For starters, there is NO domestic consensus. May be you should actually start reading the news, once in a while.

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer are questioning the need for 50,000 US troops AFTER the drawdown. If this is what you term consensus .i.e. the Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the House and the leader of the DNCC so openly questioning their own party leader on the need for 50,000 troops AFTER the drawdown.. congrats, you guys are in a bigger shell than I thought.

There is a lot of grumbling from the Democrats - besides there is no need for a "consensus" when the SoFA was already signed by the previous administration.

Republicans have never been opposed to a withdrawal - it was a false picture painted by Democrats like Obama who were pursuing political power. They were opposed to a HASTY withdrawal IN DEFEAT.

When McCain was campaigning, he backed the Status of Forces Agreement and had a similar withdrawal plan. But this was planned from a position of strength and not weakness. Some thing that was conveniently not mentioned by the surrender monkeys OR foreign policy "gurus".

So what we have here is a plan that Republicans have endorsed since the gains in security were visible AND it became obvious that the SoFA would require the US troops to leave in the next 4 years. It has always been the Democrats who wanted the US troops back in their barracks, yesterday.

They do not like 50,000 troops or 5000 troops - they want ZERO US presence there.

The Democrat leadership cannot do anything about this - the first black president is not some one with whom you pick a fight on such an important issue no matter what. The Iraq war ceased being an issue the last June, when it became so clear that the surge has succeeded that even Obama was FORCED to acknowledge it.

The issue of the day is the global economic crisis. Your contention that there is a domestic "consensus" on an issue where there is none, and on an issue that NO ONE cares about is nothing short of ludicrous. There may be a consensus about the community of foreign policy "experts" but no one is listening to you guys anyways.

Your talk about an "international" consensus is even more laughable given the fact that this effort is mostly a solo American obe - the British support is so meager and USELESS ( as shown in their rolling over to JaM in Basra) and the rest of the "international" support consists of Eastern European countries like Poland . All though I should add that present day Poles know more about liberating people from tyranny than all of present day citizens in France, Germany, Britain combined.

So it is good to know that France, Germany and the rest of the EU which has no standing to say anything about the Iraq war (given that they have not even provided training support to the Iraqi or Afghan Government police programs) are now considered a part of the "international consensus" on the direction of Iraq ! Bravo, indeed !

The extra 50,000 troops are there as insurance - that the hard earned gains of the war are not going to be lost if in case Iraq becomes violent like in 2006/07 again. But this is once again nothing more than optics - a temporary show of force against regional powers like Iran, just to demonstrate US commitment to its allies.

No consensus is required on an issue where a majority of people in the US and the world have already decided that the Iraq war is a closed chapter. In fact this was the only DECENT way to draw down. In victory. After making sure that a moderate democratic Iraq was in place with forces that are largely self dependent for national security and protection.

In fact this was the only

by J Thomas on Sun, 03/01/2009 - 5:45pm

In fact this was the only DECENT way to draw down. In victory.

Do you actually have some sort of illusion that we can snatch a victory out of this?

Or are you just joshing us, pretending you're stupid to get a laugh?

The Big Easy Withdrawal is going smooth, so far. . .

by wilsonrofishing on Sun, 03/01/2009 - 4:09pm

While receiving a dose of criticism from progressives for his Iraq policy, the new president should nonetheless get some kudos for his unilateral troop withdrawal from another devastated, corrupt, seemingly ungovernable region that occurred this morning, albeit with little fanfare.

Yes, like Iraq, President Obama had the resolve not to abandon New Orleans, or worse yet, go with the original Biden plan of partitioning the city into autonomous enclaves run by Crips, Fortunetellers, Latin Kings, Vampires, Bloods, Goths, and cajuns. Had the new President simply acquiesced to political pragmatism, the Big Easy almost certainly would not have healed to once again shine as the gem of the deep south. . .