Keeping Watch on the Iraq "Withdrawal"

I have written of my belief that, while the stated public line of President-elect Obama is a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq in 16 months, the Administration is likely to retain a sizeable US military presence beyond 2010. This could even amount to the recommendation of the Iraq Study Group, offered in December 2006, for retention of 50,000 troops in large bases both to oversee Iraqi security and to maintain a presence versus Iraq's neighbours such as Iran.

Jeremy Scahill takes the same line in this disturbing and provocative opinion piece:

Obama Doesn't Plan to End the Occupation in Iraq

The New York Times is reporting an "apparent evolution" in president-elect Barack Obama's thinking on Iraq, citing recent statements about his plan to keep a "residual force" in the country and his pledge to "listen to the recommendations of my commanders" as Obama prepares to assume actual command of U.S. forces. "At the Pentagon and the military headquarters in Iraq, the response to the statements this week from Mr. Obama and his national security team has been akin to the senior officer corps' letting out its collective breath," the Times reported. "[T]the words sounded to them like the new president would take a measured approach on the question of troop levels."

The reality is there is no "evolution."



Anyone who took the time to cut past Barack Obama's campaign rhetoric of "change" and bringing an "end" to the Iraq war realized early on that his Iraq plan boiled down to a down-sizing and rebranding of the occupation. While he emphasized his pledge to withdraw U.S. "combat forces" from Iraq in 16 months (which may or may not happen), he has always said that he intends to keep "residual forces" in place for the foreseeable future.

It's an interesting choice of terms. "Residual" is defined as "the quantity left over at the end of a process." This means that the forces Obama plans to leave in Iraq will remain after he has completed his "withdrawal" plan. No matter how Obama chooses to label the forces he keeps in Iraq, the fact is, they will be occupation forces.

 

 

Announcing his national security team this week, Obama reasserted his position. "I said that I would remove our combat troops from Iraq in 16 months, with the understanding that it might be necessary -- likely to be necessary -- to maintain a residual force to provide potential training, logistical support, to protect our civilians in Iraq." While some have protrayed this as Obama going back on his campaign pledge, it is not. What is new is that some people seem to just now be waking up to the fact that Obama never had a comprehensive plan to fully end the occupation. Most recently, the Times:

"On the campaign trail, Senator Barack Obama offered a pledge that electrified and motivated his liberal base, vowing to 'end the war' in Iraq," wrote reporter Thom Shanker on Thursday. "But as he moves closer to the White House, President-elect Obama is making clearer than ever that tens of thousands of American troops will be left behind in Iraq, even if he can make good on his campaign promise to pull all combat forces out within 16 months."

For many months it's been abundantly clear that Obama's Iraq plan is at odds with his campaign rhetoric. Yet, Shanker writes, "to date, there has been no significant criticism from the antiwar left of the Democratic Party of the prospect that Mr. Obama will keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for at least several years to come." The Times is actually right about this, in a literal sense. There has seldom, if ever, been a public peep about Obama's residual force plans for Iraq from members of his own party, including from those who describe themselves as "anti-war."

But, for those who have scrutinized Obama's plans and the statements of his advisors from the beginning, this is old news. Obama never defined "ending the war" as removing all U.S. forces from Iraq. Besides the counsel of his closest advisors -- many of whom are pro-war hawks -- Obama's Iraq plan is based on two primary sources: the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton "Iraq Study Group" and the 2007 Iraq supplemental spending bill, which, at the time was portrayed as the Democrats' withdrawal plan. Both envisioned a sustained presence of U.S. forces for an undefined period following a "withdrawal."

In supporting the 2007 supplemental, Obama said it would put the U.S. "one signature away from ending the Iraq War." The bill would have redeployed U.S. forces from Iraq within 180 days. But that legislation, vetoed by President Bush, would also have provided for 20,000 to 60,000 troops to remain in Iraq as "trainers," "counter-terrorist forces," or for "protection for embassy/diplomats," according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies. The bill contained no language about how many "private contractors" could remain in Iraq. This helped shed light on what Obama actually meant by "ending the Iraq War."

