Yesterday I finished off a post with a vague suggestion that domestic politics may play a role in recent speculation about troop withdrawals in advance of next year’s elections — something the New York Times spells out today – but it isn’t the whole story, and cynicism about this administration’s political machinations, while warranted, could get in the way of understanding something more important: We could simply be shifting to a different kind of war, one in which American ground troops play a relatively small role, but which may be even more dangerous for Iraqis.
A few hours later, along comes Seymour Hersh, with a much less vague, but similar suggestion. I was thinking of a dirty war, with American "advisers" aiding Iraqi commandos. To some extent they seemed to have backed out of that plan — after realizing, as Billmon says, that while "they thought they were riding with the bad boys, the real bad boys were out riding with the Iranian secret police" — but I wasn’t convinced that it hadn’t simply become more complicated to figure out whose monsters were whose. But Hersh offers evidence of something even more frightening:
A key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in the President’s public statements, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower. Quick, deadly strikes by U.S. warplanes are seen as a way to improve dramatically the combat capability of even the weakest Iraqi combat units. The danger, military experts have told me, is that, while the number of American casualties would decrease as ground troops are withdrawn, the over-all level of violence and the number of Iraqi fatalities would increase unless there are stringent controls over who bombs what.
“We’re not planning to diminish the war,” Patrick Clawson, the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told me. Clawson’s views often mirror the thinking of the men and women around Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “We just want to change the mix of the forces doing the fighting—Iraqi infantry with American support and greater use of airpower. The rule now is to commit Iraqi forces into combat only in places where they are sure to win. The pace of commitment, and withdrawal, depends on their success in the battlefield.”
He continued, “We want to draw down our forces, but the President is prepared to tough this one out. There is a very deep feeling on his part that the issue of Iraq was settled by the American people at the polling places in 2004.” The war against the insurgency “may end up being a nasty and murderous civil war in Iraq, but we and our allies would still win,”
This is precisely why it has always concerned me when anti-war rhetoric focuses entirely on what the war is doing to our soldiers, and when "Bring the soldiers home" is seen as a complete remedy. Getting Americans out of Iraq is essential. But you can bring most of the soldiers home — enough so that Americans lose interest in the ones that remain — and still maintain an American presence that does enormous damage to Iraq.
After reading Hersh’s piece, I think I also understand better the somewhat surprising comment Ayad Allawi made to the Observer this weekend — that abuse in Iraq today was worse than it had been under Saddam. Yesterday I said I didn’t think that was quite the break with the United States that it first seemed. According to Hersh, there’s no break at all:
Some officials in the State Department, the C.I.A., and British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government have settled on their candidate of choice for the December elections—Iyad Allawi, the secular Shiite who served until this spring as Iraq’s interim Prime Minister. They believe that Allawi can gather enough votes in the election to emerge, after a round of political bargaining, as Prime Minister. A former senior British adviser told me that Blair was convinced that Allawi “is the best hope.” The fear is that a government dominated by religious Shiites, many of whom are close to Iran, would give Iran greater political and military influence inside Iraq. Allawi could counter Iran’s influence; also, he would be far more supportive and coöperative if the Bush Administration began a drawdown of American combat forces in the coming year.
Blair has assigned a small team of operatives to provide political help to Allawi, the former adviser told me. He also said that there was talk late this fall, with American concurrence, of urging Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Shiite, to join forces in a coalition with Allawi during the post-election negotiations to form a government. Chalabi, who is notorious for his role in promoting flawed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction before the war, is now a deputy Prime Minister. He and Allawi were bitter rivals while in exile.
A senior United Nations diplomat told me that he was puzzled by the high American and British hopes for Allawi. “I know a lot of people want Allawi, but I think he’s been a terrific disappointment,” the diplomat said. “He doesn’t seem to be building a strong alliance, and at the moment it doesn’t look like he will do very well in the election.”
The second Pentagon consultant told me, “If Allawi becomes Prime Minister, we can say, ‘There’s a moderate, urban, educated leader now in power who does not want to deprive women of their rights.’ He would ask us to leave, but he would allow us to keep Special Forces operations inside Iraq—to keep an American presence the right way. Mission accomplished. A coup for Bush.”
Allawi’s statement is partly a campaign speech, aimed at Sunnis. It seems to distance him from the U.S. — surely not a bad campaign strategy in Iraq — but it’s really directed at the people this administration has decided it can’t work with anyway. Drilling holes in people isn’t working, so now we’re going to try massive bombing campaigns, almost surely while complaining about the human rights abuses of people we worked with, financed, and trained only moments ago.
It worked with Saddam.
