When The Us Leaves Iraq

I base this on the behavior of presidential candidate John Kerry during the 2004 election campaign. Time and time again he would rail at the Bush administration for not doing something—like ramping up training of Iraqi security forces—and then it would turn out six months later that the Bush administration was doing it, but just hadn’t splashed it all over the media.

It was as though Kerry knew what the Bush administration was going to do next week, and used the knowledge to accuse the Bushies of not doing it this week.

All this year the Democrats are pushing troop withdrawal resolutions in Congress. Why would they bother except to whip up their netroot base? In September, after Gen. Petraeus reports, the Bush administration will either announce that the surge has been a success, in which case it will start to draw down troops, or it will admit it not quite a success—and start to draw down troops.

Democrats are doing what Kerry did in 2004, demanding that Bush do what he is going to do anyway.

But we center-right people are better than that. We are people with serious responsibilities and a serious strategic outlook. We should start thinking about what comes next. To help us Austin Bay has set forth the seven likely scenarios in Iraq after the US leaves. As he points out, he’s not the only one thinking about contingencies.

Business and government make plans. Every plan anticipates a future outcome. Since the future can’t be predicted, the best plans acknowledge uncertainty. Acknowledging uncertainty means accepting risk — the risk of being wrong.

So here are the seven scenarios for Iraq post withdrawal. Go read the whole thing if you want the details.

Three new countries
Regional Shia-Sunni war
Turkey expands
Shia dictatorship
“Gang-up” of Shia and Kurds against the Sunni Arabs
Chaos
The Iraqi center holds

Doesn’t look too promising, does it?

My own feeling echoes that of the Asia TImes’ Spengler. He points out that proper nations “have no room for irredentists and other rejectionists.” They need people who show up on time and get along with the neighbors.

Having a civil war is de rigeur. All the right people do it. It shows that the prospective nation has the grit to sort out its own problems.

Sounds pretty shocking, doesn’t it? But we had two civil wars here in the US. And between them they pretty well took care of the rejectionists, first of all the Brit loyalists and secondly the Southern slaveholders. Since then, we have gone without civil war, which is nice. Everyone gets along with the neighbors except when liberals come along and heighten peoples’ group identity instead of their American identity.

But there are always some troublemakers.

In the Middle East the west has been keeping the safety valve screwed down for decades because we want access to the oil with no interruptions and no shenanigans while the natives fight it out to decide who gets the revenue from the oil.

But what about the people of the Middle East? What do they want?

Sphere: Related Content | | print

Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

TAGS

Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Mutual Aid

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Living Under Law

Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures

German Philosophy

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since 1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

Knowledge

Inquiry does not start unless there is a problem... It is the problem and its characteristics revealed by analysis which guides one first to the relevant facts and then, once the relevant facts are known, to the relevant hypotheses.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches… they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Living Law

The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital

mysql close 0