Democrats Have No Good Options on Iraq

by Walden Bello
published by Foreign Policy in Focus
November 16, 2006

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Iraq is the test case. As many have pointed out, the Democrats have no unified strategy on Iraq. The situation in Iraq has deteriorated to the point where only bad choices are available.

The current Bush strategy is to shore up the Shi'ite-dominated government militarily, and that isn't working. Bringing in more troops temporarily to stabilize the situation, then leaving - a plan originally endorsed by 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry - won't work, since the civil war has progressed to the point where even a million troops would not make a difference. Partitioning Iraq into three entities - the Sunni center, the Shi'ite south, and the Kurdish north - will simply be a prelude to even greater conflict tying down more US troops. Withdrawing to the bases or to the desert to avoid casualties will simply raise the question: Why keep troops there at all?

Getting Iran, Turkey and Syria to come in to create a diplomatic solution - one that the bipartisan Iraq Study Group headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton may propose - is not going to work because no foreign-imposed settlement can counteract the deadly domestic dynamics of a sectarian conflict that has passed the point of no return.

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As of now, the Democrats have the moral weight of the country behind them. They have an opportunity not only to eliminate a foreign-policy millstone but to open the road to a new relationship between the United States and the world if they take the least bad route out of Iraq - that espoused by Congressman John Murtha, who, perhaps among the key Democrats, knows the military realities on the ground: immediate withdrawal. With all their inchoate feelings about wasted American lives, "our responsibility to Iraqis", or being seen as "cutting and running", many of those who voted for the Democrats may have some difficulty accepting the reality that immediate withdrawal is the least bad of all the options. But that is the function of leaders: to articulate the bitter truth when the times demand it.

It is not likely that most Democratic politicians will embrace immediate withdrawal of their own accord. Without more sustained pressure, the likely course they will take is to come with a plan that will compromise with Bush, which means another unworkable patchwork of a plan.

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The anti-war movement is to be congratulated for its role in the titanic struggle to turn the tide of US public opinion on Iraq. Cindy Sheehan's camp-out at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, the many acts of protest and civil disobedience engaged in by so many others, the big protest rallies and demonstrations, all this made a difference - a big difference.

But the movement cannot even think about relaxing for a second. The moment is critical. Now - the immediate post-election period - is the time to raise the ante. Now is the time for the US anti-war movement to escalate its efforts - to mount demonstration after demonstration - to effect immediate withdrawal. Electoral choice has created the momentum that can be translated into street action that can, in turn, translate into strong pressure on the Democrats not to agree to a protracted exit strategy. The movement cannot afford to squander this momentum, for the price of stepping back and letting the Democrats come up with the strategy will be more Iraqis and Americans dead, sacrificed for a meaningless war with no real end in sight.

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