Opponents of the War in Iraq Need a Strategy

Telegraph | News | I have been beaten and tortured, says tyrant

Did Americans torture Hussein? He's getting what he deserves, you say? Remember that the important matter isn't really what Hussein says, or even what Americans did to him. It's what people believe about what he says that counts. After Abu Ghraib and everything else they've heard, people in the region will believe that Hussein is probably telling the truth. The Butcher of Baghdad has become the Lion of Baghdad in a few short weeks, and we have lost another propaganda skirmish. Did you expect three years ago that Hussein would accuse us of torture, and that people would believe him? Did you expect three years ago that Hussein would have more credibility in the region than we do? And we think we're going to lead the way to democracy?

I still wish I could remember what I wrote about torture a few weeks ago. It wasn't meant to be, I guess. The character of these pieces is that I explore what's on my mind now. I won't be able to reconstruct what was on my mind then. Remember this argument, then, because it's the thread that runs through all of the debate about whether or not the CIA or any other agency of the United States ought to be able to mistreat prisoners of war. The United States needs the help of other countries to win this war. It can't win the current war in Iraq alone, but here I'm talking about the larger war against Al Qaeda. If the United States mistreats the people it captures in the course of that war, it won't get the assistance it needs. We are in a new world here. We cannot win the war that started on September 11 alone.

For over three years now, I've been angry about the war in Iraq. I was angry about it the day Bush first intimated that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was his vaunted goal, the feted next step in the so-called war on terror. I must realize now that anger, now vented, won't do much to change our policy. We don't have that many fence-sitters anymore. People have made up their minds about the war, and the country is roughly two to one against it. The people who think the war will advance our goals won't change their minds at this point. The big problem now is that the people who are against the war don't have much cohesion. They can't agree about what we should do next, and they haven't gathered their ideas and their political force around a strong set of leaders. As a result, their anger and their desire to effect a change of course have not had much influence. It's like a pot of boiling water evaporating to steam: lots of heat and turmoil down below, and not much effect from the steam above. The steam, not pressurized, can't exert any force. Somehow the anti-war movement has to exert some force.

My belief is that as long as we talk about timetables for withdrawal and the like, the people who oppose the war will continue to be ineffectual. People who speak against the war in Iraq need to fashion a strategy for prosecuting the war against Al Qaeda. The administration has such a strategy. Victory in Iraq will bring democracy to the region, and that will so weaken Al Qaeda that it won't be a threat to us anymore. It doesn't matter that the strategy is based on the false premise that democratic politics will make Al Qaeda ineffectual. It's a strategy nevertheless. If the Democrats, Republicans, and independents who oppose the war don't formulate a broad strategy to counter the administration's, they'll be stuck in a reactive mode. If all the war's opponents can offer is a timetable for withdrawal, they won't have a plan that anyone can get behind. Though people don't say it, everyone feels uncomfortable about leaving Iraq having no idea about what's next. If we leave Iraq without any kind of plan at all for what's next, that really will be a defeat.

So you want to ask now, what would such a strategy look like? I've said these things about what we should do so often that I think it must be boring by now. Yet mostly I say these things in private, and it's been a while since I wrote them down in one place. The first thing we need to do is admit to the rest of the world that the invasion of Iraq was a huge mistake. We can find a way to do that without losing face. We can maintain the honor of our armed forces and also admit to our allies, in the Middle East and elsewhere, that the war in Iraq ought not to have occurred. The second part of this plan is to withdraw from Iraq in a way that takes political factors into account. This process is a complicated one, and requires us to work closely with our allies, and with many different groups inside Iraq. Our current political leaders have shown no willingness or ability to engage in this process, so talking about it in detail is a discouraging exercise.

The third part of this strategy is to renew the war against Al Qaeda. To do that, we need to reestablish our military strength in Afghanistan. We also need to go to work in Pakistan. The earthquake there gives us an unmatched opportunity to do good there. We need their friendship. They deserve our help. If we can establish a political, military, and humanitarian presence in Afghanistan, and a humanitarian presence in Pakistan, we will have done so much to correct the mistakes of the last three years. Let's make the first non-quake related project the construction of an interstate highway system in Afghanistan. We need the transportation network for our own purposes, and the whole region would benefit from it. What a symbol of success we'd have. If we help the Pakistanis who lost their homes and livelihoods in the earthquake, we'll have another good reason to be active in the area, and a multitude of good deeds to create good will. We badly need to talk with people in that area. We can't win the war against Al Qaeda without bringing American goodness to south Asia. American goodness is precisely the opposite of what we've shown during the occupation of Iraq.