A Strategy for Ending the Iraq War
By Tom Hayden
June 21, 2005
“When you’re in the middle of a conflict, you’re trying to find pillars of strength to lean on”. - US military officer, Iraq, May 19, 2005
INTRODUCTION.
In January 2005, a group of fifty peace activists from the Vietnam and Iraq eras issued a global appeal to end the war. The appeal proposed undermining the pillars of war (public opinion, funding, troop recruitment, international allies) and building the pillars of peace and justice (an independent anti-war movement linked to justice issues, a progressive Democratic opposition, soldiers and families against the war, a global network to stop the US empire). This is an update on implementation of the strategy.
OVERVIEW.
The tide is turning. Public support for the war is down, as are the President’s ratings. Anti-war Democrats are back. Military recruiting is hitting a wall. The US strategy of Iraqization is failing. National anti-war actions are scheduled for late September. The bad news is that the good news is so recent. For six long months, the media and the Democrats have given the President a free pass, and the anti-war movement has floundered. The war is not over - we should remember that the Vietnam War continued for seven years after President Johnson was forced to resign.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION.
Among friends and local activists, practice discussion of these multiple scenarios with plans for responding to each:
1. Status Quo/Quagmire. How do we expand local anti-war coalitions, and double membership of local groups, going into the 2006 elections?
2. Bush escalates (e.g. sends more troops, invades Syrian border, bombs Iran, resumes draft). In any of these cases, is more radical action called for? How will it impose a cost on Bush, how will it expand the movement?
3. Bush mimics Nixon, promises peace, withdraws 10,000 troops as Iraq adopts constitution and elects new government. Would this defuse the anti-war movement going into 2006? Or will we be in a mode to keep on the offense? How will we argue that the strategy will not bring peace?
4. What do you need to respond? In each scenario, what resources or adaptations does your local group need to respond?
Analysis of the current situation
On the battlefield: a sinking quagmire
It is risky to base an analysis on battlefield reports, especially given the Pentagon’s propaganda, the media’s limitations, and the general lack of information about the Iraqi insurgency. Anything is possible, but clearly a sense of panic has set in among Washington decision-makers since the installation of the new Iraqi client regime a few months ago. For example, Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel says the war is being lost (NYT, June 21). Baghdad is “effectively enemy territory, with an ability to strike at will, and to shake off the losses inflicted by American troops.” (NYT, January 20, 2005) Military analysts recognize that the US cannot hold the territory it occupies. The airport road remains a nightmare. These are the classic contradictions of an occupying power trying to prop up an unpopular regime against a nationalist-based resistance. The training and deployment of Iraqi counter-insurgency troops (Iraqization) has failed so far, with US commanders saying it will take several years. “American troops have been conducting nighttime patrols to make sure the Iraqis stay awake”, according to an unusually candid front-page NY Times article (June 19). Sen. Biden was informed privately that of 107 Iraqi battalions, only three were fully-operational (June 6).
Against all evidence, however, senior correspondents like the Times’ John Burns continue to see the war through the filters of previous conflicts. Burns calls the Syrian-Iraqi border a new “Ho Chi Minh Trail”, ignoring the fact that there is no North Vietnam, no China, no Soviet Union serving as a “rear base” for the insurgents, but inadvertently lending support to the argument that the US should send more troops to seal the border. More unfortunately, Burns has penned an opinion piece called “The Mystery of the Insurgency” (May 15) which says “counter-insurgency experts are baffled”. Sounding like Mr. Kurtz in Conrad’s Heart of Darknesss, Burns cannot simply conclude that the US invasion itself is the cause of a fiery Iraqi nationalism, because that would imply that US withdrawal might lessen the violence.
Perhaps the most significant factor on the ground is the rise of an Iraqi movement calling for US withdrawal and ending the occupation. The peace movement should consider calling for US peace talks with the Iraqi peace movement.
In January of this year, a Brookings Institute report showed 82 percent of Sunnis and 69 percent of Shiites favored a “near-term US withdrawal” (NYT, Feb. 21, 2005). Just before the Iraqi elections, US intelligence warned that the winning faction would press for a withdrawal date. (NYT, Jan. 19, 2005). This was considered “grim” news and efforts were taken to squelch the peace sentiment. Next Harith al-Dari, a prominent Sunni cleric, along with the Muslim Scholars Association, called for a US withdrawal timetable, saying “We do not insist that the Americans withdraw at once, as long as they stay in their bases and cease to marginalize our political life.” (NYT, March 29, 2005) Then 100,000 Iraqi Shiites, the winners in the election, demonstrated on the streets of Baghdad calling for US withdrawal. (NYT, April 10). A few days later, the leader of a “hard-line” Sunni group “who says he has links with insurgent fighters” was rebuffed when he tried for weeks to open talks with American officials on behalf of the insurgents. (NYT, April 15, 2005).
The only conclusion one can draw from these scattered reports is that the Bush Administration is threatened by any peace sentiment among Iraqis before the US somehow defeats the insurgents. This leaves an opportunity for anti-war critics to call for cease-fire talks (publicly and back-channel) in support of the Iraqi majority. Many guerrilla conflicts have been suspended when the guerrillas’ legitimate demands were recognized as part of a political process. Secretary of State Rice seeks “inclusiveness” by inviting fifteen token Sunnis to the table while the US military occupies their neighborhoods. Instead she must understand “inclusiveness” to mean the inclusion of the majority of Iraqis who will at least tolerate the insurgency until the US agrees to end the occupation.
The US may be missing an opportunity for back-channel talks about guarantees that the withdrawal will be peaceful, that oil supplies will be protected, and that Israel will not be attacked from Baghdad. No one can know - but Secretary Rumsfeld is proud of saying “we have no exit strategy, only a victory strategy.” (NYT, April 13, 2005) That’s what Americans in Saigon kept saying until they were jumping on helicopters from rooftops in 1975. The possibility cannot be discounted that the Green Zone will be attacked and overrun in an offensive like that in Saigon in January 1968. What then?
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http://blog.pdamerica.org/?p=144
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