Kevin Drum, in his column in Washington Monthly, dismisses “chaos hawks” – those who advocate remaining in Iraq to avoid potentially catastrophic consequences in the wake of our withdrawal. The essential thesis of his article is:
Having admitted, however, that the odds of a military success in Iraq are almost impossibly long, Chaos Hawks nonetheless insist that the U.S. military needs to stay in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Why? Because if we leave the entire Middle East will become a bloodbath. Sunni and Shiite will engage in mutual genocide, oil fields will go up in flames, fundamentalist parties will take over, and al-Qaeda will have a safe haven bigger than the entire continent of Europe.
Needless to say, this is nonsense. Israel has fought war after war in the Middle East. Result: no regional conflagration. Iran and Iraq fought one of the bloodiest wars of the second half the 20th century. Result: no regional conflagration. The Soviets fought in Afghanistan and then withdrew. No regional conflagration. The U.S. fought the Gulf War and then left. No regional conflagration. Algeria fought an internal civil war for a decade. No regional conflagration.
Drum’s analysis neglects to talk about three major regional phenomena, all of which could destabilize the region: Turkey’s fear of the Kurds, the impact of the refugee situation in Jordan and the awakening of the “Shi’a Crescent” in Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab states. Further, these concerns should not be marginalized just because they’re being articulated by Bush hacks.
Turkey will not permit the emergence of an independent Kurdish entity in Northern Iraq and it is questionable whether they will even tolerate an autonomous Kurdish principality there. The existence of such an entity, Turkey fears, could embolden their own Kurdish minority to align with their Iraqi brethren and destabilize the eastern region of the country. Turkey currently has a lot of troops massed on the border and has already chased Kurdish terrorists into Iraq. Were we to leave, it is certainly possible that Turkey would take matters into its own hands.
Jordan is already dealing with a massive influx of Iraqi refugees. A nation whose population is about 80 percent Palestinian refugees, a further influx of refugees could destabilize the fragile stability of an important US ally. A stable Jordan is important for Israel as well and could force them to intervene – just as they did in the face of a Syrian invasion supporting Palestinian guerrillas in 1970 to save the Hashemite Kingdom.
Even before the War in Iraq, states such as Sunni-ruled Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman feared a political awakening among their significant Shi’a populations. The War in Iraq empowered Shi’a Arabs for the first time. The Iraqi Shi’a rightfully see Persian Shi’a as allies. This political empowerment could really do some damage in our traditional allies and upend regional security.
The examples Drum uses to say that there was no “regional conflagration” are just so ridiculous. Most of Israel’s wars have been against a coalition of Arab states in what I would certainly termed “regional confrontations.” The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan created a civil war, empowered the Taliban and allowed al-Qaeda to grow.
The Bush Administration’s Iraq policy is really awful, but instead of just withdrawing, we need to ensure that when we do leave, things are at least reasonably better than they are now. Biden and Obama’s plans for a “diplomatic surge” could help accomplish this. A precipitous US withdrawal will have real, serious consequences that should not be dismissed because they are being articulated by the Bush administration cronies we’ve come to ignore.
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