Of Courage and Statesmanship: Brian Beard

If you click on the title, you will come to a very important OP Ed piece by one of our Congressmen, Brian Baird*.

The piece is worth reading, but I will summarize: as an anti-war, anti-Bush Democrat, Mr. Baird is arguing for caution in Iraq, he is especially arguing against a precipitous, politically driven withdrawal led by anti-war ideology rather than wise strategy.

The essence of the piece confirms the recent NY Times op ed by O'Hanlon and Pollack, highly impressive analysts for the Brooking's Institute. In their piece the analysts detail specific areas of progress made since General Petraeus took command and implemented the "surge." Their bottom line, changes in strategy and better leadership were making inroads in the Iraqui mess. Although criticized as too optimistic by equally impressive antiwar experts, even the critics need to agree that O'Hanlon and Pollack are serious thinkers whose opinions must be weighed. No Roves there! Bottom line, there is reason to beleive that we have alternatives between rapid withdrawal and Bushism. This is the simple counsel also offered by Congressman Baird.

Why is this important? One reason is that we have almost two years left of Bush. Anything precipitous will be done under his failed leadership. Or will it? Who is running the White House.?

SJ suggests that we now have a caretaker, Daddy Bush::Jimbo Baker regency. Frightened by their boy's mess, the Publican leadership has (finally) staged something of a coup. Bush and Chaney may still be the bosses, but they are in th care of babysitters.

While I am no fan of the senior Bush or his advisers , there can be no comparison between the Colin Powel/Baker led policies of the Bush I era and the failures of his son's Chane-Rummy led regime. Gates, Gillespie, Rice are competent replacements for Rummey. Rove, and their ilk. Disgust with Bush ought not to cause Democrats to jump on a poorly thought out course led not by their own brand of strategery.

Mr. Baird is saying that we need to look at what General Petraeus's work before deciding where to go next. Petraeus is the antithesis of the Bush appointed folk. Those amateurs ran Iraq as if it were a Texas border town. Does this mean Petaeus is succeeding NOW is what Bush failed to achieve? Everything I read says yes, but in a limited way. But, Bush achieved nada. Petraeus needs to undo vast amounts of mistakes, starting with rebuilding the Sunni tribal structure that Bush turned into an enemy. We may not like 'em, but these "allies" are a hell of a lot better fighting with us than agin us.

If the early runmors are true, Petraus 's surge demonstrates what might have been achieved. Now, his talents and goals are limited by the damage done by the amateurs. The moral and strategic thing now is to decide what we should do with that power.

Baird's caution is being attacked by Lee (picture) over at his blog, Effin Unsound. I have debated with lee before on other issues. he is a very knowledgeable guy but I believe in this issue he is being blinded by the need to get out form under the Bushies. Lee's rebuttal is basically this: The surge has not solved all problems. The biggest of these is the lack of a working government. So, Lee and othe s argue, the best we can do is get out. Here is an example of Lee's logic:

He says the the Congressman was" hauled around Iraq to the areas where we’re temporarily working with our enemies to fight Al Qaeda. That is neither an indicator of overall success, or even a positive development. The fact that we’ve resorted to arming some of the people we were once fighting in order to fight Al Qaeda is a good indication that we’re not accomplishing anything of value militarily over there. The history of our involvement in the Middle East is filled with instances where temporary alliances came back to bite us in the ass (see: Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, etc, etc)."

That makes no sense. First Baird ain't no dumbass. Surely this bright* guy knows he was dragged around but that does not mean he has no sources of his own.. If I may put the Congressman's comment in perspective. Having wasted a trillion dollars does not mean that we should fuck the Iraqui people and just leave. We need to ask what can be saved from Bush's follies. Pertaeus has shown us that there may be a solution . The Kurds seem to be making progress and the Sunni chiefs seem able to dominate their region as well.
Gen Petraeus has had remarked success in Anbar , His new tactics may be working ... the diminishment of Iraqi el Qaeda seems real.

Rather than demagogic calls for a rapid withdrawal, I wish we could here more thought about what still can be done. From my perspective, hardly an expert, here are the balancing facts:

Why we will need to leave Iraq PDQ:

1. We stll have no clear goals.
2. Our military is overstressed, we lack the military resources to continue at this level for much longer, by Spring we need a way to find more troops and equipment, or withdraw.
3. The Bush:Bremmer designed government is not a government. It has failed. We have besmirched the very concept of democrcy by supporting a charade.
4. Our presence in Iraq has strengthened the el Qaeda effort in Afghanistan and the Ahmadinejad party in Iran.

What Petraeus has shown:

1. The strategy advocated by the military is a lot better than that advocated by the Bushistas.
2. Iraqui Kurdistan is well headed toward the ability to control its own future as long as we help keep Turkey happy and detur Iran.
3. Sunni Arabs hate el Qaeda and Shiite Iran. While not prepared for democracy, the Sunnii are at a feudal level of development that can protect its own territory and can prevent a Shia government from controlling the region.
4. The newly found oil in Anbar could provide the basis for a self sustaining Sunnii community
5. There is, at least so far, no sominant Irani-Shia polity in the South. It is likely, but nor certain, that a moderate non Irani shia party will dominate the South if supported by the US.

The options:

1. Precipitous withdrawal (anything that leaves us with no more than a token, say 30-50,000 force, by next summer.

Most Worrisome Outcome:
N In the north, the Kurds fall to internal forces that would provoke Turkey.
S In the south Shia interests fight but some force dominates. Any such force, as pure shia, will be a threat to Kuwait and SA, causing them foment trouble in Sunni areas.
C Ethnic cleansing in mixed Sunni/Shia central areas.The Sunni areas break out into Bosnia style tribal warfare, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran back their respective faves. El Qaeda emerges as a "peacemaker."

This chaos could lead to any of several regional wars ... Turkey:Kurd:Iran, Syria, Suadi:el Qaeda;pro-Iran:anti Iran Shia;etc.

2. Containment strategy: I am not sure of all this entails but some parts seems clear:

a. draw down to something close to 100k troops.
b. by agreement with Turkey, guarantee integrity of Turkey and Kurdish Iraq
c. Announce abandonment of Potemkinite central government. Issue of how to govern up to regional governments ... that is the North, Central and South of Iraq and the neighboring powers..
d. Agree to support exile as needed.
e. Work with others (Syria, Saudi, Egypt) to create Sunni regime in central area.
f. Support anti-Iran Shiites to create Iranian-neutral South.


Hoped for outcome:

N: Development of a stable Kurdish entity.
C. Establishment of an all Arab peace force to minimize inter-arab ethnic cleansing. Saudi-Egyptian-Iraqi alliance becomes local counter balance to Syria.
S. Non extremist Shia regime grows, provide Arab/non triumphalist alternative to Farsi dominated Theocracy.

What would this mean for all of Iraq? I do not know. Personally, I think Iraq, like most of the world, is better off with regional, European Union style Federalism than the nationalistic model they acquired from the Europe of the 1800s. I think such a model might also be in the interest of the other major powers ... India, China, Europe, Russia that have a major interest.



*Brian Baird is US Representative of Southwest Washington in the United States House of Representatives.Brian was elected to Congress in 1998 , replacing a radical Republican, Linda Smith. Smith was known for her staunch anti-abortion stance and her maverick tendencies, such as opposing the Balanced Budget Amendment, supporting campaign finance reform. He was promptly elected President of his Freshman Democratic Class and was among the first to oppose the Iraqui war. Despite his relatively Junior status, Baird is .the Senior Democratic Whip, outting him in a leadership position well above more senior WA reps like Jim McDermott who represents Seattle.