The new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq starkly delineates the gulf that separates President Bush’s illusions from the realities of the war. Victory, as the president sees it, requires a stable liberal democracy in Iraq that is pro-American. The NIE describes a war that has no chance of producing that result. In this critical respect, the NIE, the consensus judgment of all the U.S. intelligence agencies, is a declaration of defeat.
Its gloomy implications — hedged, as intelligence agencies prefer, in rubbery language that cannot soften its impact — put the intelligence community and the American public on the same page. The public awakened to the reality of failure in Iraq last year and turned the Republicans out of control of Congress to wake it up. But a majority of its members are still asleep, or only half-awake to their new writ to end the war soon.
This is more than a report on the National Intelligence Estimate which simply says what most of us already know [have known for a long time if we’ve really thought about it]. This opinion article goes much further. It lays out what we should do, what the Administration ought to but probably won’t do, what the Congress has been mandated to do. Whether you believe the invasion of Iraq was a misdirected play for American Dominion in the post-Cold War era; or you think it was a misadventure in oil acquisition; or you’re one of the few who still think it was part of a war on terrorism doesn’t matter any more. It has been a failed endeavor. Time to end it. In this article in tomorrow’s Washington Post, author Retired General William E. Odom lays out what few choices remain, and a rational way to make them.
The first and most critical step is to recognize that fighting on now simply prolongs our losses and blocks the way to a new strategy. Getting out of Iraq is the pre-condition for creating new strategic options. Withdrawal will take away the conditions that allow our enemies in the region to enjoy our pain. It will awaken those European states reluctant to collaborate with us in Iraq and the region.
Second, we must recognize that the United States alone cannot stabilize the Middle East.
Third, we must acknowledge that most of our policies are actually destabilizing the region. Spreading democracy, using sticks to try to prevent nuclear proliferation, threatening "regime change," using the hysterical rhetoric of the "global war on terrorism" — all undermine the stability we so desperately need in the Middle East.
Fourth, we must redefine our purpose. It must be a stable region, not primarily a democratic Iraq. We must redirect our military operations so they enhance rather than undermine stability. We can write off the war as a "tactical draw" and make "regional stability" our measure of "victory." That single step would dramatically realign the opposing forces in the region, where most states want stability. Even many in the angry mobs of young Arabs shouting profanities against the United States want predictable order, albeit on better social and economic terms than they now have.
Realigning our diplomacy and military capabilities to achieve order will hugely reduce the numbers of our enemies and gain us new and important allies. This cannot happen, however, until our forces are moving out of Iraq. Why should Iran negotiate to relieve our pain as long as we are increasing its influence in Iraq and beyond? Withdrawal will awaken most leaders in the region to their own need for U.S.-led diplomacy to stabilize their neighborhood.
If Bush truly wanted to rescue something of his historical legacy, he would seize the initiative to implement this kind of strategy. He would eventually be held up as a leader capable of reversing direction by turning an imminent, tragic defeat into strategic recovery.
If he stays on his present course, he will leave Congress the opportunity to earn the credit for such a turnaround. It is already too late to wait for some presidential candidate for 2008 to retrieve the situation. If Congress cannot act, it, too, will live in infamy.
Like I said, must-read journalism here. Kudos to the Washington Post for publishing it…
William E. Odom, a retired Army lieutenant general, was head of Army intelligence and director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan. He served on the National Security Council staff under Jimmy Carter. A West Point graduate with a PhD from Columbia, Odom teaches at Yale and is a fellow of the Hudson Institute.
A commenter on Joshua Marshall’s Talking Point Memo responds to Odom:
The critical work of the Congress in the next 6 months is to build the narrative, which places the responsibility for the course of the Iraq War on its conduct. The narrative, favored by the self-destructive left, of a war that was doomed from the outset, is welcomed by the Right, which wishes to gloss over the corruption, malfeasance and incompetence. I am no fan of Hillary’s (or Kerry’s) conspicuous calculation, but Hillary is right to remind Democratic Primary voters that the mistakes in Iraq belong to Bush. Squabbling over which Democrats have uttered mea culpas on their support for the Iraq War at the outset does not build a political majority. Focusing attention on Bush’s conduct of the war, and how the conduct of the war has contributed to the hopelessness of the current situation — there Bush’s responsibility is unambiguous and unshared.With the foundation afforded by a narrative of Iraq failure, which clearly fixed blame on the incompetence and corruption of Republicans, the Democrats might be able to sell the idea that it is too late in Iraq, to recover. And, with that foundation, the Democrats will be able to get the country out of Iraq, without destroying themselves.
The story of how Bush conducted the war, and how that conduct led to the on-going fiasco and catastrophe, which is Iraq, is the story ALL Democrats should be telling, over and over, until nothing else can be heard in this country, and the U.S. gets out, out, out.
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