Iraq: Withdraw To Victory?

"The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating,"
declares the Iraq Study Group in the lead sentence of
its long-awaited report. [Read
the whole thing in

PDF]

It

continues on in this grim vein:

"A slide toward chaos
could trigger the collapse of Iraq`s government and a
humanitarian catastrophe. … There is

no guarantee for success in Iraq. The situation in
Baghdad and several provinces is

dire. … Pessimism is pervasive. …

Violence is increasing in scope, complexity and
lethality." 

This is the portrait of a nation descending into
hell.

Yet the brutal honesty of the

Baker-Hamilton commission about the situation in
Iraq is accompanied by recommendations that are almost
utopian in their unreality.

For, after painting its grim portrait, the commission
says that if we faithfully follow its recommendations,
"terrorism will be dealt a blow, stability will be
enhanced in an important part of the world, and
America`s credibility, interests and values will be
protected."

What is its principal recommendation? That the United
States begin to pull all its forces out of combat and
out of Iraq by early 2008, and turn the war over to the
Iraqi army and police.

But if 150,000 U.S. Marines and Army troops have
failed in four years to defeat al-Qaida, the Sunni
insurgency, the Mahdi Army, the sectarian militias and
the criminal elements of Iraq, how is the Iraqi army
going to succeed?

Are we to believe that rag-tag army is going to win a
war the finest army on earth has all but lost?

Is this what they call "realism"?

The report itself describes the Iraqi army, after
years of U.S. training, as having made "fitful
progress toward becoming a reliable and disciplined
fighting force loyal to the national government."

"Units lack leadership. … Units lack equipment.
… Units lack personnel. … Units lack logistics and
support."

Is this the force U.S. advisers are going to convert
in a year into an army of salvation?

Well, not entirely. They will be assisted by the
Iraqi police, of whom the report writes:

"The state of the Iraqi
police is substantially worse than that of the Iraqi
army. …

"Iraqi police cannot
control crime, and they routinely engage in sectarian
violence, including the unnecessary detention, torture
and targeted execution of Sunni Arab civilians. The
police are organized under the Ministry of the Interior,
which is confronted by corruption and militia
infiltration and lacks control over police in the
provinces."

These are the folks who are going to win the war we
could not win, after we depart? Is this not an insult to
common sense?

And if the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
fails to "make substantial progress toward the
achievement of milestones on national reconciliation,
security and governance," declares the commission,
"the United States should reduce its political,
military or economic support for the Iraqi government."

But if we pull the rug out from under Maliki, and his
regime and army collapse, who moves into the vacuum?
Would it not likely be Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi
Army of 60,000 fighters, a force far superior to the
Mahdi units that U.S forces eviscerated in Najaf?

If America pulls its combat brigades out of Iraq, who
will protect the U.S. support troops, civilian
contractors, aid workers and diplomats in the Green
Zone? Would we not be risking an American

Dien Bien Phu?

And what is to prevent disloyal Iraqi army units and
sectarian allies from

fragging U.S. advisers embedded to train them, after
U.S. fighting brigades have gone home?

Throughout the report there appear inherent
contradictions.

The situation is "grave and deteriorating" but
will get better if we pull our finest fighting forces
out. Iraq is "vital to regional and even global
stability, and is critical to U.S. interests," but
if Maliki malingers, we should pull the rug out from
under him. An Iraqi army trained by Americans can win a
war that Americans could not.

The Baker-Hamilton commission has told us in brutal
frankness that the patient is dying, for which we are
grateful.

But the commission is, in its own way, as much in
denial as George W. Bush. For the surgery it recommends
for Iraq looks more like a mercy killing than a miracle
cure.

It is a time for truth. The strategic retreat
recommended by Baker-Hamilton is not going to win this
war, or end it well for the United States—it is going to
advance the timetable of our impending defeat.

When U.S. combat forces leave, Iraq is going to be
lost to those who ran us out. Our friends there are
going to endure what our

abandoned friends in

Vietnam and

Cambodia endured. The forces of Islamic radicalism
will be emboldened to take down our remaining allies in
the Middle East. Our days as a superpower will be over.

For it is the definition of a superpower that once it
commits itself to a war, it does not lose the war.

COPYRIGHT

CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Patrick J. Buchanan needs


no introduction to VDARE.COM
readers; his book

State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and
Conquest of America,

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