It's nothing new. It's articulated in Nicholas Kristof's latest Times op ed. It's the same Iraq plan, with an "E.Q." twist, that so many others have been espousing.
And like all the others, it misses the larger problem, namely, George (Stay-the-Failed-Course) Bush and his Oil Baron, Dick Cheney.
These two men, and their neo-con cohorts, know nothing of nor care anything about I.Q.'s or E.Q.'s. By their actions, they have proven that they care nothing about Iraqis or our troops or genocide. They care nothing about human rights or freedom.
They care only about oil. And money. And Empire.
As long as we tolerate a President who ignores the Constitution and who is bent on an agenda that is not in our interests or in the interests of the rest of the world, no plan will change the situation in Iraq.
The reason is Bush's credibility. He has none. Zero. Zilch. He has lied, bullied, broken international laws, denigrated the United Nations, and arrogantly alienated many of our allies as he has alienated many of us at home.
He talks of spreading Democracy while he destroys it at home. Do we really think anyone will be naive enough to have the confidence that he will actually do what he says he will do?
The only way to even begin to repair the damage is to very loudly and publicly force Bush and Cheney to resign or face impeachment -- now -- effectively sending a message to the world that the people of the United States will not and do not stand for the aggressive, arrogant, abusive policies of BushCo, that we will no longer tolerate them, and that we will instead commit to working for peace and cooperation in the world to the mutual benefit of all nations -- not just our own.
At the same time, we can implement many of the ideas in Kristoff's plan -- but this time, with some credibility.
As for Kristof's "cut and walk" suggestions, it's too little too late. I cannot personally tolerate the death of one more soldier or Iraqi due solely to the fact that our troops are there. As Kristof states, "Iraqis themselves say overwhelmingly in polls that our presence is inflaming the violence rather than reducing it." We therefore accomplish the opposite of our stated goal by keeping our troops there -- we inflame the violence rather than quell it. Our soldiers are targets, pure and simple, and we have no right to put them in that position. That is why we must redeploy our troops now. Not tomorrow. Not next week -- right now.
There is no military solution in Iraq or the rest of the region. It will take honest, fair, and reasonable negotiations and diplomacy within Iraq and with the international community to solve the problems. But until we decry our government's aggressive policies, executed to the detriment of other countries and their citizens -- until we do that, we will be putting a tiny Band-Aid on a gaping wound the size of Texas.
Cut and Walk
By Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times
In the 1990s, we became more aware of the importance not only of I.Q. to success but also of “E.Q.” — “emotional intelligence quotient.” Authors like Daniel Goleman explained E.Q. in part as an ability to assess, adjust to and influence the emotions of others.
These days, as we grope for a new policy in Iraq, we desperately need that kind of emotional intelligence, particularly toward overseas nationalism. Insensitivity to nationalism may be the biggest foreign policy mistake the U.S. and Europe alike have made in the last half-century — from Vietnam to Suez, Mexico to Algeria — and we’ve been repeating it in Iraq.
One of the essential paradoxes is that even well-meaning efforts to stabilize Iraq with our military presence inflame Iraqi nationalism and bolster nationalist extremists. Inadvertently, because we’re not sensitive enough to how our actions are perceived in the Iraqi cauldron, we end up empowering extremists who destabilize the country.
Exhibit A is the shadowy man who has won a reputation as perhaps the single most brutal mass murderer there, Abu Deraa. He is a Shiite who in the late Saddam years was apparently just a petty forger, according to Terrorism Monitor, a publication of the Jamestown Foundation.
Abu Deraa won renown as a “patriot” who attacked U.S. armored vehicles. Then he diversified into criminal kidnapping, which generated cash to make him a player and finance his band of gangsters.
The whispers about Abu Deraa and his torture of the Sunnis he captures — he specializes in using electric drills on their skulls — have won him increasingly mythic status. Some of the biggest and boldest attacks in Iraq are attributed to him, and he brings creativity and economies of scale to his murder enterprise. An Australian news account described how he once drove a fleet of ambulances into a Sunni neighborhood and used loudspeakers to call on young men to donate blood to help fellow Sunnis injured by Shiites. Dozens of young men came forward — and were executed.
Abu Deraa told Time magazine, in an interview through an intermediary, that his fight is against “occupiers, their supporters” and Sunni insurgents, and he painted himself as a pious Muslim driven by a “sense of holy duty” to attack American forces. Those arguments resonate among some Shiites, who see him as a hero and protect him, even as he helps tear his country apart.
At bottom, Abu Deraa is a psychopathic thug who terrorizes fellow Iraqis. But he has been able to use his attacks on American forces to win political cover to foment civil war.
So as we Americans plan our own strategy for Iraq, let’s show more emotional intelligence. The Iraqi Study Group is right about needing to consult with neighbors like Syria and Iran, but that doesn’t resolve another central problem in Iraq: Our open-ended military presence, perceived by Iraqis as a grab for Iraqi oil and bases, ends up legitimizing extremists like Abu Deraa and aggravating civil war.
Our military presence risks expanding the civil war in another way. As we side more openly with the Shiite government in its struggle against Sunni insurgents, Saudi Arabia — already nervous about the rise of Shiites — is hinting that it may help the Sunnis defend themselves. We could end up with a war in which Iran and Iraqi Shiites battle against Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraqi Sunni Arabs. (That’s when gas prices reach $5 a gallon.)
So let’s raise our E.Q. and take account of Iraqi emotions and nationalist sensitivities, particularly alarm about American bases on Iraqi soil. For starters, we can (as Don Rumsfeld noted in his leaked memo) quickly give back up to 50 of our 55 military bases in Iraq.
We should also state clearly that we will not keep any permanent military bases in Iraq. That’s not going to persuade the extremist insurgents, but polls suggest that such an announcement would reduce the support that extremists get from ordinary Iraqis. That’s a simple step that would save American and Iraqi lives.
The same logic argues for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, ending by November 2007. Granted, there is a real risk that the bloodbath will worsen significantly when we leave. But Iraqis themselves say overwhelmingly in polls that our presence is inflaming the violence rather than reducing it, and a timetable would be a useful signal that we really are going to pull out and that Iraqi factions need to conciliate and address their own problems.
We needn’t cut and run. But let’s post a schedule, and then cut and walk.
Photo Credit: Nicholas Kristof. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)
Also See:
- Risk and Reward by Thomas B. Edsall:
"The G.O.P. is the party of risk, aggression, military assertion and dominance — an approach that led to the implosion in Iraq and the Republicans’ defeat in November. Now the Democrats have a chance to demonstrate a core difference in how the two parties calculate and manage risk.
In “Fiasco,” Thomas Ricks describes the results of the Republican approach: “Bush’s decision to invade Iraq ... ultimately may come to be seen as one of the most profligate actions in the history of American foreign policy. ... The U.S.-led invasion was launched recklessly, with a flawed plan for war and a worse approach to occupation.”
While inflicting destruction on the Iraqis, Bush multiplied America’s enemies and endangered this nation’s military, economic health and international stature. Courting risk without managing it, Bush repeatedly and remorselessly failed to accurately evaluate the consequences of his actions."
Non-TimesSelect Subscribers read more here. - Losing the Good War - New York Times:
"Afghanistan was supposed to be the good war %u2014 and the war America was winning. But because of the Bush administration%u2019s inattention and mismanagement, even the good war is going wrong."
Technorati tags: Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, Iraq, Military, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, news, commentary, op ed
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