George W. Bush and John F. Kerry have more in common on Iraq than is generally believed, or than either acknowledges.
Both candidates would continue the war, and they agree that withdrawing without victory is not an option. Both would increase the training of Iraqi soldiers and police so that the Iraqis themselves, ultimately, can fight their own battles. Both would draw the United Nations and other countries in, although Kerry promises to do so with more energy and credibility. Both believe an elected Iraqi government will yield a legitimate Iraqi government and enable the war to wind down.
There's only one problem with this reasoning: It's wrong.
No doubt an American defeat in Iraq -- defined as withdrawal stemming from failure to quell the insurgency -- would increase strife in that country and probably precipitate a civil war. But continuing the war may well produce the same result. And it would also result in still more casualties among U.S. troops, more Iraqi civilians inadvertently killed during military operations in the Sunni Triangle and in Muqtada Sadr's Baghdad strongholds, more terrorist attacks and a continued influx of Muslim militants from beyond Iraq.
Under these conditions, the elections planned for Iraq in January will either not be held or they will go forward but lack legitimacy because voting will not be able to take place in many Sunni areas in central Iraq, where it's just too dangerous. Either way, there will not be a government that commands sufficient loyalty from Iraqis for its leaders and troops to be accepted and the insurgents to be marginalized. And that means that the United States will continue bearing the brunt of the fighting for years.
With the insurgency on the increase and with daily life so hazardous in so much of Iraq, schemes to internationalize the war by enlisting more countries and the U.N. (like those being proposed by Kerry and Bush) are a chimera. Some states may be persuaded to write checks, but they won't send in substantial numbers of troops.
Iraq is a quagmire; everyone knows it, and no one is crazy enough to wade into it. Even the Poles, whom President Bush has praised for their steadfastness in Iraq, have announced they will scale back their presence. Kerry hopes to gain enough partners and train enough Iraqi soldiers to start reducing the number of American troops within six months. But an American disengagement isn't the same as a victory in any meaningful sense of the term because no one will be able to fill the military void that will be left by an American departure, or even a major American troop cutback.
