"To pull out of Iraq would show weakness and a lack of resolve of the American nation."
That's one of the arguments that's being made and it's reminiscent of the argument made in the Vietnam era. Supposedly we must be very careful to show the communists-terrorists or whoever, that America is an implacable, brave and determined foe and that to fight America is a guaranteed method of losing. But does it hold up?
We denied the realities in Vietnam for years and then they came crashing down on us. Clinton and other presidents have been roundly criticized by the right and by the military establishment because we "turned tail" in places like Africa and the Middle East when we started to take casualties.
But what if we had stayed and shown how tough we were? What death toll would we have exacted in Africa and what would we have accomplished? Those questions raise the STRATEGIC issues while the "turned tail" question raises the emotional, prideful question with a little bit of a strategic tone based on the need to impress any potential enemies with our toughness.
The best of all possible worlds is for us to be able to get out when our strategic thinking tells us it's necessary, but STILL KEEP UP OUR IMAGE AS TOUGH AND DETERMINED. I don't think it's that hard. We simply need to be able to articulate to the world that we stay when we should, and leave when we should, AND THEN TELL THEM WHY.
The key is in the why and I think I know the "WHY."
We stay when the local population shows that they are ready, willing and able to support the goals and policies that drew us there in the first place. We leave when they fail to demonstrate that support. Note that the key is the support of the population, not some puppet or despotic regime that does not represent the people.
This puts the matter squarely in the hands of those that can choose to either, as Rumsfeld says, "cooperate" or, conversely, choose to shelter and protect our enemies. If this is articulated then those who prefer our mission will know that they need to become proactive and get counted and that passively watching while our enemies attack us from the shelter of their ranks will leave them with whatever is left when we leave.
In the end the result will be the same. In Africa virtually the whole city rose up and attacked our "Black Hawk Down" troops. Women, teenagers and men armed with sometimes no more than clubs, streamed into the streets to attack us. How were we going to be successful there? We left and we should have left. It was not a place where we could do any good. In Vietnam the tide of opposition built until the message was clear; get out. We never listened and we killed and died in a time period that seemed to last forever before we finally read the message. In Iraq the message is being written and when it is there we MUST be prepared to read it "sooner rather than later."
There is no weakness in acknowledging that a nation cannot help those who will not help themselves by supporting the help that is offered. Leaving is simply the recognition that sometimes internal problems cannot be "solved" by outside intervention. |
