That’s Not How Hubris Works, the Continuing Story
Gareth Porter sets the Wayback Machine for 2006, when Nouri al-Maliki first began making noises about a timeline for withdrawal of US troops and George W. Bush bitch-slapped him for it.
That formula, linking a withdrawal timetable with the buildup of Iraqi forces, was consistent with the position taken by Sunni armed groups in their previous talks with US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, which was that the timetable for withdrawal would be "linked to the timescale necessary to rebuild Iraq’s armed forces and security services." One of the Sunni commanders who had negotiated with Khalilzad described the resistance position in those words to the London-based Arabic-language Alsharq al-Awsat in May 2006.
The Iraqi government draft was already completed when Bush arrived in Baghdad Jun. 13 without any previous consultation with al-Maliki, giving the Iraqi leader five minutes’ notice that Bush would be meeting him in person rather than by videoconference.
The al-Maliki cabinet sought to persuade Bush to go along with the withdrawal provision of the document. In his press conference upon returning, Bush conceded that Iraqi cabinet members in the meeting had repeatedly brought up the issue of reconciliation with the Sunni insurgents.
In fact, after Bush had left, Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni, said he had asked Bush to agree to a timetable for withdrawal of all foreign forces. Then President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, released a statement of support for that request.
Nevertheless, Bush signaled his rejection of the Iraqi initiative in his Jun. 14 press conference, deceitfully attributing his own rejection of a timetable to the Iraqi government. "And the willingness of some to say that if we’re in power we’ll withdraw on a set timetable concerns people in Iraq," Bush declared.
When the final version of the plan was released to the public Jun. 25, the offending withdrawal timetable provision had disappeared. Bush was insisting that the al-Maliki government embrace the idea of a "conditions-based" US troop withdrawal. Khalilzad gave an interview with Newsweek the week the final reconciliation plan was made public in which he referred to a "conditions-driven roadmap."
From this we learn, among other things, that "conditions-based withdrawal" means, STFU Iraqis. But I’m also interested in the crass question of what Republican electoral fortunes might be today if Bush had gone along with what all Iraqi factions back then wanted: US troops substantially out of Iraq by the end of this year. I’m not sure the proposition is decidable. The economy would probably still be bad, though gas prices might be somewhat lower. Iraq would probably be at least as quiet as it is now, and at lower prices! Instead of paying the major Sunni resistance groups to stop shooting at us, they’d have had the prospect of a withdrawal to keep them peaceful(ish). The ethnic cleansing of Baghdad would probably have proceeded much the same. But back home, a public that regrets the entire idea of the Iraq War would be seeing months of steady troop withdrawals with a pretty clear endpoint in sight. (Excepting, needless to say, the "residual forces" that would have been part of the package.)
This would probably make the mushy middle of the electorate a lot happier about the prospect of another GOP White House. On the other hand, the Republican base itself would have been cranky in the extreme, with maybe a major topic of contention during the primaries being the repudiation of "the Bush sellout" on Iraq. And then there’s the question of whether a visibly working withdrawal timeline during primary season would have been enough to save Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
It sure looks, though, like Iraqi elites were trying to hand George W. Bush a political windfall two summers ago and he spurned it.
Comment by KipEsquire —
July 29, 2008 @ 11:11 am
And all this time I thought Iraq was a sovereign nation.
Silly me.
Comment by mds —
July 29, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
The thing is, give them an inch, and next thing you know, even the permanent bases and residual forces become a point of contention. If one’s goal is to remain in Iraq forever, then an uncompromising approach with one’s client government is a reasonable bet. And the administration could be forgiven for thinking that lying about the “surge” and “stabs in the back” would be enough to carry the day. Hell, they still might. Haven’t you heard that Obama hates the troops and wants America to “lose”? The reason McCain is still holding on at 40+% isn’t because civil libertarians are disappointed in Democrats.
Comment by Jim Henley —
July 29, 2008 @ 1:03 pm
Well, I think hte reason McCain is holding on to 40+% is that it’s structurally very hard to drop below that number.
Comment by mds —
July 29, 2008 @ 1:08 pm
Then the structure sucks, and needs to be… Oh my God, this was an anarcho-capitalist plot all along!
Comment by Jim Henley —
July 29, 2008 @ 1:11 pm
Bwa ha, to coin a phrase, ha.
Comment by mjb —
July 29, 2008 @ 1:42 pm
I’m not sure the political calculus is that straightforward. Despite the lamentable Democratic support for it, this war has always been a Republican operation from top to bottom. Withdrawal in 2006 would have been experienced by Americans as a retreat, and a tacit admission that the war was a bad idea. Rather than mitigating the political damage done by the war, it would have simply locked it in. The Republicans’ identity as the party of national security would have been undermined for a generation, and since their rise to power in the last generation was predicated to a large extent on being the party of national security, no Republican partisan could afford to be cavalier about losing that asset. As paradoxical as it seems, I think that for a Republican president to end this war in non-triumph would have been more politically damaging than continuing with the war, no matter how unpopular. And the same logic would apply to a McCain administration in the next four years. If a Republican president can’t credibly hold a victory parade after withdrawing from Iraq, he and his party are better off holding out for a miracle, or for a Democratic president to blame for the defeat.
