Henry Imler October 25th, 2006

This is the first in what I hope becomes a series of post on
sensitive or controversial topics in a 1,000 words or less. It was
going to be 100 words, and then 500 words, but it kinda ballooned and
is still woefully short and incomprehensive.

The Iraqi War… three and a half years later and it is a huge
election issue. Should we have gone? Were we justified? What do we do
now that we are there? Most importantly (for the parties), who is to
blame? Should war crime charges be brought up? Most of this is a casual
observer’s opinion.

Many Reasons, Many Gambles
I think we went in there on good faith that there were lots o’ WMD with
intent to sell. There were not, but the will, the means and the plan was there to implement them as soon as Saddam could get the sanctions off his back.

I think there were multiple reasons to go in; the one that could
most rally the American people and hopefully other nations was that
Saddam funded terror (i.e. payments to Palestinian suicide murder’s
families), had and was producing WMD with the intent to sell them to
terrorist cells. Other reasons include reforming the region and pinning
Iran. Many people say that one has to tackle the root causes of
terrorism. If the way to have peaceful societies and peaceful peoples
is thru socio-political freedoms and economic development, then reform
in the region is needed. Iraq was a gamble to create that. I think that
you can still make the argument on humanitarian grounds, but if we did and were consistent, we would have to conquer the world to give it back. That is something that we do not have the will power, the resources, or the right to do.

Since the fall of Baghdad, we have played the gamble terribly. We
did not lock down the border; we did not keep Fallujah once we took it;
Iraqi security forces have not been trained well enough, quick enough.
Many excuses can be made.

Historic Accomplishment and Failure
I still think that we are not the bad people over there, the insurgent and sectarian terrorists are. I also recognize that dramatic steps have been made, such as the repeated elections and the somewhat flawed and wildly progressive constitution.

On the one hand, I see a genocidal dictator and his oppressive
regime toppled and a new, popularly elected government and constitution
in place all in less than 4 years and less than 3,000 American lives
lost. Those are remarkable historical achievements. On the other hand,
I see signs that what little peace was there has been shattered beyond
recognition. I see backtracking instead of progress.

We can’t change the past; we can only go forward.
The fact remains that we do not have the choice to start the Iraqi War;
the nation only has a choice on how to end it. What is the best way to
do that? I remain committed to the idea that once one breaks something,
one fixes it. That is why I still think a sudden and immediate withdraw is a bad idea. The question is not “War or No War?”, but “How to finish the War that is?”.
I would accept three states, three autonomous regions with a loose
central government and oil revenue sharing, or one strongly politically
unified Iraq. What I would like to see is what I think everyone wants
to see, the Iraqi’s able to defend their society, their people, their
government by themselves. Then I think we should leave.

If we do not succeed in that, then the Iraqi War becomes more
connected to the “War on Terror™” than anyone, right or left, wants it
to be. If we fail, then Iraq continues to be a breeding ground for
terrorists, as it is now. You can argue one way or another about the
relationship before hand, but our goal above anything else should be
that it is not one in the future.

So what is the fabled “way ahead?”
How is this best put into practice? Consider a letter published in today’s Opinion Journal’s “Best of the Web:” A View from Iraq. The letter claims to be from a person inside the US Military stationed in Iraq.

Basically he/she claims that we have failed miserably because we
have tried to do things way too fast with way too little support.
He/she suggests the following:

We need to backtrack. We need to publicly admit we’re
backtracking. This is the opening battle of the ideological struggle of
the 21st century. We cannot afford to lose it because of political
inconveniences. Reassert direct administration, put 400,000 to 500,000
American troops on the ground, disband most of the current Iraqi police
and retrain and reindoctrinate the Iraqi army until it becomes a
military that’s fighting for a nation, not simply some sect or faction.
Reassure the Iraqi people that we’re going to provide them security and
then follow through. Disarm the nation: Sunnis, Shias, militia groups,
everyone. Issue national ID cards to everyone and control the movement
of the population.

That is the best thing I have heard so far.

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