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There is a really sobering piece in today’s NYT (“As Allies Turn Foe, Disillusionment Rises in Some GI’s” - Michael Kamber, pA1.) on the rising disillusionment among GI’s who’ve discovered that Iraqi army soldiers — who’ve been receiving weapons and training from the US — are among the insurgent forces attacking US forces and civilians in the civil war. I can understand why the US soldiers, including those who once supported the mission wholeheartedly, are feeling like it’s past time to go. I think the current situation has gone far beyond unacceptable. I cannot imagine looking the soliders in the eye and telling them that this is a mission worthy of their talents and bravery. Here’s one that is –

• First - The US should begin construction on two very large, permanent (as in 99-year leases) military bases in Iraq. The largest should be located in the southern region, near Basra where many of the pipelines connect to the Persian Gulf. The second one should be located in or near Mosul. Basra will give us easy access to defend oil infrastructure — the true reason the region / country is strategically important to the US. Mosul will provide a major disincentive to the southerners to stir trouble in Kurdish Iraq, which supposedly is a relatively peaceful and secure place right now. Both placements will put long-term brakes on Iran’s ambitions in the reqion, and we can get back to doing what we do best — strategically projecting power into a region to influence events (this is the direct opposite of what we are doing now: tactically policing / supervising a civil war without the tools or numbers required to achieve outcomes).

• Second - We should substantially realign the oil infrastructure. First, terminate the pipeline that flows from Iraq to Syria. If we are going to try to ensure outcomes that are beneficial to our interests, we should not be shy about discriminating between friend and foe. If this disadvantages Lebanon, we should arrange for some long-term alternative for them. I don’t think they would mind getting oil from someone other than Assad. Second, create a connection between the oil fields in the southern part of the country directly to the Saudi infrastructure. This will have the advantage of making us less dependent upon the chokepoint at Basra, flowing the oil through a much less volatile region. You will need some kind of payment system between Iraq and Saudi Arabia to ensure that Iraq is compensated to the point of economic indifference. This is all about securing the flow of oil: our top strategic interest in the region, and the Iraqi people’s sole source of the capital required to improve daily life that has been so terribly damaged by Saddam and multiple wars.

• Third - Once the first two things are accomplished, or perhaps when they are mostly in place, we should totally withdraw from the current mission. It is a tragedy that Iraq was put in the current state by the interaction between Saddam Hussein, failed US foreign policy, and radicalized groups among the country’s religious sects. But that’s where we are. Hussein is dead; that’s a plus. Now the rest is 100% up to the Iraqi people. We are in no position to impose or project our 21st century definition of peaceful transition and democracy onto another country. Our own history was sickeningly bloody as we lurched from independence to civil war through industrialization, civil rights, on and on. Every time we made it through one of these periods, the pain produced heroes, principles and values that made us stronger for the next one. Iraqi people deserve the same opportunity to create their own future or fail trying. The unique fact of their oil reserves — the real reason we care so deeply about that region — is only rationale enough for the bases, not for a paternalistic occupation of the cities and streets.

We should not be ashamed or embarrassed to state clearly: we want Iraq to succeed as a free and properous country — an outcome that has always been totally up to Iraqis — but we will not tolerate disruption of the flow of oil. Additionally, if they fail in their attempts to build a free and prosperous society, we will not tolerate Iraq becoming a harbor for terrorists who seek to destroy our interests or kill our people. (The irony that we contributed to the conditions that make it an ideal harbor for terrorists is, sadly, a repeating pattern in history — check the serial numbers of the weapons fired against our soldiers in Afghanistan.) Read the Times piece and let me know what you think.

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Category : Worth reading, Politics, Stuff, Current Affairs