Unifying Iraq
Partition is the path to more war--multiple wars, in fact.
BY DONALD L. HOROWITZ
Tuesday, June 19, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Many people seem to think that if the Iraq war was a mistake, it follows that we should undo the mistake and withdraw our forces--a questionable syllogism at best. Meanwhile, popular sentiment against the war has been so strong that Congress has been following, rather than leading, public opinion.
It is time for a much more nuanced debate. Whether the war was a mistake doesn't answer the critical questions: What are the likely consequences of continuing it? What are the likely consequences of withdrawal?
In favor of withdrawal, it is said that one consequence of our remaining in Iraq is that we're prevented from finishing the war in Afghanistan. Perhaps, although there are hazards to flooding Afghanistan with foreign troops, as the Soviet Union discovered. While we are vulnerable in Iraq, we are also prevented from taking a much more threatening line against Iran's nuclear program, and while we are tied down there, the credibility of our military power elsewhere in the world is weaker than it should be. But what about the consequences of withdrawal from Iraq?
In the south, where Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim's party has pushed the creation of a nine-province Shia region, the region would be wide open to Iranian influence. Mr. Hakim is receptive to that influence, though many other Shia and the parties that represent them are hostile to Iran. Iraq's Shia are Arabs, not Persians, and they fought loyally on Saddam's side in the Iran-Iraq war. A single southern region would be a serious setback for them and for us. Without American pressure, Mr. Hakim is likely to win.
And in the north? The 2005 Iraq constitution was close to a Kurdish dream come true, and the 2006 constitution of the Kurdistan region edges right up to the brink of independence, in defiance of some of the few remaining strictures of the Iraq constitution. American withdrawal would leave the Kurds determined to defend their autonomy and assert their de facto independence. But Turkey resents support by Iraqi Kurds for the Kurdish rebellion in southeastern Turkey. The Turks could not, under any conditions, tolerate an independent Iraqi Kurdistan, which would be a beacon for its own Kurds. Tens of thousands of Turkish troops have already been moved toward the Iraq border. As of now, Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds have flourishing commercial relations, which would be undone in a flash by the conflict that would probably ensue upon an American departure. We would be faced with a likely war between two allies.
In central Iraq, there are signs that Sunni opinion is turning against Islamist insurgents. If there is a successful revision of the de-Baathification law, the Baathist part of the insurgency, militarily more sophisticated, might decline. But if the U.S. withdrew, the Sunni heartland would become, in unpredictable proportions, a mix of Baathist and radical Islamist forces. Both would have an irredentist agenda, seeking to recapture the Shia south and the Kurdish north for an Iraq to be governed by the worst principles that Baathists and radical Islamists would like Iraq to live by. Eventually these two would come to blows, as they also would with Sadrists and the Madhi Army. They would surely agree on the desirability of revenge against the U.S. War among the regions and a surge in terrorism should be anticipated.
With a territorial base, radical Islamist and Baathist forces would find ways to damage our interests here and abroad. Worse, our withdrawal would tacitly establish the principle, which we forcibly rejected in Afghanistan and more recently in Somalia, that we are prepared to live with a regime dedicated to our destruction even when we might be in a position to do otherwise.
Finally, a sundered Iraq would assuredly become a tempting target for external forces. Iran, already influential in the south, might aid the Madhi Army in the center. Arab Sunni regimes worried by the growth of Iranian power would likely move into parts of the vacuum we left behind. In these rivalries, played out in Iraq, there is considerable potential for wider war, with unpredictable consequences for regional stability and the fortunes of our various allies and antagonists.
Some in Congress and elsewhere believe the solution in Iraq is a three-way partition. They have not done their homework. Partition is the way to more war--multiple wars, in fact--not the way to peace, and it is the way to increased Iranian influence.
It is of course still possible to argue that withdrawal is preferable to an open-ended involvement, on the grounds that the high costs to us of involvement exceed the high costs of withdrawal. But the opposite position--which happens to be mine--is also tenable: The consequences of withdrawal are worse than the costs of continuing involvement. That is where the debate should be joined, based on a careful assessment of the comparative advantages of each course and of middle courses, such as partial withdrawal. That would be a serious debate, rather than the vacuous one that Congress has so far engaged in. Is it too much to ask that Congress rise to the occasion, as it did during the Cold War, and get serious about assessing the interests of our country?
Mr. Horowitz is a professor of law and political science at Duke University and author of "Ethnic Groups in Conflict" (California, 2000).
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