Bret Stephens: Obama's Nixon Reprise
[Bret Stephens is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.]
Richard Nixon came to office with a rumored secret plan to end the war in Vietnam. Maybe Barack Obama's plan to end the war in Iraq is going to wind up being a secret, too.
The presumptive Democratic nominee set off media firecrackers last week by hinting at further refinements to his strategy for withdrawal. Previous strategies include his January 2007 call for a complete withdrawal by March 2008, followed by his March 2008 call for a complete withdrawal by July 2010, or 16 months after he takes office.
Now Mr. Obama tells us that the 16-month timeline is contingent on (1) "[making] sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable" (my emphasis), and (2) the opinion of "the commanders on the ground." Also in question is the size of the "residual force" that the Illinois senator envisions for Iraq after the bulk of U.S. forces is withdrawn. Will it be an embassy guard, plus some military advisers and special-ops forces? Or, as suggested in a March paper by Colin H. Kahl, who runs Mr. Obama's working group on Iraq, an "overwatch force" of between 60,000 and 80,000 soldiers?
Mr. Kahl's paper, which was written for the moderately leftish Center for a New American Security, is not an Obama campaign document. Nor has it been publicly released, though it was reported on by the New York Sun's Eli Lake. But it offers a useful window into what serious Democratic policy wonks think is a workable U.S. strategy for Iraq in the next administration.
Titled "Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement," Mr. Kahl presents a middle way between the extremes of "unconditional engagement" – basically, the Bush administration's approach – and "unconditional redeployment," which is, or perhaps was, Mr. Obama's recipe.
On the latter point, Mr. Kahl warns that unconditional redeployment "is insufficient to encourage political accommodation because it offers no 'carrot' to groups that would prefer not to accommodate or assurances to those who fear abandonment. It also risks . . . driving the Sunnis back to the insurgency and al Qaeda in Iraq, reigniting sectarian violence and regional tensions."
Note well: That's the view of an Obama adviser on the original Obama plan.
Mr. Kahl's own preferences track closely with those of Gen. David Petraeus, who introduced the phrase "overwatch" in congressional testimony last September. It would involve the rapid withdrawal of three combat brigades, an emphasis on "mentoring and monitoring" Iraq's Security Forces, continued U.S. pressure on Iraq's sectarian leaders to come politically to terms, and a round of regional diplomacy. Still, as many as 80,000 troops would remain in Iraq by the end of 2010 in Mr. Kahl's plan, or halfway into the next administration. How much longer till those troops are withdrawn? Two years? Twenty?..
Read entire article at Wall Street Journal
Richard Nixon came to office with a rumored secret plan to end the war in Vietnam. Maybe Barack Obama's plan to end the war in Iraq is going to wind up being a secret, too.
The presumptive Democratic nominee set off media firecrackers last week by hinting at further refinements to his strategy for withdrawal. Previous strategies include his January 2007 call for a complete withdrawal by March 2008, followed by his March 2008 call for a complete withdrawal by July 2010, or 16 months after he takes office.
Now Mr. Obama tells us that the 16-month timeline is contingent on (1) "[making] sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable" (my emphasis), and (2) the opinion of "the commanders on the ground." Also in question is the size of the "residual force" that the Illinois senator envisions for Iraq after the bulk of U.S. forces is withdrawn. Will it be an embassy guard, plus some military advisers and special-ops forces? Or, as suggested in a March paper by Colin H. Kahl, who runs Mr. Obama's working group on Iraq, an "overwatch force" of between 60,000 and 80,000 soldiers?
Mr. Kahl's paper, which was written for the moderately leftish Center for a New American Security, is not an Obama campaign document. Nor has it been publicly released, though it was reported on by the New York Sun's Eli Lake. But it offers a useful window into what serious Democratic policy wonks think is a workable U.S. strategy for Iraq in the next administration.
Titled "Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement," Mr. Kahl presents a middle way between the extremes of "unconditional engagement" – basically, the Bush administration's approach – and "unconditional redeployment," which is, or perhaps was, Mr. Obama's recipe.
On the latter point, Mr. Kahl warns that unconditional redeployment "is insufficient to encourage political accommodation because it offers no 'carrot' to groups that would prefer not to accommodate or assurances to those who fear abandonment. It also risks . . . driving the Sunnis back to the insurgency and al Qaeda in Iraq, reigniting sectarian violence and regional tensions."
Note well: That's the view of an Obama adviser on the original Obama plan.
Mr. Kahl's own preferences track closely with those of Gen. David Petraeus, who introduced the phrase "overwatch" in congressional testimony last September. It would involve the rapid withdrawal of three combat brigades, an emphasis on "mentoring and monitoring" Iraq's Security Forces, continued U.S. pressure on Iraq's sectarian leaders to come politically to terms, and a round of regional diplomacy. Still, as many as 80,000 troops would remain in Iraq by the end of 2010 in Mr. Kahl's plan, or halfway into the next administration. How much longer till those troops are withdrawn? Two years? Twenty?..