For those of us interested in meatier fare than the cynical and short-sighted Iraq Study Group report, this week brings a pair of thoughtful alternative analyses.
Robert Zelnick has a sober and realistic piece in the new Policy Review.
To concede that going to war in Iraq was a grave mistake of policy is not to embrace the conclusion that an immediate pull-out — or one by a declared date moderated by conditions on the ground — would today serve U.S. interests. The country may have entered the war with erroneous notions of the state of Saddam’s wmd programs. It may have underestimated the resilience of former Baathists and regime loyalists, their access to weapons and the help they would get from foreign jihadists. It may have failed to anticipate that a society divided and oppressed by an authoritarian ruler might erupt into ethnic and religious conflict when that leader departs. It may have been naïve in thinking that an externally modeled Iraqi democratic government would opt for secular rather than sectarian parliamentary representation and that its near perfect transition would transform the region into a galaxy of democratic states. And it may have underestimated the number of troops needed to occupy a country of 25 million.Yet the answer is not to compound those mistakes by leaving in a way that makes large-scale civil war nearly inevitable, pushes the country into the lap of its Iranian neighbor, or advertises the U.S. as an unreliable friend, a hesitant hegemon, and a rewarder of those terrorists with the tenacity to outlast the behemoth. No, when a Great Power puts its leg in a snare, there must be some cure other than amputation.
I'm puzzled by Zelnick's lack of extensive comment on the role of Iran and Syria in funding, arming and accelerating the militias and insurgents in Iraq, which seems crucial to me. But his analysis of Iraq's political complexities is eye-opening and his suggestions for action are solid.
On Thursday, AEI scholar Frederick Kagan and former acting Army chief of staff General Jack Keane presented the results of an in-depth study: Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq. Their 52-slide presentation deck looks very interesting and the full report is due out in January. AEI has video of the session as well.
We can only hope that President Bush is listening to these other voices.