Comment by joe —
July 29, 2008 @ 1:46 pm
Three points:
1. Maliki and his circle are the most pro-western, pro-American political faction in Iraq, and even they have been agitating for a withdrawal for years.
2. Every single party (except the Kurds) that won a seat in any Iraqi election ran explicitly on ending the American occupation.
3. Despite these facts, the supporters of the war have continually assured us that the Iraqis don’t support an American withdrawal. Liars, or liars who believe their own lies?
Comment by mds —
July 29, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
See also: Nixon, Richard.
I’m gonna go with “liars.” Who want permanent American hegemony in the Middle East*, and never gave a rat’s ass about who they had to kill to get it. Of course they** don’t believe their own rhetoric. It’s the equivalent of bank robbers shouting, “Look over there!” to cover their getaway. Fortunately for them, the MSM and Congressional Dems are the police.
*which is in Asia
**for appropriate values of “they.” Some “they” are stupid enough to believe the rhetoric, but they aren’t the ones in charge.
Comment by Ian —
July 29, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
“Residual forces” — I’ve never quite understood how withdrawing 90% of American forces is going to get hostile militiamen to stop shooting at the remaining 10%.
(keeping in mind that the Iraqi “government” lacks the strength to make the militias stand down, even if it had the will to try)
Comment by Tony P. —
July 29, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
For years I have been asking this question: inside their own heads, what was the motivation for Dick and Dubya’s Excellent Adventure?
One possibility, propounded by congressional Bushies, FOX pundits, and John McCain, is that Dick and Dubya sincerely believed they were ‘protecting America’ from Saddam. That amounts to this: they were sincerely scared of Saddam. Plausible? Who knows?
Another possibility, propounded by at least myself, is that Dick and Dubya’s Excellent Adventure was always and only a domestic political ploy — the world’s most expensive campaign commercial ever, as an ObWi commenter put it. A quick victory, a handover to Chalabi, parades for the troops, electoral landslides, and presto: license for the GOP to implement its never-wavering agenda to undo the New Deal.
Under the first possibility, Dick and Dubya are still scared shitless of some great danger emanating from Iraq. Under the second possibility, the important thing has never been who wins over there, but who wins over here: whether the American army stays in Iraq, leaves on a planned and scheduled basis, or sneaks out some night when ‘the terrorists’ are not paying attention, the only important thing is to get the American electorate to call it ‘victory’. An Iraqui government that is seen to be saying “Here’s your hat; what’s your hurry?” makes it hard to spin the withdrawal as victory.
Now, you can be evil and still be stupid, so (in the ‘campaign commercial’ interpretation) Dick and Dubya botched it. They only got far enough to propose privatizing Social Security right after re-election. The GOP’s wet dream must wait for a new Republican president. Since their nominee has nothing to run on but the specious claim that he ‘knows how to win wars’, it’s important to have a war available for him to win.
Or, of course, the first interpretation is correct and the question should be:
Sincere cowards, or Macchiavellian liars?
– TP
Comment by Gavin —
July 29, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
Iraq war leads to higher oil price due to guerrilla activity hence higher profits for oil companies. Plus more profit for military industrial complex when weapons are used or replaced.
Its about money not strategic calculation or emotional attachment.
The power elite make huge amounts of money from war, nothing short of revolution will make them give that up.
Comment by Derek Copold —
July 29, 2008 @ 6:15 pm
1. Maliki and his circle are the most pro-western, pro-American political faction in Iraq, and even they have been agitating for a withdrawal for years.
Outside the Kurds, this is true, but even so, considering that Maliki’s group have been on the Iranian payroll for quite a while, what does that say?
Comment by Thoreau —
July 29, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
Well, if the most pro-western faction in Iraq is on the Iranian payroll, it says that maybe there’s something to the theory that Iranian agents were part of the con that led to the war.
I don’t quite believe the theory, but I can’t rule it out either.
Comment by Derek Copold —
July 29, 2008 @ 9:51 pm
Oh, that theory is sound, T. Chalabi got much of his info from Iran, who had always wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Comment by Thoreau —
July 29, 2008 @ 10:27 pm
Maybe, Derek, but I’m not sure how thrilled Iran is to have an American army camped on their border. Yes, there are plenty of reasons why it would be foolish for that American army to cross their border, and plenty of ways that they could make life hell for us if we tried, but there’s still an element of risk for them to encourage a rampaging superpower to station an army there.
The more likely situation, IMHO, is that they read the writing on the wall and decided to make sure that some of their people were involved in whatever the US did, so they could try to monitor and influence events.
Comment by joe —
July 30, 2008 @ 8:48 am
I’ve never quite understood how withdrawing 90% of American forces is going to get hostile militiamen to stop shooting at the remaining 10%.
In theory, by changing the political dynamic so that those militiamen aren’t trying to bring down the government.
And, by eliminating things like American checkpoints and house raids and political control which lead Iraqis to see American as the enemy.