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…not with a bang, but a crapload of paperwork and actuarials. So reports the Associated Press from Joint Base Balad in Iraq. Your money grafs:
The orderly withdrawal is a far cry from the testosterone-fueled push across the berm separating Kuwait and Iraq, when Marines and soldiers pushed north in the 2003 invasion, battling Saddam Hussein’s army while sleeping on the hoods of their vehicles and eating prepackaged meals.
“I think it’s probably more challenging leaving, responsibly drawing down, than it is getting here, because you just have to figure out where everything is and getting it out of here. Are there enough airplanes, ships, containers, and do we have enough time to do that and meet the president’s mandate?” said Col. David F. Demartino, who is responsible for infrastructure and support services at Balad, which is home to 25,000 troops and civilians.
The last time I was in Iraq, in July 2009, there were still 130,000 service members in Iraq. From the very narrow standpoint of logistics and operations, an on-time reduction to 50,000 at the end of this month is quite an achievement.
And yet. Any other way you measure it — morally, strategically, internationally — numbers of US troops deployed don’t really mean much. To the extent that (1) a withdrawal removes a catalyst for violence over there, great. But to the extent that (2) it puts gangs and other armed factions in control of Iraq’s future – and (3) it whets the growing American appetite for isolationism, both on the left and the right — man, it sucks. Truth is, America’s pullout probably does all three.
I’m planning to have a couple of posts up at MoJo in the coming weeks about what the US leaves behind in Iraq. But you can get a sneak peek from the Brookings Institution, whose incredible Iraq index (PDF) is updated monthly with the good, the bad, and the statistically significant. One of the best resources out there for the curious observer, it’s jammed with amazing facts that never seem to make the cut in most newspapers’ front-page meetings. Julian Assange, eat your heart out.
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I’m sorry Adam, I’m just massively uncomfortable with this framing.
(1)It returns a nation to it’s owners to do with as they will. It was never ours, and we had no right nor reason to occupy Iraq.
(2)Yes, it’s a bloody disaster in Iraq in many ways, but if we keep waiting until the “right” time to leave, when everything’s perfect and nothing bad will happen, no human rights abuses, no sectarian violence, no abuse of women and minorities, then we’ll have to decide we’re staying forever, and that’s not good for us OR them.
(3)After the singular national disaster that was the invasion and occupation of Iraq, our appetite for isolationism OUGHT to be growing. It’s what happens when your hubris gets you a kick in the teeth. We need to really understand and internalize that military action against other nations is messy and expensive and ALWAYS has bad consequences, and maybe if the only way to get from point a to point b is military force then we just have to accept we ain’t gonna get to point b, even if we ARE America.
I mean I do understand what you’re saying here. But the only thing we’re leaving Iraq with is a pocket full of frightfully expensive lessons, and we need to keep taking those lessons out of our pocket and making sure that we don’t repeat the same stupid, wasteful, disastrous mistakes anytime soon…
mikey
mikey knows I hate agreeing with him twice in a row, but I kind of believe in the old adage that when you are going down the wrong road, turning around and going back IS a step in the right direction.
I know, I KNOW that pullout of American forces are going to make things difficult, but so does leaving the forces there. It’s why I was opposed to sending them at all, those many years ago. Wars seem to rarely end decisively anymore, and the lessons of Korea and Vietnam and Soviet-era Afghanistan is that local forces can simply run to ground, fighting a guerrilla war and wait out the inevitable humbling of the superpower. Perhaps it might be time to admit the hippies were right and that a different strategy has merit?
I also disagree with hardcore isolationist impulses. America’s (waning) power still carries quite a bit of weight. However, I disagree with the idea that the only American intervention available is military. I read something once that clean, safe water could be provided for every person in the various countries were it doesn’t exist for something on the order of 20 or 30 billion dollars. now, it strikes me that doing that would have been a very good way to actually win the hearts and minds of people around the world, and with the money that has ended up just missing from Our Iraq Adventure. I confess I may have the dollar amounts wrong, but the concept is still pretty much the same.
Kurt Vonnegut says “I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.” You and me both, brother.
Mikey, great points and well-said. I totally agree with you on (1) – this is/was an occupation, plain and simple. The sooner we can bring it to a close, the better. And I’m down for (2) as well: It’s a crappy situation of crappy alternatives, and hey, that’s the hand the previous administration dealt us, but leaving now probably leaves Iraq generally better than we “found” it, so let’s do this thing.
And in terms of what we leave behind in Mesopotamia, yeah, I agree again: I tried to pull some positives out to stick in the upcoming MoJo piece, but there just aren’t any beyond the superficial and insignificant.
But then there’s (3).
Isolationism is not the lesson or the solution here. It’s the “baby with the bathwater” knee-jerk reaction to (a) our neocon-engineered foreign policy catastrophe of the past decade and (b) our neocon-engineered domestic financial nightmare. Rejecting long, costly, stupid wars of choice with indeterminate ends? Telling hubris to take a hike? Yeah, I think we’ve got a consensus on those particular issues. But to stick our heads in the sand and reject soft power, public diplomacy, and yes, the occasional sanction or humanitarian operation? That’s the direction the country seems to want. It’s kind of a zen operation: The foreign policy of no foreign policy.
I’m all over the place, but a couple more rambling points: Notwithstanding the pacifist, orientalist and post-colonial criticisms that I open myself for, I subscribe to the “clean up the mess you made” theory of international relations…and that’s why, as virulently as I opposed the start of Iraq war, and the conduct of both wars, I’m a little more sympathetic to the “stay” side of the “stay-go” dichotomy. But you make a big, excellent point that no one’s really debating anymore: Before deciding stay/go, it’s fair to ask what staying can possibly accomplish. Which means we need to state a goal. Which we’ve never really done, not convincingly.
When GWB got us into this mess, his fundamental error was believing one silly proposition: ANYTHING is better than letting Saddam stay in power. Now, a pretty large backlash in the US is organizing around a similarly doctrinaire belief: ANYTHING is better than staying in Iraq or Afghanistan. I approach both kinds of moral-tinged, categorical thinking with the same big hunk o’ salt.