George A. Lopez

May 1st marks the second anniversary of George Bush’s proclamation that the major hostilities in Iraq, begun two months earlier with the US invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, had come to an end. This week 50 murdered bodies of Iraqis, possible victims of a mass kidnapping-killing, were dragged from the Tigris River. Meanwhile, another attempt was made on the life of the out-going government prime-minister, while more bombings occurred in and near the green zone in Baghdad than in recent memory. Just days before these developments, the new interim President Talabani addressed the future of US troop presence in Iraq, asserting that it was likely the US could withdraw from Iraq in about two years.

Talabani’s 2006 marker is attractive to many sides in the US who debate this war. It permits those opposed to the US effort who hope for withdrawal a viable ‘light at the end of the tunnel’. At the same time it provides the Bush Administration, armed with its ‘stay the course’ strategy the luxury of agreeing with this possibility without making such a commitment.

These events create a new climate for thinking more seriously about the purpose and place of US troops in the political evolution of Iraq. In fact, alternative scenarios for US troop withdrawal from Iraq have become a cottage industry recently. Proposals have unfolded in the past few months in elite policy journals and at various think tank conferences and university forum. Just the same, the Bush proclamation that “we will stay the course” and we will leave only when we can guarantee that Iraqis can provide for their own security and safety, remains the dominant argument in Washington.

An essential part of this policy is the belief that – due to the high levels of violence and insecurity in Iraq - an American departure soon will tip Iraq into full scale civil war. Thus, a US withdrawal before that time is considered politically and morally irresponsible.

It is time to directly challenge this ‘conventional wisdom’ by taking a more in-depth view of the mix between violence and politics in Iraq. Such an assessment leads to a different policy from simply ‘stay the course’, and may even consider Talabani’s timeline far too extended.

Those who worry that a US military departure from Iraq will result in civil war under-estimate the level of violence unfolding there daily. The data from a recently released study undertaken by the Brookings Institution provide every appearance of a near civil war, but with a prominent target of the hostilities: US forces. Attacks on the U.S.-led coalition since November 2003, when statistics were first available, have risen from 735 a month to 2,400 a year later. U.S. military fatalities from hostile acts have risen from about 17 per month in May, 2003, to an average of 82 per month. The average number of U.S. soldiers wounded by hostile acts per month has spiraled from 142 to 808 during the same period.

Of course Iraqi civilians have suffered even more deaths and injuries, although reliable statistics aren't available. The Brookings study does reveal that the average number of mass-casualty bombings in Iraq, which are increasingly targeted at Iraqi police, has grown from zero in the first four months of the American occupation to an average of 13 per month.

I am not claiming here that the US military presence has caused this insurgency. But we must recognize that the pronounced US deployment has provided a strong political glue and substantial psychological benefits to these violent factions who spread death and destruction across Iraq. Evidence indicates that a growing number of Iraqis who have joined the insurgency have done so not because they are jihadists, but because they are nationalists, resisting our continued presence – some would call it occupation - in their country.

The highly visible security role of the US sustains the insurgency in ways which might not be possible otherwise. This leads to the bitter irony that US military presence works to defeat the stated US political goals of creating a viable, self-governing Iraq. Such a military and political reality ‘on the ground’ in Iraq argues not for ‘stay the course’ but for a planned and announced strategic withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. In fact, I would argue that if the goal of US policy is an Iraq that is sovereign, free, stable and self-governing, then we must take a series of steps that will increase Iraqi political independence now, however painful and risky those steps may appear.

First, the US must announce and execute a phased withdrawal of troops to be completed by about a year from now, April 2006. This date is one with security and political significance. In the former, various studies estimate a new generation and larger numbers of Iraqi armed forces and troops will have been trained, and in a manner more capable and reliable than their predecessors. Politically, by next year the Iraqis will have drafted their new constitution and held their next set of elections, these for their full, first representative government.

In order for our military withdrawal to have maximum political credibility, the US needs to take related actions to unburden the Iraqi leadership of the taint of being beholden to Americans. This includes the steady dismantling of the substantial and various US military bases around the country. These now have as their primary purpose servicing the troops. But they also have been under construction to provide the US a more permanent, robust military presence in the region. Such a situation will not help Iraqi political independence.

In conjunction with military downsizing, the US would do well to dramatically curtail the size and scope of the US embassy in Baghdad. Now the largest US venture in the region and among the top three in the world, a US diplomatic center equivalent in size to that of others in the region should be our goal.

A fourth and critical component of an effective strategic withdrawal policy may have begun on March 11, when the US joined the European carrot and stick approach to dealing with Iran. The US must constructively engage Iraq’s neighbors in a new dialogue about border and regional security. A possible next step could be dialogue with Syria following its own military withdrawal from Lebanon at the end of this month.

Only such a multifaceted US withdrawal and regional engagement will provide the political and cultural space needed for an Iraqi government and civil society to challenge the insurgency on the nationalist, political and religious grounds on which their national struggle must occur. Unless we change the political equation ‘on the ground’ by such a bold and far-reaching strategic plan, we lead Iraq to nothing but civil war as its future.

Two difficult issues – one tactical, the second political - worry those who consider such a plan as wrong-headed. Some claim that an announced deadline provides ‘the enemy’ with substantial tactical advantage in their own planning. In the political realm, critics assert that mine is a ‘cut and run’ strategy that will be interpreted by both our allies and enemies as a sign of US weakness, thus defeating all US goals in Iraq and the region.

The first claim lacks evidence and credibility because US leaders have been so consistently incorrect about the scope, motivations and actions of the insurgency. During the past two years the Administration has announced that insurgent attacks would decaline after the capture of Saddam. Then the decline was hoped after the hand-over of authority by the CPA to the Allawi interim government; than after the pacification of Najaf; or after Fallujah; or after the election of January. Instead, the insurgency has intensified and solidified against the US and what are perceived to be US collaborators.

The ‘cut and run’ concern may have a nice ring to it but it simply ignores Iraq’s national will. The Zogby opinion poll of January, 2005 records that 82 percent of Sunnis and 69 percent of Shittes favor US withdrawal “either immediately or after an elected government is in place”. If we are the great power we claim to be, then the lessons of withdrawal that are so feared can be managed into a grand victory of good sense. And they can be supported by a successful foreign policy in the region, elements of which are beginning to take shape.

But only with withdrawal from Iraq can the US achieve this success.

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George A. Lopez is senior fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

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