An Exit Strategy

John Kerry laid out an exit strategy for Iraq. He believes Iraqis "have responded only to deadlines," so we should set deadlines for a unity government and for handing over security operations to Iraqi armed forces.

Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military. If Iraqis aren't willing to build a unity government in the five months since the election, they're probably not willing to build one at all. The civil war will only get worse, and we will have no choice anyway but to leave.

If Iraq's leaders succeed in putting together a government, then we must agree on another deadline: a schedule for withdrawing American combat forces by year's end. Doing so will empower the new Iraqi leadership, put Iraqis in the position of running their own country and undermine support for the insurgency, which is fueled in large measure by the majority of Iraqis who want us to leave their country. Only troops essential to finishing the job of training Iraqi forces should remain.

At first glance, it looks a bit impractical, but when you look at the implementation details, the plan starts looking better (not that President Bush's failure has left us a lot of options anyhow).

For this transition to work, we must finally begin to engage in genuine diplomacy. We must immediately bring the leaders of the Iraqi factions together at a Dayton Accords-like summit meeting. In a neutral setting, Iraqis, working with our allies, the Arab League and the United Nations, would be compelled to reach a political agreement that includes security guarantees, the dismantling of the militias and shared goals for reconstruction.

To increase the pressure on Iraq’s leaders, we must redeploy American forces to garrisoned status. Troops should be used for security backup, training and emergency response; we should leave routine patrols to Iraqi forces. Special operations against Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists in Iraq should be initiated only on hard intelligence leads.

I really like the Dayton Accords-like summit idea. If we could achieve the goals Kerry laid out, that would be a major turn-around of the situation and a pretty clear victory for the Iraqi people. Is it possible? I don't know. And what happens if it's not? Do we still leave? I think we do, since at this point it really doesn't matter if we stay or if we go.

Vice President Cheney’s assertion that, if we leave, terrorists will take over in Iraq is just asinine. Frankly, I haven’t been able to take that guy seriously since 1990 when he argued that the collapse of Communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall were an elaborate Soviet trick to get America to drop its guard so they could take over the world.

 Iraqis will never let foreign terrorists take over their government. Hell, the Iraqi insurgents just gave Zarqawi the boot. They don’t want foreign terrorists in Iraq either.

Also, it’s not like our troops will be gone. We’ll keep Special Forces units nearby -- "over the horizon" -- to hit the terrorist training camps that sprouted up after our invasion as their whereabouts become known. That's one of the reasons the Democratic security agenda expands of our intelligence assets and doubles the number Special Forces troops.

We will defeat Al Qaeda faster when we stop serving as its best recruitment tool. Iraqis ultimately will not tolerate foreign jihadists on their soil, and the United States will be able to maintain an over-the-horizon troop presence with rapid response capacity. An exit from Iraq will also strengthen our hand in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat and allow us to repair the damage of repeated deployments, which flag officers believe has strained military readiness and morale.

It's not the outcome we all hoped for, but what's the alternative? President Bush isn't going to expend the troops, funding, and resources necessary for a clear victory, so now it's just a matter of how to draw down while saving face. Kerry's plan gives us a summit on which to hang a political victory -- which in turn would give us a plausible reason to leave on our own terms. That spins like victory.

tags: democrats  iraq  kerry