Other glaring clues to the actual nature of Obama's Iraq plan to anyone paying attention could be found in the public comments of his advisors, particularly on the size of the force Obama may leave in Iraq after his withdrawal is complete. Obama has refused to talk numbers, saying in October, "I have tried not to put a number on it." That has been the position of many of his loyal aides. "We have not put a number on that. It depends on the circumstances on the ground," said Susan Rice, Obama's nominee for UN ambassador, during the campaign. "It would be worse than folly, it would be dangerous, to put a hard number on the residual forces."

But, Richard Danzig, President Clinton's former Navy Secretary who may soon follow Robert Gates as Obama's Defense Secretary, said during the campaign that the "residual force" could number as many as 55,000 troops. That doesn't include Blackwater and other mercenaries and private forces, which the Obama camp has declared the president-elect "can't rule out [and] won't rule out" using. At present there are more "contractors" in Iraq than soldiers, which is all the more ominous when considering Obama's Iraq plan.

In April, it was revealed that the coordinator of Obama's Iraq working group, Colin Kahl, had authored a paper, titled "Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement," which recommended, "the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000-80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground)." Kahl tried to distance the views expressed in the paper from Obama's official campaign position, but they were and are consistent.

In March, Obama advisor Samantha Power let the cat out of the bag for some people when she described her candidate's 16-month timetable for withdrawing U.S. "combat" forces as a "best case scenario." Power said, "He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator." (After that remark and referring to Sen. Hillary Clinton as a "monster," Power resigned from the campaign. Now that Obama is president-elect, Power's name has once again resurfaced as a member of his transitional team.)

The New York Times also raised the prospect that Obama could play semantics when defining his 16-month withdrawal plan, observing, "Pentagon planners say that it is possible that Mr. Obama's goal could be accomplished at least in part by relabeling some units, so that those currently counted as combat troops could be 're-missioned,' their efforts redefined as training and support for the Iraqis."

Compare all of the above with a statement Obama made in July: "I intend to end this war. My first day in office I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war -- responsibly, deliberately, but decisively."

Some may now accuse Obama of flip-flopping. The reality is that we need to understand what the words "end" "war" "residual" and "decisively" mean when we hear Obama say them.

Kerouac's "On The Road" Reaches Birmingham

It is a great pleasure to report the formal opening last night of the Kerouac "On the Road" exhibition at the Barber Institute at the University of Birmingham. The exhibition features Kerouac's 1951 scroll with the initial draft of the book but this complemented by an outstanding collection of archival material, objects associated with Kerouac, and an interactive display of Kerouac's journal.

Congratulations to my colleague, Professor Dick Ellis, who spent months organising and curating the exhibition and to the staff of the Barber, one of the finest art galleries I have ever visited.

The Guardian has a short article on Kerouac and the Barber, and the BBC Radio 4 news programme Today interviewed Dick Ellis about the exhibition.

The exhibition runs until 28 January 2009.

One More Epitaph for the War on Terror

George W. Bush, 2 September 2006: "We're staying on the offense against the terrorists, fighting them overseas so we do not have to face them here at home."

Michael Gerson, 5 December 2008: "The attacks have come like the steady rhythm of a clock -- 171 dead in Mumbai. Tick. Fifty-two dead in the London bombings. Tock. One hundred ninety-one dead in the Madrid train attacks. Tick. Two hundred two in Bali..."

Fun fact: Michael Gerson was a speechwriter for George W. Bush, 2001-2005

Politics and Religion: The Gaza Non-Pilgrimage

Our partner blog, State of the United States, has a fascinating item explaining why there will be no pilgrims from Palestine to Mecca this year. The incident, involving not only the rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas but also Saudi Arabia, is almost as illuminating as it is depressing.

There is further coverage of the story in The New York Times.

From the Archives: Desperately Seeking a Showdown with Iran? (21 April 2008)

I am currently sitting in a four-day International Roundtable devoted to "cultural dialogue", and part of the discussion has turned to US-Iranian relations.

By unhappy coincidence, as I was setting off for the Roundtable yesterday, the Daily Telegraph put out the story, "Israel Willing to Go It Alone on Iran Attack".

I still think this is spin rather than substance, a rather crude and ineffective attempt to press Tehran. The political and economic dynamics, especially in Iraq and in the region, as well as the limits on US action, point to tension but not open conflict. Still, with the unhelpful ratcheting-up of that tension, be it in April 2008 or now, there is always the possibility of a rash over-step....



