Letting Go of the Tar Baby
An Exit Strategy from Iraq
This proposed Exit Strategy is put forth in order to foster debate on the
inevitable. And the sooner the quicker.
1. It is clear that there are certain "hot zones" in
Iraq, and certain zones considered basically pretty safe. (The
occasional act of guerrilla warfare, if it can be handled by local
authorities, should be of little concern to us. Especially if we
are not there. As a matter of fact, they have methods of dealing
with local malcontents that have proven over the centuries to be more
effective than anything we can bring ourselves to do.)
We need to arrange with the Kurds, for instance, that they will receive a
large degree of autonomy, and an absence of American/Allied soldiers, IF
they can succeed in maintaining a semblance of law and order.
If it eases the pain, we can take 1/4 of the budget we were spending on
occupying that quarter of the country, and place it in number of Swiss
bank accounts. Award some of these to the rulers, at the end of one
year, two years, etc., in exchange for a job well done. Think of it
as a Performance Bonus. If there are substantial Sunni areas that
are more or less tranquil, then they get the same treatment. At
that point, I anticipate that some of the Rednecks in the tank corps will
start putting bumper stickers on their tanks that say, "If you ain't
occupied, you ain't Shi'ite!" (Hey, I couldn't resist.)
Incremental withdrawal allows us to bring home the National Guard
first. They've been there WAY too long. When an act of
terror, or a pattern of terror develops, if the locals can't handle it,
they can request our intervention, on a temporary basis, while they
either restore order, or call an election and elect someone who
can. We can fulfill those requests with "over the horizon
technology".
2. Distribute a short-barrelled 12 gauge shotgun, with 100 rounds
of .00 buck shot, to the head of every household that demonstrates
responsibility, and which can produce references within each neighborhood
community. This is a great defensive weapon. It is just lousy
as an offensive weapon. When the fundamentalist thugs come door to
door, to collect their illegal protection money, a shotgun is more
effective than anything else in "levelling the playing field,"
to put it mildly. Offer to keep the quiet areas supplied with ammo
each quarter. (Hey, what they do behind closed tents is their
business. Don't ask, don't tell.)
3. Distribute a few million copies of the Declaration of
Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights (forget all the
rest of the amendments) to every citizen in English and either
Arabic or Kurdish. These seeds of the right kind of revolution just
may bring a harvest of Liberty in a few generations. If not, well,
we tried. (I would like to add the Bible to that list of
recommended reading, but it might prove to be controversial.)
4. Explain to Iraq and the world that the oil is ours for the next
35-50 years or so, at which point, we'll start gradually turning a
percentage of it over to the sheiks who have the safest and most tranquil
neighborhoods. This gives us the Strategic Oil Reserves that some
have accused us of wanting, and it also pays for the war, thus bringing
relief to the American Taxpayer. (Look, the average Iraqi citizen
never got any of it at all, except in the form of cheap gasoline and tons
of welfare passed out as political patronage. So don't feel sorry
for most of them -- only the rich oil families. If you can.)
(Do you think the Saudis are going to continue to fund radical Islamic
terrorism around the world, when they think things through? This
plan will work there just as well.)
In a short time, it is reasonable to expect that hungry Iraqis will be
lining up for jobs in the Oil Sector, which we can easily fence off --
take it out of future oil receipts -- cost is no object. They can
be housed in the Oil Sector, and go home on generous vacations with a fat
paycheck. Those who work hard can make good money, and if some
moron blows something up, well, all the survivors in that sector will be
fired, and we'll bring in Catholic Filipinos, or Animist Sudanese, or
Indian Hindus or Catholic Mexicans who are currently illegally in the
US. In other words, it will not be in their personal nor their
national interest to commit crimes against their temporary Occupiers --
indeed, it will prolong their misery. Then the locals can have
something else upon which to focus their hatred -- illegal immigrants,
and renegade bombers. Imagine.
Over the next 35 years, it will be in the interest of the private oil
companies (Halliburton, Zapata & Co.) who will want to continue to
operate in the Oil Sector to train local young men, and maybe even women,
by sending them to schools, (several of which are located in Oklahoma or
Texas), to become Chemical and Petroleum Engineers (no liberal arts
students need apply). If they peep anything in the way of
ingratitude while studying as guests in our country, we send them home
within 24 hours, keeping a high-tech biodata file on them, for permanent
exclusion from employment or any other benefit from the USA. Those
scholarships will "grease the skids", so to speak, for a
generation of well-educated professional Iraqis to help run their own
country.
The beauty of this plan is that it helps save face for the Allied
politicians who have stepped into something they don't want to admit, and
has only begun to smell. It is called, "a land war in
Asia". It is a virtual tar-baby, and I am proposing a doable
strategy for letting go of that tar-baby.
Ask the man in the street if he cares if the People of Iraq have this
fantasy we keep calling "democracy". Which streets?
Doesn't matter. American streets, British streets, or Iraqi streets
for that matter. Nobody really cares, so let's quit
pretending. When they care, they can purchase their political
liberty, with their blood, not ours.
5. Make it abundantly clear that the perks will go away, if local
officials cannot contain local acts of violence. Take the money
that was going to go to them, and give it to their worst enemies -- no,
wait! That might make their enemies come into their neighborhoods
and blow things up, just to embarrass them. Okay, threaten to
sponsor schools to teach girls to read and write and study business
administration. Worse, we could threaten to broadcast American
television programs via satellite, with Arabic subscripts. Far more
effective than bombs and soldiers, if we want to destroy their
society. In other words, exercise some creativity in how to
motivate them and reward them for good behavior. It's the carrot,
rather than the stick approach.
Furthermore, if they can't demonstrate some self-control rather quickly,
then make it clear that we will allow a referendum amongst the Kurds and
the Sunnis on the subject of total sovereignty. (We ought to do
this anyway, but let's use it first as a bargaining chip.)
6. Since every elected American official who voted for this debacle
in Iraq had taken an oath of allegiance to support and defend the
Constitution of the United States, (as opposed to voting the straight
party line), how about we resolve to never invade a country that has not
attacked us first, and against which we have not legally passed a
Declaration of War? (Don't start with me. Their is not a
shred of evidence that the government of Iraq, nor the People of Iraq,
attacked the USA on September 11, 2001. Nada. Zip. What
we "thought" about WMD's is not in the Constitution, neither
explicitly nor implicitly.)
If a nation harbors terrorists, there are lots of things we can do to get
their attention, including freezing their assets, freezing their
immigration visas, diplomatic withdrawal, trade embargoes, letters of
marque and reprisal, etc. "Let them eat the sand which is
there." (It's an old joke. Just read it out loud a few
times, and you'll get it.)
What this does for us is manifold. First, it reduces our costs in
terms of American lives. Second, it reduces our costs in terms of
American taxpayer dollars. Third, it demonstrates to Iraqis that
the way to get us to leave is to behave themselves for a little
while. Fourth, it demonstrates to the world that we, the USA, have
taken the High Moral Ground. Fifth, it reduces the political
fall-out back home. This is a win-win-win-win-win
situation.
We can argue over details, but you tell me one group of people who would
not generally applaud such a plan (besides most journalists and many
university professors, who won't like anything proposed by anyone).
If this plan takes 15 months, they can all be home in time to vote next
year. Think about that.
I don't think most soldiers (or their families) would object -- ask
them.
I honestly don't think most Iraqis would object, considering their
alternatives -- ask them.
I don't think most French..., aah, who cares?
-30-
(C) Daniel D. New, Permission to copy,
with credits, is hereby granted.
