PRESIDENT BUSH'S plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq has not, to put it kindly, been well received. But does anyone have a better idea?
Should we just declare defeat and go home? Not even most leading Democrats are willing to go that far. At least not yet. Most instead talk of gradually drawing down forces and possibly redeploying them either to Iraq's borders or to other bases in the region. There is something to be said for this strategy. But it also entails huge risks.
If the U.S. is seen as retreating -- which is how it would look even if it were labeled "redeployment" -- the fragile Iraqi security forces might completely disintegrate. U.S. advisors with Iraqi units could be imperiled. An all-out civil war could break out. Neighboring states such as Jordan could be destabilized by massive refugee flows. Western Iraq could become a Taliban-style haven for Sunni terrorists. Southern Iraq could become a launching pad for Shiite extremists bent on liberating their oppressed brethren in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states.
It is doubtful that an "over the horizon" presence of U.S. forces could do much to mitigate these catastrophic effects. Iraq is a big country -- about the size of California. You cannot police Los Angeles from San Francisco any more than you can police Ramadi in western Iraq from Irbil in northern Iraq, much less from Kuwait.
It sounds reassuring to say that U.S. forces could be positioned on its borders to "contain" Iraq's civil war, but it's not clear what they would do there. Sure, they could prevent Iranian or Syrian troop formations from entering Iraq. But a conventional invasion is unlikely. U.S. soldiers would have much less success stopping the influx of foreign terrorists, cash and arms that goes on now disguised as normal commercial traffic. Besides, is it really politically possible for U.S. troops to cavalierly sit by while a few miles away ethnic cleansing or even genocide is being perpetrated?
Such a dire outcome is by no means foreordained if U.S. troops start withdrawing. Perhaps, as some advocates of drawdown suggest, the Iraqi government will succeed in establishing law and order on its own. But that's not the way I'd bet. And that's not the way Bush is betting.
After years of taking a rosy view of the war, he has finally acknowledged that conditions are grim and require more troops. Ironically, he is being pilloried for this stance by many of the same people who have been saying for years that we didn't have enough troops in Iraq.
