Rep. Murtha’s dissent on Iraq war policy made front page news in both the Washington Post and the New York Times today, and other papers besides. Well it should have, too. As everyone knows, Murtha is no shrinking violent when it comes to the use of force, and his defection from supporting the White House on the war is politically significant.
But it’s worth examining Murtha’s reasoning a little closer than many have so far. The essence of his dissent is his observation that we have become the problem. We, said Murtha, have managed to bring together diverse opposition groups. As occupiers, we’re the catalyst for the insurgency. If we leave, the insurgency will flag.
This is not an argument Murtha invented. I first saw a full-throated version of it in a State Department dissent channel well over a year ago, written by Keith Mines, who subsequently went public with it. It was also at the bottom of Ed Luttwak’s Foreign Affairs provocation some several months ago. And it has been uttered by many dozens of others in public and private, in the press and even in the Pentagon, in Washington and in Baghdad, and in countless other quarters as well. It has become, in short, common knowledge.
But is it true? Is the U.S. military presence the main catalyst for the insurgency, and if we leave will the insurgency cease?
Most likely it’s a half truth. And a half truth is a little like a half brick, not as useful as a whole brick for constructive purposes, but, as the late Robert Nisbet said, you can throw one twice as far as a whole brick.
Sure, lots of Iraqis see the Coalition occupation as a humiliation, and the smash-down-the-door, step-on-the-neck tactics of the first year or so made us a lot of enemies who want revenge. It’s true, too, that the U.S. presence has encouraged groups with different agendas to align tactically against us. And if we left, probably that tactical cohesion would suffer.
But the Murtha story wasn’t the only Iraq item in today’s news. The other main story was that of the bombing of two Shi’a mosques near the Iranian border. And this is a hint as to why Murtha’s “the enemy is us” argument is only half true.
Sunni insurgents who are Iraqi nationals are fighting not just to get rid of the Coalition, but to reclaim the power and privileges they held in Iraq since the founding of the state. A lot of them seem actually to believe that they represent a numerical majority. The salafi outsiders hate the Shi`a for their own twisted theological reasons. So on this point, there is a meeting of purpose if not a meeting of minds between Iraqi insurgents and foreign insurgents. If we left, the target set would change, but the violence would not stop. The Sunnis would try to destroy the Shi’a-Kurdish agreement on the federal shape of the new Iraq, and the fledgling government pledged to bring it about. That would probably precipitate a civil war, and that, in turn, might (or might not; no one knows) drag Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran into the fray.
U.S. and allied occupation forces probably can’t guarantee a liberal democracy in Iraq, or anywhere else. But as long as we’re there, no full-fledged civil war is likely to break out, with all the regional mayhem it promises.
The argument that our leaving will reduce the level of violence in Iraq is therefore almost surely wrong.
The pledge made by the President many months ago that we’ll stay as long as necessary and not a day longer still makes sense. The definition of what is “necessary” for U.S. interests is a matter of some dispute and has acquired a shifting practical center — in other words, we’re lowing the bar of success. But the basic principle remain the right one. We do need to get out of there, and yes it’s true that a war of this kind can only be won in the end by Iraqis. But we can’t leave until the new Iraqi center is strong enough to defend itself, and that’s going to take longer, unfortunately, than Murtha’s projected six months.
Finally, as for the idea of setting a date certain for withdrawal, as some Senators, particularly on the Democratic side of the aisle, seem to favor, well, this is just stupid. It would be simpler just to mail the insurgents a set of post-dated keys to Baghdad. That would accomplish the same thing, but be less embarrassing.