Unqualified Offerings

Matthew Yglesias and Spencer Ackerman are right. To the extent we have a chance of achieving a good outcome in Iraq it depends on setting a date certain for withdrawal. There are two reasons for this. First, it concentrates the mind of our more-or-less allied actors in Iraq. It removes a major moral hazard in stabilizing self-government in Iraq. As it is now, factions can maximalize their demands on the assumption that Uncle Sugar will make it all work out somehow, some way. Second, if we set a date in the future and stick to it, then we keep the initiative. A preannounced withdrawal would be harder to represent as “cutting and running” than an extemporaneous withdrawal under the pressure of events. Thirdly (of our two reasons), it vitiates the occupation itself as a driver of the insurgency. I’m not remotely naive enough to believe that the occupation is the only driver of the insurgency – I think we’re basically seeing Saddam’s war plan in action. The insurgency is fueled by Baathist revanchism, Sunni resentment AND opposition to occupation, more or less in that order. The foreign fighter contingent is probably motivated more strongly by anti-American/anti-occupation fervor than any love for Baathism. I suspect that the foreign fighters are really the Baath command structure’s useful idiots. (”You want to go blow yourself up next to my enemies? Of course you do! Have this fine explosive belt, Habibi, and insh’allah!” I’ll be hanging out here in the air-conditioned underground bunker listening for the boom.”) But depriving the command structure of its suicidal cannon fodder would not be a negligible strategic achievement.

Saying we’ll leave “when the job is done” perpetuates a number of bad dynamics. If we actually intend to leave at all, it’s the worst way to go about it. If.