That was Then....

The first entry in this blog, posted in summer 2007, was on the detention of 15 British naval personnel by Iranian authorities. The British claimed the sailors were patrolling in Iraqi waters; Iran claimed that the crew had crossed into its territory. For several days, there was much huffing and puffing about the crisis and whether it would lead to showdown. Then the Iranians, with President Ahmadinejad smiling broadly and presenting gifts of clothes to the sailors, let the Britons go.
So it was with some nostalgia that I read, in a little-noticed piece, the surprise ending to the story: "Fifteen British sailors and Marines were seized by Iran in internationally disputed waters and not in Iraq's maritime territory as Parliament was told."

What's more, the incident because of no less than an arbitrary attempt by Washington and London to redraw the boundary between Iran and Iraq in waters which have long been a source of contention. "The Britons were seized because the US-led coalition designated a sea boundary for Irans territorial waters without telling the Iranians where it was, internal Ministry of Defence briefing papers reveal."

To be clear, Her Majesty's Government lied. Aware soon after the incident that its armed forces had crossed into disputed waters, aware that the Iranians had long claimed that this was their territory, military commanders and Ministers lied. And they continued to lie. As Minister of Defence Des Browne boldly told Parliament two months after the crisis, "There is no doubt that HMS Cornwall was operating in Iraqi waters and that the incident itself took place in Iraqi waters . . . In the early days the Iranians provided us with a set of coordinates, and asserted that was where the event took place, but when we told them the coordinates were in Iraqiwaters they changed that set and found one in their own waters. I do not think that even they sustain the position that the incident took place anywhere other than in Iraqi waters."

Why should this matter? Bluntly put, those lies could have easily been used as the pretext for military operations against Tehran. Buried on Sunday inside an excellent New York Times front-page story --- uncovering how the US media's military "experts" were little more than Pentagon mouthpieces --- was this revelation about a meeting between the experts and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:

"Days later, Mr. Rumsfeld wrote a memorandum distilling their collective guidance into bullet points. Two were underlined:

'Focus on the Global War on Terror — not simply Iraq. The wider war — the long war.'”

'Link Iraq to Iran. Iran is the concern. If we fail in Iraq or Afghanistan, it will help Iran.'
Rumsfeld, who had ordered contingency plans in 2003 for operations against Iran to follow the "liberation" of Iraq, left office three months later. The Bush Administration, however, has never publicly let go of the possibility of using the Iraqi mess as the pretext for another confrontation. Ten days ago, the President and his advisors were still spinning the line that Tehran had bolstered Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in its defence against the Iraqi Government's "Charge of the Knights" into Basra. The President told ABC News:"If they choose to infiltrate and send equipment, then we'll deal with them. And we'll get -- we're learning more about their habits and learning more about their routes. And make no mistake about it: We'll protect our troops and civilians and Iraqis."

This is Now....

All this may change, however, at least for a few months. The Bush Administration's claim that Iran was backing the Sadrist insurgency against the al-Maliki Government took "fatuous" to a new level. Given that the Iranian Government has long backed the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, whose leaders waged their campaign against Saddam Hussein from Tehran, and given that the SIIC is the largest constituency in al-Maliki's Cabinet, it's a pretty long leap to claim that Iran would want the insurgency to topple the Government. Tehran is probably hedging its bets, trying to maintain links with al-Sadr as well as the SIIC and other Shi'a groups as well as watching the Americans get themselves into more and more military trouble. Indeed, Iran claimed the political credit for ending last month's Battle of Basra, inviting all parties to Tehran and brokering a cease-fire.

Today the American newspapers finally caught up with the story. US authorities are changing their tune --- Iran will have to be part of the solution, at least for now, rather than being cast as the primary problem: "The two sides are making nice on the issue of fighting Mr. Sadr, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite clerics. As Iraqi government soldiers took control of the last areas of Basra from Mr. Sadr’s militia on Saturday, concluding a month-long effort, Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, took the unusual step of expressing strong support for the government’s position and described Mr. Sadr’s fighters as outlaws."

Let's see how long this last before another crisis --- manufactured or real --- puts "Showdown with Iran" back on the screens of CNN and Fox.