[Marxism] On Getting Out of Iraq, and Other Problems

[Dbachmozart@xxxxxxx]

    By William Pfaff -     
 
Paris, July 8, 2008 â Foreign policy is normally  formulated in terms of 
interests and threats. Since the dramatization of  the terrorist threat by the 
al 
Qaeda attacks on the United States in 2001,  the order has been reversed and 
analyses emphasize threats over interest.  Yet threats are many, and interests 
â
 vital interests, that concern the  security of a nation â are by nature 
limited. When the two are confused,  it is easy to fail to discriminate among 
necessity, prudence, and  advantage in making policy â and beyond that, to 
risk 
losing your grasp on  what is feasible.

The New York Times published an editorial last  week demanding that the 
American presidential candidates debate what they  intend to do about âa 
swift and 
orderly withdrawal from Iraq.â Such a  withdrawal surely is desirable, and is 
what Barack Obama has promised, but  is it feasible?

What about a disorderly withdrawal? What if that is  the only available 
withdrawal? In that case is it the larger American  interest to stay 
indefinitely 
in Iraq, fighting on for the sake of  staying, or to leave in disorder?

What if the Iraq government tells  the United States to leave, as Prime 
Minister Nouri al-Maliki has  threatened, in his negotiations with Washington 
on 
what terms the United  States would be allowed to stay beyond the UN mandate 
that ends on  December 31. He has refused the U.S. demands originally made â 
for 
total  extraterritoriality, and sovereign freedom of action, together with  
authority to seize and imprison Iraqi individuals.


He can  afford this because the Defense Department and this administration 
are  ferociously committed to staying in Iraq, in order to hold onto the huge  
military bases constructed there, and for Iraqâs oil. They will pay a lot  
for 
that; but if Maliki should stick to his demand for Iraqi sovereignty  over the 
U.S. military, they would look for an alternative. Perhaps a new  Iraqi 
government? Maliki might himself gamble on a new government -- a new  one in 
Washington.

But actually how important are the U.S. bases?  Edward Luttwak, an astute and 
unsentimental commentator, recently wrote in  Britainâs Prospect magazine 
that the Middle East is no longer important  enough to fight over. He said the 
Arab-Israel conflict has been largely  irrelevant strategically since the cold 
war ended, and âglobal dependence  on middle eastern oil is decliningâ â 
which 
despite the speculation-driven  run-up in the oil price is still true.

In any case oilâs  availability does not, and never has, depended on military 
domination of  the region. Oil sells on an international market to those who 
can buy it,  and no significant producer can afford to boycott the biggest 
purchasers,  the U.S., Japan and Western Europe. As Charles Glass comments (a 
former  prisoner of Hizbollah in Lebanon), Luttwakâs conclusion logically 
should  
be that the U.S. stop giving $5.5 billion in aid annually to Israel and  
selling billions of dollarsâ worth of jet aircraft, heavy armor, and other  
weapons to Saudi Arabia, a country that has never fought a war.

It  should also get out of Iraq, whether in orderly or disorderly fashion,  
since what happens afterwards is surely the business of the Iraqis, who  have 
always in the past, before the 2003 invasion, managed in one way or  another to 
settle their own affairs. What happens to Iraq now can pose no  serious 
threat to the United States. âIt could become a terrorist  training-groundâ 
is the 
witless objection usually heard to a departure in  disorder. But surely the 
terrorists have no need of even more âtraining  goundsâ than they already 
have. An isolated farm or ranch in Utah could  serve just as well as a training 
ground, and the training comes without  cost via the internet.

A very senior figure in the Washington  policy community, Simon Safarty of 
the Center for Strategic and  International Studies, recently listed what are 
â
increasingly agreedâ to  be the ânon-traditionalâ threats Europeans and 
Americans should worry  about, in addition to the threat of âterrorist groups 
of 
global reach and  potential access to weapons of mass destruction.â These 
other 
threats are:  âWMD diversification and proliferation, failed states, 
organized 
crime,  access to energy, climate change, pandemics, and more.â

Well, yes.  But suppose that this is a list of lifeâs problems that neither 
the  Americans nor the Europeans are likely to solve, even using the âcomplex 
 
mixture of military and civilian capabilities along with a combination of  
institutional tools, both national and multilateralâ that he recommends.  
Maybe 
we have to live with them. Or maybe, like Luttwakâs Middle East,  some of 
them 
are just not very important.

The New York Times  editorial congratulated Obama on his intention to have 
the U.S. âwithdraw  from Iraq so it can finish the fight in Afghanistan,â 
where 
the Alliesâ  situation is deteriorating and more U.S soldiers are being 
killed than in  Iraq. But just how will President Obama (or President McCain) 
â
finish offâ  the Taliban? Early in the election campaign Obama suggested 
doing it 
by  invading Pakistan, an American ally, where al Qaeda and the Taliban take  
refuge. Then the United States could simultaneously fight the Pakistan  army, 
the Taliban, al Qaeda, and the tribal warriors of Waziristan.  Whereâs the 
vital American interest in that?

Âopyright 2008 by  Tribune Media Services International. All Rights  Reserved.

 
<_http://www.williampfaff.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=326_ 
(http://www.williampfaff.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=326) >
 




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