[Marxism] Kissinger on US withdrawal

[Marvin Gandall <marvgandall@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The invasion of Iraq was intended as a demonstration of American power, and
the "demonstration effect" remains the key variable influencing the timing
of an American withdrawal. An op-ed by Henry Kissinger in today's Washington
Post provides a good summary of the considerations within the US ruling
class regarding the "optics" of an early American pullout. The debate, as
during the Vietnam war, turns on whether an early withdrawal would eliminate
the cause of Islamist-nationalist militancy and the growing threat it
represents to American interests, or conversely embolden it and encourage
insurgencies elsewhere - the so-called "domino effect". The Democrats,
especially Murtha, incline to the former view; Kissinger and other
Republicans, especially outside the Senate, the latter.

Crucially, it is not only the armed Sunni insurgency that Kissinger worries
about. He doesn't want the US to leave Iraq until the unreliable Shia
militias under al-Sadr and al-Hakim are "disarmed" by a broadly
representative national government, preferably one represented by pro-US
secular bourgeois politicans like Allawi or Chelabi. This objective
underlies the current behind-the-scenes post-election maneuvering in Iraq
by US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, and is hinted at by Kissinger below.

Kissinger evidently crafted his piece to check the momentum towards a
substantial drawdown of US forces prior to the congressional elections next
year. It is aimed not only at the wavering leadership of the Democratic
party which is under pressure from its antiwar constituency as well as an
increasingly resitive press which is contributing to growing popular
opposition to the war, but also at the White House and congressional
Republicans tempted by partisan political considerations and at the US
military command whose "views regarding security need to be blended with
judgments regarding the political and collateral consequences" of an early
withdrawal."

The article also includes the customary boilerplate about the need to draw
in the Arab League, European Union, and other international institutions to
provide political cover for the occupation.

MG
------------------------
How to Exit Iraq
By Henry A. Kissinger
Washington Post
Sunday, December 18, 2005; B07

The administration and its critics seem to agree that the beginning of an
American withdrawal from Iraq will mark a turning point. What divides them
is the speed and extent of the drawdown and whether it should be driven by a
timetable or by a strategy that seeks to shape events.

Though often put into technical terms, the issue is not the mechanics of
withdrawal. Rather, the debate should be over consequences: whether, in the
end, withdrawal will be perceived as a forced retreat or as an aspect of a
prudent and carefully planned strategy designed to enhance international
security. Whatever one's view of the decision to undertake the Iraq war, the
method by which it was entered, or the strategy by which it was conducted --
and I supported the original decision -- one must be clear about the
consequences of failure. If, when we go, we leave nothing behind but a
failed state and chaos, the consequences will be disastrous for the region
and for America's position in the world.

For the phenomenon of radical Islam is more than the sum of individual
terrorist acts extending from Bali through Jakarta to New Delhi, Tunisia,
Riyadh, Istanbul, Casablanca, Madrid and London. It is an ideological
outpouring by which Islam's radical wing seeks to sweep away secularism,
pluralistic values and Western institutions wherever Muslims live. Its
dynamism is fueled by the conviction that the designated victims are on the
decline and lack the will to resist.

Any event that seems to confirm these convictions compounds the
revolutionary dynamism. If a fundamentalist regime is installed in Baghdad
or in any of the other major cities, such as Mosul or Basra, if terrorists
secure substantial territory for training and sanctuaries, or if chaos and
civil war mark the end of the American intervention, Islamic militants will
gain momentum wherever there are significant Islamic populations or
nonfundamentalist Islamic governments. No country within reach of jihad
would be spared the consequences of the resulting upheavals sparked by the
many individual centers of fanaticism that make up the jihad.

Defeat would shrivel U.S. credibility around the world. Our leadership and
the respect accorded to our views on other regional issues from Palestine to
Iran would be weakened; the confidence of other major countries -- China,
Russia, Europe, Japan -- in America's potential contribution would be
diminished. The respite from military efforts would be brief before even
greater crises descended on us.

A disastrous outcome is defined by the global consequences, not domestic
rhetoric. President Bush has put forward a plausible strategy. It
acknowledges that policy has been leavened by experience. But the crescendo
of demands for a timetable suppresses the quality of patience that history
teaches is the prerequisite for overcoming guerrilla warfare. Even an
appropriate strategy can be vitiated if it is executed in too precipitate a
manner.

The views of critics and administration spokesmen converge on the
proposition that as Iraqi units are trained, they should replace U.S.
forces -- hence the controversy over which Iraqi units are in what state of
readiness. But strategy based on substituting Iraqi for U.S. troops may
result in perpetuating an unsatisfactory stalemate. Even assuming that the
training proceeds as scheduled and produces units the equivalent of the U.S.
forces being replaced -- a highly dubious proposition -- I would question
the premise that American reductions should be in a linear relationship to
Iraqi training. A design for simply maintaining the present security
situation runs the risk of confirming the adage that guerrillas win if they
do not lose.

