Why Not Just Leave Iraq?
By Terrell E. Arnold
5-8-4
In the wake of increasing error, the latest being incredible photos of
prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and other prisons, is it really
unthinkable to cut our losses in Iraq by just walking briskly away?
Look at the track record: It was a mistake to lie to the American
people and the world about US reasons for attacking Iraq; a mistake to
go to war without international backing; a mistake to permit
unrestrained looting in the aftermath of initial conflict; a mistake
to reject well developed plans for post-war reconstruction; a mistake
to fire the first US Administrator, Garner, for wanting to hold early
and free elections; a mistake to blackball the Baath; a mistake to
send the Iraqi army home; a mistake to promise democracy and then balk
at the idea of having the majority (the Shiia Muslims) get a chance to
rule; a mistake to give the Kurds too much wiggle room; a mistake to
close the Shia newspaper run by Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr; a mistake
to attack Falluja in force including destroying mosques; a mistake to
put a former Saddam Hussein general in charge of Iraqi troops to fight
other Iraqis.
How can we improve on that track record? Probably by sticking around
while Murphy,s Law does its thing! The key argument made to justify a
continuing Coalition presence in Iraq is that the place would come
apart if we left. The place is already coming apart. What could go
wrong that already hasn,t or that could not go wrong if we stayed?
Those of us old enough to track the exit from Vietnam will recall
vividly that we went through this same exercise over extricating
ourselves from that hopeless situation. In the end, as this writer
observed from a senior position in US Embassy Manila, our departure
was neither orderly nor well-planned. We hastily extracted the last of
our people from the roof of US Embassy Saigon as crowds closed on the
gates. We also extracted some key South Vietnam officials by ship to
Subic Bay in the Philippines. Through hastily set up facilities at
Subic and Clark, both then US bases in the Philippines, we helped our
own refugees from Vietnam arrange their return home.
That was the end of it, because we had no access to Vietnam for many
years afterward. We left the Vietnamese no game plan, and it would not
have been followed anyway. Vietnam,s future became, as it had to be,
the choice and the responsibility of the Vietnamese people. Many still
are troubled by our involvement there, but fewer people are troubled
by the fact that we left.
If we just left Iraq, what may happen then would be the call of the
Iraqi people. Over the past centuries the Iraqi people have been given
little opportunity to learn how to govern themselves. Only experience
can fix that, and the Iraqis have to acquire the experience to do it.
That could be messy, but hardly messier than what is going on now.
With us gone the Iraqis would be denied the luxury of blaming their
problems on someone else, which they now have ample reason to do every
day. The Coalition performance thus far suggests that if we stay the
Iraqis will have much more to blame us for. Scanning the situation in
an interview with Reuters, the newly installed General Muhammad Latif
said that there would be "more calm if the American soldier "returns
to the United States. Latif clearly feels that peace can be achieved
without outside help.
But the Bush team and its supporters are not stuck on what might
happen to the Iraqi people if we just withdrew. The Bush team is stuck
on what will happen to neo-conservative plans for Iraq. As those plans
slowly emerge from patterns of deceit and obfuscation, the plans are
to preempt control of Iraqi oil production and reserves, to weaken,
certainly to alter the links to Saudi Arabia and other oil producers
in the region, and to challenge OPEC for control of world oil markets.
A fourth goal, in many respects more critical than any actions
involving oil per se, is to retain the denomination of oil prices in
dollars, i.e., prevent moves to shift from the dollar to the euro,
moves which are already quite pronounced, and they will increase as
the European system expands.
Those plans have a superficial appeal, coming as they do at a time
when leading experts suggest world oil production is about to peak.
That means for oil users worldwide that things will not get better in
the future. US oil production peaked three decades ago. Bush team
plans to open the Arctic Wildlife preserve to exploitation at best
would slow or flatten the rate of decline. US dependence on imports is
now above 55% and rising. The US and global situations will grow
steadily worse unless alternative energy sources for the world,s
presently oil based systems are found. Unfortunately, through both
domestic and foreign policy decisions on energy, the Bush team has
done its best to assure that the United States does not move us
seriously in that direction.
So, in a future of shrinking oil supplies, and a US economy that now
consumes 25% of world oil production, what is the plan for Iraq? As
one might expect, those plans are not being publicly shared. However,
the choices are plain. If the United States intends to continue its
present oil dependence and levels of use it will be able to do so only
by taking an increasing share of declining world oil output. To do
that it must bid successfully for oil to cover more than half of US
consumption, a share that will grow as US oil output shrinks and
consumption grows. If it does that, the United States will need the
active and willing day-to-day cooperation not only of world oil
producers but of oil consuming countries as well.
Even with that help, US military power will be needed mainly to keep
us in oil. Since the heavy ends of American military power, both air
and ground, are oil based, that equation is binding.
Some relevant facts seem obvious: if the United States is to serve
those conflicting roles it must not only remain one of the worlds most
healthy economies (oil imports are and will be the biggest import
bill); it must also sustain reliable access to a significant piece of
world oil output. Since most future oil for US uses will come from
abroad, it could prove costly to be exposed to foreign exchange risks
while bidding for an expanding share of world oil output in a market
that is not priced in dollars. The future of the dollar itself is at
stake in this situation and with it the future of the US economy
because it carries a high burden of international debt along with
heavy reliance on foreign trade.
