Exiting Iraq with Honor

Our dilemma in Iraq is analogous to that of a hit and run driver. The honorable and humane thing that the driver needs to do is stop and look after the victim until help and recovery is achieved.

When the driver hits and then runs he (or she) is scorned and criminalized. When the driver does the honorable thing he is respected.

America, under the policies of the present administration, certainly hit Iraq incurring serious damage, death and destruction.

Now our situation is untenable. The victim is fiercely bleeding and breaking apart. American life and limb is paying a heavy and futile price.

Many are calling for an immediate withdrawal from the country.

A summary withdrawal makes us look like the hit and run driver.

What should we do?

We owe Iraq and its suffering people an important debt. We cannot bring back the dead; we can help care for the injured, and we can achieve one more thing: the rebuilding of Iraq’s infrastructure and its life sustaining services, water, gas, electricity, medical, educational and transportation facilities which we caused to be destroyed.

We cannot and should not keep our young men and women engaged militarily with the insurgency (To control the violence would require at least 200K more troops, with even greater cost in American and Iraqi casualties). Our young Americans are getting injured and killed for no reason now, regardless of original intentions. Their bleeding and dying now is futile, inhumane and tragically wasteful. The stubborn pride, or inadequacy, of our administration must be held accountable if this continues on.

We cannot prevent Sunnis, Shias nor the Kurds from their mutual carnage. The groups were at one another’s throats for centuries because of ethnic, religious and tribal strife (fundamentally driven by hostile competition over territorial and economic power – using religion as an excuse - as all group conflicts are).

However, The groups were cobbled together into a nation decades ago (by the British). They were held together by the iron fist of dictatorial rulers, the last of whom was Saddam. Our destruction of his rule and regime has given rise once more to the historic conflict, exacerbated now by the addition of oil riches. It is nonsense to debate about a civil war. It has always been a “civil war.”

Therefore what we can and should do is disengage from the insurgents. We must do our best to support a political and social effort to bring about the end of killing.

We must then concentrate our troop and civilian forces fully on the job of reconstruction. Part of our forces put to the job of repairing and rebuilding the infrastructure and part of our forces assigned the job of protecting and defending the builders, but no aggressive action.

We must honestly announce this intention to the world and go about the business of carrying out the plan.

If Iraqi hostile forces prevent this effort then we must withdraw our military from Iraq without further ado, even as we continue to engage in world wide diplomacy towards resolution.*

Once the reconstruction is complete we can bring our military home and without delay.

In this way America can regain much of its honor and reputation in the world.

*Some goals that need to be pursued:

Establish a Mutual Cooperation Commission, equally composed of the three major groups, Shia, Sunni and Kurd.

The Commission would oversee and administrate the honest distribution of oil revenues to the three groups, as well as administer and operate the vital utilities and transportation facilities of the country, and, perhaps, the monetary system. The Commission would thus be charged with the responsibility of this limited, common interest service. The three groups would have semi-autonomous self rule in all other aspects, in their respective sectors.

The Sunni, having no oil of its own, would receive an annual guaranteed, proportion of the oil revenues, contributed by the Shias and Kurds. This is made necessary in order to promote an end to hostilities and to initiate peaceful co-existence. It is justified since the three parties were thrown together under international pressure, and ruled oppressively by one party over the others.

The Commission would not be located in Baghdad, since that city is stigmatized by the oppressive rule of Saddam as well as by the recent sectarian carnage, but at another site in Iraq, perhaps where the three sectors converge would be chosen.

An international force, perhaps NATO, the UN or an all Muslim force from other nations, for a time would be charged with the duty to oversee these national changes and to provide security while the Iraq people and their leaders initiate and settle in to this new program.

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