The better view is that the first fully trained Iraqi units should be seen
as increments to coalition forces and not replacements, making possible the
deployment of forces toward the frontiers to curtail infiltration, as well
as accelerated offensive operations aimed at the guerrilla infrastructure.
Such a strategy would help remedy the shortage of ground forces, which has
slowed anti-guerrilla operations throughout the occupation. While seemingly
more time-consuming, it would present better opportunities for stabilizing
the country and would thus provide a more reliable exit route.

The combat performance of new units cannot be measured by training criteria
alone. The ultimate metrics -- to use Pentagon terminology -- are to what
extent they are motivated toward agreed political goals. What they fight for
will determine how well they fight.

Aresponsible exit strategy must emerge from the systematic integration of
political and security elements -- above all, the consolidation of the
national government. Real progress will have been made when the Iraqi armed
forces view themselves -- and are seen by the population -- as defenders of
the nation's interest, not sectarian or regional interests. They will have
become a national force when they are able to carry the fight into Sunni
areas and grow willing to disarm militias in the Shiite regions from which
the majority of them are recruited.

To delegate to military commanders the judgments as to the timing of
withdrawals therefore places too great a burden on them. Their views
regarding security need to be blended with judgments regarding the political
and collateral consequences that a major initiative inevitably produces.
Such a balance presupposes that all sides in our domestic debate adopt a
restraint imposed on us by awareness of the grave consequences of failure.

The psychological impact, most immediately on the Iraqi political structure,
will be crucial. Will the initial reductions -- set to begin sometime after
last week's elections -- be viewed as the first step of an inexorable
process to rapid and complete withdrawal? Or will they be seen as a stage of
an agreed process dependent on tangible and definable political and security
progress? If the former, the political factions in Iraq will maneuver to
protect their immediate assets in preparation for the expected test of
strength between the various groups. The incentive to consider American
preferences for a secular and inclusive government in a unified Iraq will
shrink. It will be difficult to broaden the base of a government at the very
moment it thinks it is losing its key military support. In these
circumstances, even a limited withdrawal not formally geared to a fixed
timetable and designed to placate American public opinion could acquire an
irreversible character.

If the experience of Vietnam is any guide, the numbers of returning troops
could, in such an atmosphere, turn into the principal domestic test of
successful U.S. policy. Pressures to continue or accelerate the withdrawals
could be magnified so that the relationship to the political criteria of
progress would be lost. A process driven by technical or domestic criteria
might evoke a competition between Iraqi factions to achieve nationalist
credit for accelerating the U.S. withdrawal, perhaps by turning on us either
politically or with some of their militia.

The United States intervened in Iraq to protect the region's security and
its own. But it cannot conclude that process without anchoring it in some
international consensus. Geopolitical realities will not disappear from a
region that has lived with them and suffered from them for millennia and
that has drawn U.S. military forces into their vortex in Lebanon in the
1950s and 1980s, in Afghanistan in 2001 and in the Persian Gulf in 1991 and
2003 -- and has caused two U.S. military alerts (over the Syrian invasion of
Jordan in 1970 and the Arab-Israeli war in 1973). The passions, convictions
and rivalries of the factions in Iraq will continue. A regional system will
emerge in that country in one form or another through our interaction,
either with these forces or through our default. In that sense, Americans
must accept the reality that their country can never make a total political
withdrawal, though the size and location of the military presence will vary.
It will always have to meld political and security objectives if the
predominance of radical states is to be avoided.

The countries that are relevant to Iraq's security and stability or that
consider their security and stability affected by the emerging arrangements
must be given a sense of participation in the next stage of Iraq policy. The
developing political institutions in Iraq need to be built into an
international and regional system -- not out of obeisance to a theoretical
multilateralism but because otherwise America will have to function alone as
the permanent policeman, a role that any projected Iraqi government is
likely to reject in the long run and that the very debate discussed in this
article inhibits.

The time has come not only to define the strategic future in Iraq but also
to broaden the base of political consultation in the region at large. A
political contact group including key European allies, India (because of its
Muslim population), Pakistan, Turkey and some neighbors of Iraq should be
convoked after the Iraqi election. Political discussions between the U.S.
ambassador in Baghdad and Iranian authorities regarding Iraq have already
been approved.

These cannot be the sole contacts with Baghdad's neighbors. The functions of
the contact group would be to advise on the political evolution of Iraq, to
broaden the basis of legitimacy of the government and to reflect a broad
international interest in the stability and progress of the region. As time
goes on, the group could become a forum to deal with other issues affecting
Middle East stability, including some of the causes of Islamic radicalism. A
political framework is not a substitute for a successful military outcome,
but military success cannot be long sustained without it.

The writer, a former secretary of state, is chairman of Kissinger
Associates.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121700946.html




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