...if a united iraq became impossible after all of this, i would not be unhappy with the three state solution. I hope for the united iraq scenario but i am enough of a realist to accept that its not much better than a 50/50 shot.
If we end up with a 3 state solution, it will represent a catastrophe for the US.
Why?
Because putting aside the arguments of whether to go in the first place, if we knew the result would be three-state we could have had that without the massive loss of blood, treasure and reputation.
We would have rolled the troops into the north and south, and stopped before the Triangle.
1. In both areas, there would have been sufficient troops to insure stability and security, i.e. no looting and little likelihood of insurrection;
2. There would have been a generally favorable populace for debaathification;
3. Reconstruction resources could have been effectively applied;
4. Homogenous culture / religious composition would likely have ensured swift and effective political handoff;
5. Since the oil and food resources exist in large measure in the north and south, Baghdad and the Sunni triangle would have been economically strangled without us doing a darn thing.
Instead of an end-game in which we could have looked like heroes, we are perhaps left with the exact same end-game where it could be reasonably argued that to many around the world we have become a rogue force on the planet. The Abu Gharib matter is in my mind the most damaging incident to Americas’ reputation in my lifetime (and I am no longer young). Regardless of the 'rightness' of intent, our efforts have become the greatest recruiting poster possible for Al Qaeda. It took 20 years for the US military to “get over” Vietnam, and now we are straining it to the breaking point and making the exact same strategic mistakes again. All the while, our rivals and enemies (and I would never say we don’t have both) delight in our conundrum and implement their own plans to improve their position to the detriment of US interests (and such plans will have been accelerated and furthered with such a "success" on our part). But that is the nature of “diplomacy” and “statecraft.”
Now you can comeback and say hindsight is 20/20 – and that is true. But is also true that a horrific strategic miscalculation is still a strategic miscalculation. Hitler should have let his army withdraw from Stalingrad. World War I was caused by 2 decades of strategically myopic and foolish decisions (a good reference, see the book “Dreadnaught”). Napoleon, one of the greatest tactical commanders of all time was both arrogant and foolish to attack Russia, but his strategic miscalculation was to ignore the festering sore of Spain at his backdoor. Hannibal, also one of the most brilliant commanders of all time, stayed in Italy ten years too long, and the result was that eventually the Romans salted the earth of Carthage. History is repleat with examples.
Tactical miscalculations lose battles. Strategic miscalculations lose wars, nations and empires. |
