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Beyond Quagmire

A panel of experts convened by Rolling Stone agree that the war in Iraq is lost. The only question now is: How bad will the coming explosion be?

TIM DICKINSON

The war in Iraq isn't over yet, but -- surge or no surge -- the United States has already lost. That's the grim consensus of a panel of experts assembled by Rolling Stone to assess the future of Iraq. "Even if we had a million men to go in, it's too late now," says retired four-star Gen. Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. "Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again."

Those on the panel -- including diplomats, counterterror analysts and a former top military commander -- agree that President Bush's attempt to secure Baghdad will only succeed in dragging out the conflict, creating something far beyond any Vietnam-style "quagmire." The surge won't bring an end to the sectarian cleansing that has ravaged Iraq, as the newly empowered Shiite majority seeks to settle scores built up during centuries of oppressive rule by the Sunni minority. It will do nothing to defuse the powder keg that an independence-minded Kurdistan, in Iraq's northern provinces, poses to the governments of Turkey, Syria and Iran, which have long brutalized their own Kurdish separatists. And it will only worsen the global war on terror.

"Our invasion and occupation has created a cauldron that will continue to draw in the players in the Middle East for the foreseeable future," says Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden. "By taking out Saddam, we have allowed the jihad to move 1,000 kilometers west, where it can project its power, its organizers, its theology into Turkey -- and from Turkey into Europe."

How bad will things get in Iraq -- and what price will the world ultimately pay for the president's decision to prolong the war? To answer those questions, we asked our panel to sketch out three distinct scenarios for Iraq: the best we can hope for, the most likely outcome and the worst that could happen.

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DAR
When you see how bad "the best we can hope for" is... whoa.

That is why those who talk about how we have to stay in Iraq until it stabilizes are either gullable tools or evil powergrabbers - either way, they didn't have a clue as to what would happen when we invaded Iraq and they don't have a clue now as to what's happening while we occupy Iraq - and even less of a clue as to what will happen if we don't get out soon. Part of the problem is the ordinary American's resistence to "losing" and total inability to see when what we are doing is wrong. If you literally cannot conceive of "America the badguy" you can neither stop it from becoming the badguy nor turn it around when it has already become the badguy.

Barbara wrote:Part of the problem is the ordinary American's resistence to "losing" and total inability to see when what we are doing is wrong. If you literally cannot conceive of "America the badguy" you can neither stop it from becoming the badguy nor turn it around when it has already become the badguy.

Right on. (I'll make an anarchist out of you yet!) So long as people salute the flag instead of spit on it, so long as people give oaths of allegiance to the State instead of reason an ethic of non-aggression, so long as people see the State as the solution rather than the problem, wars like this will happen.

I just saw the movie Gandhi, and it reminded me of the pattern following the death of a brutal State. The vacuum of power created almost always results in short-term massive death. In India/Pakistan, millions died after Britain relinquished power, multi-millions were displaced. Gandhi himself was assassinated. The same thing happened when the US left Vietnam, when Barre was unseated in Somalia, Yugoslavia after Tito, and so on. The aftermath of a failed State is generally untraviolent, with various factions vying for power. (Ironically, this State failure is usually termed "anarchy" in the media.) Next, either some faction wins power, or if the people are lucky and factional power roughly balanced, the factions realize that obtaining centralized power is unlikely. Then some peace, often involving devolution/secession, occurs. I think that Iraq will follow this pattern. There will be massive bloodshed after the foreign occupiers leave. Hopefully before too long, Iraq will split into various sections like Yugoslavia did. (Presumably Shiite, Sunni, and Kurd.)