FOREIGN POLICY
Saving face: Why we cannot fail to save Iraq

By Chris Burke
RAW STORY COLUMNIST

The thudding sound you heard recently was of a stake being driven through the heart of our Iraq policy. I use the word “our” knowing some that read this do not support the war.

Supportive of this war or not, though, the policy is collectively “ours,” as will be its consequences. And while political responsibility will be assessed in November, between now and then an outcome with a far more lasting mark could be made upon our nation. Trading failure in Iraq for four years of a Democratic administration seems tempting. However, that failure might be impossible to recover from in the near future and leave us markedly less safe for decades to come. The problems facing us in Iraq are evident but the options left to solve them are not comforting.

We are not the first to occupy another country. We are the first to try and do so with such a small force. The back and forth over the force size has been ongoing for much of the last year. It is becoming increasingly evident that those who have advocated a much larger force were more right than wrong. An analyst from the Cato Institute used the British experience in Northern Ireland as a basis for comparison and stated that at least 240,000 troops would have been needed to effectively secure Iraq.

At a minimum, then, the current force falls short by 100,000 troops. The Rumsfeld reality in postwar Iraq is making the naysayers look prescient.

If only calling in another 100,000 troops were as simple as picking up the phone. As it is, the Pentagon is using stop-loss orders that prevent troops from retiring or leaving the armed forces when their enlistment period ends. If not for these drastic measures, the Iraq force could have lost 40,000 active duty and reserve troops in the past year. The active duty army, at 480,000 people, is roughly a third of the total U.S. military. Proportionally, the active duty force never has been smaller. Sending in another 100,000 troops while maintaining our other security obligations isn’t possible. This was not the time to occupy a country the size of Iraq. The deteriorating security situation hardly stands as an enticement for bringing in foreign troops to support our effort. We are on our own.

The problem in bringing democracy to Iraq by force is that it requires the Iraqi people to support our efforts. Garnering such support requires a lighter military touch. Here’s where we currently face a catch-22. We do not have enough troops to secure the country without using a level of force that would turn the Iraqi streets completely against us. The longer we go without providing a secure environment causes more of the civilian population to become agitated. That, in turn, makes providing security with a too-small force even more difficult. This doesn’t even take into account the increasing difficulty of ongoing reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Caesar never had such problems.

The final choice we will face was previewed in Fallujah in the past month. Marines encircled the city. Resistance fighters waited within. The choices facing us were bad. Either take the city, accepting heavy civilian deaths and the accompanying Iraqi outrage, or avoid such casualties and allow the resistance to fester in the desert heat. The “solution,” to allow an Iraqi force to patrol the city, is no solution at all. As we saw during April’s civil unrest, when half of the American-trained Iraqi security forces failed to perform their duties, Iraqis seem unwilling to fight with us to secure their land.

Most ominously for our future in Iraq is the release of pictures showing Iraqi prisoners being humiliated and tortured. I do believe that the soldiers who perpetrated these crimes are a minority of our armed services. However, if indications by reporter Seymour Hersh that many more photos and video will be surfacing are true, this barbaric behavior was not an isolated incident. I fear these images will seal our fate as the enemy within the minds of moderate Iraqis. Winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, as a means to pacifying the country, might no longer be an option.

Insurgents in Fallujah were celebrating their “victory” over American forces last weekend. This victory will embolden their resistance. As more and more Iraqis see the pictures of their brothers and sisters being tortured by people who claimed to be liberating them, the ranks of the insurgents will swell. We do not have the troops to patrol the country effectively. What we do have is the military hardware to crush the insurgency if we disregard innocent lives. So the decision we faced in Fallujah this week is not going away. If we have blown our chance to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis, are we willing to quell the resistance by unleashing a force that will kill scores of civilians? If we are, what does that say about the vision of ourselves as a force of freedom and human rights? If we are not willing, our military is out of options and we will need to look for a way out of Iraq.

Accepting the widespread death of innocent people we had pledged to free or retreating from an enflamed and chaotic Middle East are not comforting options. The thudding sound you hear over the coming months might be the sound of our troops coming home to an America much less secure than before the invasion. We should all dread that day.