The neo-conservative answers to these problems require not only that
the US stay in Iraq, but also that the US not permit significant
control of Iraqi oil to pass to the Iraqi people. The neo-conservative
scheme thus requires that Iraqis not have a democracy except in name,
but to believe that the Iraqis will acquiesce in the systematic theft
of their principal national asset is naïve in the extreme. Thus the
neo-conservative oil plan, as appealing as it seems to its designers,
is likely to be fraught with perpetual conflict. And that is assuming
that no one other than the Iraqis object to this scheme.
A shorter, less conflict ridden, and less risky path would be to
restructure the system that already exists, a system that with bumps
has permitted us to obtain oil, grow and prosper over the years since
OPEC was conceived. We and other oil importing countries routinely
have paid more that twice the costs profitably to produce the average
barrel of oil, but oil product consumers have generally taken that in
stride. Consuming countries routinely have made handsome income
transfers to oil producer countries, and US producers at home have
benefited handsomely from propped up prices.
The Bush statement, repeated this week, that oil prices are high
because of environmental protective measures is a myth. Oil prices are
high because oil producer country taxes and oil company profits are
high.
OPEC has been modestly successful in running this system, but only
with the active participation of the international companies, and at
least the passive participation of consumer country governments.
Example: Iraqi oil costs about $1.50 a barrel to produce, and most
producers can bring their product to market for less than $10 per
barrel, but world traded oil sells within the present OPEC price band
for between $22 and $28 per barrel. Oil has sold at prices above this
band since December 2003. Can you tell why the oil companies and Bush
team friends want to control the Iraqi and perhaps the whole Persian
Gulf end of this gravy train?
OK. We can have that, but at guaranteed continuous conflict costs. It
is unlikely that we can do it except by maintaining a large military
presence, not only in Iraq but also throughout the region. Does that
sound like taking the oil at gun point? That indeed is what it will be
as we watch our circle of friends continue to decline and our
casualties as well as our military budgets increase.
The irony of it is that the companies and oil producer countries will
prosper, while consumers will not benefit from lower prices. Some
experts are now saying that gasoline at a US pump will never again
drop below $1.25 a gallon (it now goes for more than $4.00 in Britain
or France). Rather it is more likely to rise to $2.00. Diesel fuel
prices for the trucks we depend on for movement of virtually all goods
and services will not drop either. In effect, even with the 1970s oil
shock and other ups and downs, the oil deal we have had for several
years is the best deal we are likely to have in the future.
We must stop making matters worse. Let,s get out of Iraq. Let the
Iraqi people make their own decisions about how to govern and how to
use the profits from their oil sales. Let the UN help them, and help
the UN do that. Make the best deal we can with OPEC and non-OPEC oil
producers such as Russia and Norway. Get to work on reducing our oil
dependence by switching to windmills, hydrogen and other fuels as need
be, and making our future transportation habits fit our future energy
supplies. Meanwhile, as consumers we should make a decision that we
are happy to pay the $0.75 topper on that $1.25 price of motor fuel to
avoid wasting the lives of thousands of young Americans, and as an
ongoing contribution to world peace. Anyway, at $2.00 per gallon we
are better off by far than practically anybody else in the world, even
though we must be prepared to have that price go up.
So let,s stop struggling. Get out of Iraq. Solve our oil supply
problems at the negotiating table and through changing our energy
systems. Let the Iraqis do what no one has permitted them to do for
centuries, work out their own living arrangements. They will probably
do that in spite of us anyway.
The writer is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer of the US
Department of State. He will welcome comments at
wecanstopit@charter.net
Comment
From Jim Mortellaro
Jsmortell@aol.com
5-9-4
Should we summarily leave Iraq, we send a signal to Fundamentalist
Islam that we are weak, tired of battle and that our people are in
similar straights. This, I believe, is far from truth.
Leaving Iraq allows the terrorists of that area to become even more
active. It allows the deployment of yet another Islamic Republic,
likely, similar to Iran. It presupposes that America (their great
satan) will not fight against terrorism and this in turn will permit
great terrorist activity in the region as well as elsewhere in the
world and in particular, the United States of America.
Our lives here would not be worth a plug nickel.
We are there. Regardless of why one imagines we got there, for good or
bad. Showing a lack of commitment to terror now, would, Mr. Arnold,
create more problems for this nation than it already has.
The United Nations has demonstrated a complete lack of ability to
control and manage without the use of force. Largely, that force
belonged to the United States at every juncture. The UN is a mockery
of what it is supposed to be. A peacekeeping force. What peace has the
UN kept in the last 30 years? Non which I can recall. Not without the
USA behind them.
As for oil pricing... it hurts. But in the long run, high oil prices
will drive all energy thirsty nations such as Japan, China and the
USA, into a surge of alternate sources, some of these are free. Such
as solar and wind power. And automobiles will ultimately turn to
hybrid followed by (God willing) a small, safe hydrogen based fuel
system, perhaps even a fusion engine. Meanwhile, this government of
ours must take steps to reduce the price of energy before it denudes
our economy which has been doing so well in the last 12 months. We've
made progress and must not allow that progress to disappear down the
oil drain.
We must stay in Iraq. And the fact of the comments made by Mr. Arnold
both confuse and upset this writer. What must be obvious, what
_should_ be obvious, is not. At least not to Arnold. And that's pretty
scary.
So what are we reading here? Another political lie from Libs? Or a man
who is on the verge of losing his mind to the same source?
Makes me wonder.
How about you?
Jim Mortellaro
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