So What Do We Do In Iraq?

Short answer: no one knows.

Long answer: The Allawi government, on its own, has precisely zero chance of maintaining control of the country; and no external power, aside from the United States, has the ability to do anything to improve the situation on the ground. UN security forces have made shambles out of circumstances considerably less trying than those of present-day Iraq; and the NATO allies, even if they were interested in supporting the war effort and reconstruction, have neither the resources, the military manpower, nor the popular support that are all vital for any sort of meaningful commitment.

On the other hand, any attempted American pushback---and this is not idle speculation---will result in new waves of violence and new, widespread recruitment for the insurgents. (The people shooting at American soldiers, if anyone's paying attention, are not non-Iraqis and not even necessarily jihadists or Baathists anymore. Don't believe me? Read this.) At some point, the people in a position to craft Iraq policy are going to have to make the following bitter calculation: is it 1) better to retreat from Iraq right now, and if so, is there any way to ameliorate the consequences of such a move? OR 2) is it better to launch a major new offensive aimed at squashing the rebellion, with the certain knowledge that to do so will be astronomically expensive monetarily and in terms of lives lost, will require a commitment to Iraq as likely to reckoned in decades as years, and will indeed divert resources from the fight against internationalized terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda?

There are other factors one could add to this calculus, e.g. (obviously) diplomacy vis-a-vis Iran. I don't think, however, that adding anything to the equation will change its ultimate result. Regrettable thogh it may be, option #2 is the only viable one. The consequences of retreat are, at best, the installation of new strongman regime in control of a militant guerilla army and every reason to seek the support of al-Qaeda, and at worst, civil war in which the other regional powers intervene. (Keep in mind that any gain the Iranians can make out of the situation in Iraq extends the life of the Iranian regime that much further.) Either scenario would be a catastrophe for the United States, especially since, in the wake of a retreat, there could be no hope of exerting any control over the ensuing developments.

So we are left with the reality that there needs to be a major US offensive before the insurgents can wrest practical control of Iraq from Allawi's government. I can go through the whole liberal litany of scorn and regret---yes, it should never have come to this; yes, the Bush administration fucked up royally and is continuing to fuck things up worse; yes, the sacrifice of American soldiers in this effort has been horrific and the wingers who aren't fighting and don't care that others are dying are callous moral idiots---but the decision makers, including (hopefully) a president Kerry are going to have to deal with the circumstances they inherit, not the circumstances that might have come to pass had X, Y, and Z gone differently. Those of us who are supporting Kerry, by the way, are in an awful position of having to hope that he breaks his campaign pledge to withdraw American troops by the end of his first term.

The so-far-undiscussed third option, of continuance of the status quo, is more or less the Bush administration position, and it is almost incomprehensibly stupid. Failed policies do not improve through simple obstinacy. The only plausbile explanations of current policy are a psychological disorder that precludes any acknowledgement of error, or else some Rovian electoral calculation that privileges the president's re-election campaign above sound strategy in Iraq.