A Middle Way on Iraq II Posted by Shawn Brimley

This is an important debate, and I’m pleased that Democracy Arsenal is helping to facilitate it. As we approach (finally!) the point when we will have a Democratic nominee for President, this debate will enter a new and very important phase.  It is critical that we as a party begin to think about governance, and with all due respect to all concerned, I simply don’t buy the idea that a Democratic President will pull the plug on our effort in Iraq and begin to withdraw our forces without calibrating the speed or nature of our departure to the situation on the ground.

Without going over my case for a middle way again, I want to respond to Max’s argument that:

the problem therefore with a more middle of the road approach is that in my view we will still be in virtually the same place five to ten years from now.

I disagree with that characterization.  The point I’m trying to make is that nearly every political actor in Iraq (with the exception of AQI) has, at one point or another, manipulated America for their own particular purposes.  It is time we use the very real leverage we have over several actors in Iraq.

The Kurds desire an enduring relationship with us, ISCI is posturing to further their designs on more robust regional power, Sadr is using us to help reign in elements of JAM that are not response to him and erode his legitimacy, Dawa and the secular elements of the Shiite ruling class who desire a unitary Iraq are desperate to retain the help we provide in training the Iraqi security forces – the list goes on and on.

To be clear though, the United States is losing leverage by the day.  Every day the Bush administration has provided a blank check to the various Iraqi actors, and every day they imply through the ongoing SOFA talks that we will be there unconditionally for the foreseeable future is a contribution to the erosion of America’s strategic position in Iraq and the region. The “all in” for perhaps “all time” approach is not really a strategy, but the absence of strategy, as it abdicates the imperative to make real choices.

I hope and expect that a Democratic administration would fundamentally change this equation.

My position (and I should mention that my colleague Colin Kahl is also a leading proponent of this view) is that America should begin – finally – to make our security, economic, and diplomatic aid conditional on demonstrable efforts at real political progress in Iraq.  To take this position actually requires that we be willing to pull out troops if progress is not made.  In fact, if this strategy has any chance of succeeding, an American President must be willing to play hardball.

Will this work?  It is impossible to tell, but at least we could say that we tried an integrated approach that used both carrots and sticks.  A withdrawal that is not connected to the situation on the ground leapfrogs from our current “all in” position to the “all out” position without at least trying a “middle way.”

So again, this strategy would require two things.

First, it needs to be sustainable, hence my recommendation that a new President continue a measured drawdown until we reach the point that our military commanders believe can be sustained for the long-term.  I expect this number would somewhere in the neighborhood of 75,000 troops.  If commanders on the ground think it prudent to take all of 2009 to get to that point, so be it.

This isn’t chump change.  The next President will inherit somewhere between 115,000 to 130,000 troops in Iraq – perhaps more.  I think the country would accept a withdrawal to 75,000 over the course of a year.  That is a lot of our people coming home in the first year of a new administration.