Does Rumsfeld Want Out of Iraq?

by Liberty and Power

I was going to wait to go public with this theory until I had more evidence to support it, but since now I do, I'll put it out there.

Rumsfeld wants out of Iraq, and the neocons are scared to death that he'll succeed.

I'd been mulling over this theory before I saw Bill Kristol's hit piece on Rumsfeld in the WaPo yesterday. You can generally get a pretty good sense of the internal politics of Republican Washington by looking at who the neocons are attacking. Richard Clarke, Colin Powell, Michael Scheuer, and now Rumsfeld have all been the target of the neocon hit machine, all, I think, because they threatened to undermine support within and without the administration for the neocon project.

Tom Donnelly at AEI has been one of the main anti-Rumsfeld agitators (see here, for example), mostly grounded in disagreement with Rumsfeld's Big Idea: defense transformation to a small, quick, efficient military. As we're seeing on the ground in Iraq, you can't run a foreign occupation very well on a small force. The neocons want many, many more troops in Iraq (and in the Army generally) for a long time.

My suspicion is that Rumsfeld opposes this idea a lot, and that he's been the prime obstacle (other than the fact that there ain't that many more troops to send) to putting more boots on the ground in Iraq. He wants a small, quick, efficient military because it's an efficient killing machine. I suspect he recognizes that it doesn't work very well for nation-building, and that his support for the smaller force represents his opposition to nation-building in principle. I never got the sense that Rumsfeld was one of the bleary-eyed idealists who thought that hundreds of thousands of troops indefinitely buzzing around the sands of Iraq was in the national interest.

Now we're sort of coming down to the wire in Iraq (think: elections), and Rumsfeld is still SecDef. I suspect that watching Rumsfeld over the next six months to a year will give us a pretty good idea what to expect from Bush II foreign policy-wise. Considering Rumsfeld is surrounded by some of the worst of the worst, if you start seeing a suspicious number of leaks, both pro-Rumsfeld and anti-Rumsfeld, coming out of DoD, you can pretty much bet that there's a hearty bureaucratic fight going on as to whether we should stay or go.

Or, Rumsfeld may not have cared very much until the neocons started piling on, but may lash out back against them now that they've targeted him.

Or, I could be totally wrong.

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Bill Woolsey - 12/17/2004

Sistani's United Iraqi list appears likely to win in January. The result is likely a Shiite government that will ask the U.S. to leave very soon. The Iranians will ask the new Iraqi government to do so and promise to provide the new Shiite government with whatever support it needs to survive. Lack of trust in the U.S. by Iraqi Shiites--both staying power and fear of betrayal to a new Sunni despot--will motivate the new Iraqi government to do as it is asked. The Iranians will be there and have an incentive to make sure that majority/Shiite rule is never again replaced by Sunni tyrrany.

So what will the U.S. do? Perhaps Rumsfield has accepted the obvious and figures we will leave when we are asked.

It seems likely that the new Iraqi government will support Lebanese Shiites against Israel--much like their Iranian supporters. It is likely that the new Iraqi government will support Shiite rights in the Persian Gulf Kingdoms--including Saudi Arabia. And they certainly will not support U.S. attacks on Iran.

What are the alternatives? Postpone the elections? Fix the elections? Organize a coup after the elections?

All of these alternatives suggest fighing an Iranian- supported Shiite insurgency in Iraq. That would require lots of troops!

I suppose our government could start a war in Iran or Syria and use that as an excuse to postpone elections in Iraq. Maybe Syria before the election for postponement and Iran after the election--the coup then being sold as arresting all of those Iranian spies in the new government.

The Syria scenario seems more doable. Less likely to result in a Shiite insurrection in Iraq.

So, the good news is that the U.S. may get out of Iraq by request of an elected government. The bad news is that the war might spread--and spread really soon.

Hopefully, Rumsfield plans to leave rapidly. It is the sensible approach.

Many have pointed out that invading Iraq and having elections was likely to result in a Shiite government friendly to Iran that would be a continued threat to Israel and to the Sunni monarchs in the Persian Gulf states.

Are the neocons that idiotic? But then, suppose one plans to invade Iran too? Increasing Iranian influence in the Persian gulf and Iraq is only a bad thing if Iran is ruled by anti-American and anti-Zionist zealots. That would be my thinking if I were a neocon.

Sudha Shenoy - 12/17/2004

I hope he succeeds. The views that Tom Donnelly expresses are truly appalling:'We have yet to cure Iraqi society of its well-learned viciousness, let alone replace the ruthlessness and paranoia with anything better'.'..given that our purpose is to revolutionise the political status quo in the region, the price of "stability" is a longer, harder slog.'-- Iraq & the Iraqis are no more than pieces of plasticine, to be shaped at will by the Americans.

Sudha R. Shenoy