In my one tentative, partially concealed venture on this blog into the quagmire of Iraq policy (hardly my area of special expertise), I alluded briefly to Peter Galbraith's ideas as among the most sensible I have encountered. At very least, he is asking the right questions at this stage of our failed adventure. Today's Slate contains an interesting discussion of Galbraith's new book by Christopher Hitchens, who has probably managed to alienate nearly everybody, left and right, over the course of his career. Here are excerpts:
[Galbraith's] latest book, The End of Iraq, is notable for two things. First, it gives one of the most acute and intimate portraits of the Bush administration's catastrophic mismanagement of the intervention. Second, it proposes a serious program for a radical change in policy. What are our irreducible objectives in Iraq? To prevent the country and its enormous resources from falling into the hands of the enemies of civilization—most notably al-Qaida—and to protect what remains of the secular and democratic alliance that we once hoped might emerge to govern the situation. ...
Given the apparently irreversible fracturing of Iraq into at least three confessional and ethnic parts, an outcome that may have been innate in the Iraqi state, we cannot hope—so runs his argument—to police or manage the sectarian horror show that has been launched by the parties of god. And we run the grave risk of being drawn into it. However, there is a possible way of saving some of our credit. If we reconfigure our military presence to the north, in the three Kurdish provinces, we can reduce the size of ourselves as a target, remain just "over the horizon" in the case of an al-Qaida challenge, be available "case by case" in the event of any appeal from the Iraqi government for help, and protect the most outstanding of our achievements in the country, which is the emergence of a relatively peaceful, democratic, and prosperous region under coalition auspices.
With Democratic Congressional leaders and progressive organizations fussing over legislative proposals (certain to be vetoed if they get that far) on funding and timetables, isn't it time for some grownups to discuss serious strategic alternatives to Bush's failed policy? Like it or not, we have continuing interests and responsibilities in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, and premature withdrawal alone is no more the comprehensive solution here than in matters of birth control.
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