Iraq Plan B

Iraq Plan B

Is Iraq Plan B already happening? Let’s discuss this elephant in our living room as we wait for the the vacation break of this summer to be over and we restart in the falll.

Birds on the Campaign and Elephants in the Living Room

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

From the Memorial Day Holiday until return of The Corps of Cadets, and the College of Charleston in August, Charleston seems to develop a case of suspended animation. Yes, I know Spoleto brings its own celebratory atmosphere for the first two weeks of June, but it seems as artificial as the greasepaint of its actors. Come the first of June, Charleston shifts gears. It takes on a vacation aire with no meaningful milestones to look forward to in its transformation for summer’s duration.

We have had a dry and coolish spring, which has now ended. While our breezes remain steady, the seasonal stickiness and glaring sun, added to the tropical torpor that effects life in our town, gives one a feeling that serious life issues are postponed for the season. Somehow it would contravene the “rules” to consider any serious issue while the tropics are in their ascendancy.

This phenomenon is not restricted to the humdrum of our typical day. We have presidential candidates of every stripe blanketing the state. Like migrating birds the candidates go bobbing across the State looking for the early worm. It is just too long to Election Day to get excited about any of it. Our news hounds, sodden with the atmosphere, speak as through a mute. We can barely hear what they say. With any luck, we make it through the news hardly conscious that the candidates have been mentioned. Congress and the continuing petty gamesmanship in Washington have also just faded away from daily concern.

While serious thought and discussion seems ill timed, I think it is not just the weather that has sapped us but a sense that the actions we are going to take to move us beyond this time and this place have already been determined. Time for talk is done, and now we must get on with life. Given the fragility of the summer’s cocoon, I feel like the bumptious guest calling attention to the elephant in the living room that interrupts our midsummer’s dream.

Earlier this spring I wrote that the consideration of “Plan B in Iraq was already proceeding. Hillary Clinton recently pronounced her view that, indeed, the President has already decided we are headed to a different mission and force configuration in the Middle East. Regardless of what occurs in Baghdad this summer, I believe she is right. The mistakes in force structure and mission definition that have plagued us are being countered, but the resources we have available including time are insufficient to make up for our mistakes.

General Patraeus is easing us to the longer term status of “trip wires” and in-theatre available forces to secure whatever accommodation we reach with Iran that balances the interests we share with them that the area not collapses into general tribal war. Yes, that’s right. We actually share an interest with the Iranians that Al Qaeda not so destabilize the region that the Persian State falls into the chaos.

The President and his men have begun spinning a concept of secure bases for the long term. The President has even mentioned Korea as a model. When we stumbled into this war, this outcome was a likely outcome and thus should not be looked at as defeat. Whether it is in our interest, depends on the assumptions and resources made available to the forces that remain as well as resources available to the Iraqi Army and decisions made in-country regarding its size and mission.

No one knowledgeable, with whom I have reviewed the situation, believes that the correct decisions are being implemented to restore the country to stability. The Iraqi Army is a revolutionary army in that it is the only entity that stands for the interest of the whole State. Everyone else is fractured in some important respect. The army and its training should become an engine of Iraqi patriotism and national identity devoid of the sectarian militia wars. Its minimum size should be the same 300,000 to 400, 000 that I have always insisted was the minimum our forces require to maintain order on the ground. That size of commitment is not being made. The Iraqi’s have substantially raised their resources available this year from 5 to 9 Billion dollars, but that is but a small down payment of what is required. They speak instead of an increase of 35-40,000 troops for a force of some 150,000 and draw yawns from anyone with knowledge of what it will take to pull Iraq together and move forward. Whatever the risk of democratic usurpation, a decision to fund the army with that mission and at that level is the most important that needs to be made and now.

The American role would, of course be training and professionalism in what is necessary to keep the State stable and peaceful. Our bases would probably be close to borders to provide mission security and focus for our patrol responsibility. It is very much in our interest to assume a much lower profile, and that can only be achieved if the expanded force structure, size and mission of the Iraqi Army is accepted and paid for. They are seriously under funded in their current configuration; let alone accelerating their expansion into a leadership role.

What lessons do we take from Iraq as we begin to move to what will amount to a post conflict profile? The usual clichés regarding limits on national power and not being the world’s policeman, come to mind, but we are both the envy of the world and the target of every disgruntled soul who feels that life has denied him some basic heritage.

We simply cannot afford to be disengaged anyplace on the globe. The amount of power possessed by a sole jihadist rivals a nineteenth century army corps. The damage that can be inflicted by that warrior to the increasingly interconnected lives we live with the rest of the planet is too catastrophic for us to turn our back on its possibility and a corresponding defense. The pace of change is so continuous, that daily upload and analysis is required just to stay even.

Having said that, we must change our force configuration. This is the era of the special operations warrior. Stealth and life and death decisions by bureaucrats we may never know are likely to be our bulwark against another 9/11. Our conventional force must also be expanded to again be able to fight two wars in different parts of the world simultaneously. Special Operations will be a larger but shadowy component in that enlarged capability. Our diplomatic alternatives these past several years in Korea and elsewhere have been substantially limited by the strain on our National Guard and Ready Reserve. When we call up reserves for as long as we have, we adversely impact the home community in its essential civil services. The Marine Corps and the Army both need a significant increase in their active duty complement.

The first President Bush took a full six months to mobilize and fought a limited war for limited and clear goals in Iraq. The contrast in our present difficulties has much to do with the improper use of large fighting units in the 21st century. General Powell, in managing the first Iraqi War set forth what has become known as the Powell Doctrine. Its essential items have as much to do with maintaining cohesiveness in democratic armies as military doctrine. In any case they are wise proscriptions for us to follow in the future. The questions posed by the Powell Doctrine, which should be answered affirmatively in the future before broad scale military action, are:

Is a vital national security interest threatened?
Do we have a clear attainable objective?
Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
Is the action supported by the American people?
Do we have genuine broad international support?

As we move on, cool heads and firm hands are required on the Helm of State. The first President Roosevelt got it right, “Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick.” As we get closer to Election Day, the public would be well served if our candidates spoke about future defense posture and their view of the intricacies and tradeoffs required to assure our national security in these perilous times. Until then the elephant goes untended.

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

This article may be republished unedited in its entirety provided that copyright statement and author by-lines are kept intact and unchanged and hyperlinks and/or URLs provided by the author remain active.

If you’d like to contribute an article to this collection please e-mail it for review .

The Free Enterprise Foundation is proud to offer a continuing series of Business Ethics Articles on our site.

Note: A new article appears about every 2 weeks. Sign up below for our newsletter to get each new article mailed to you the day it is published.

Go to 2007 Business Ethics Articles from Iraq Plan B