As the majority of Americans now believe, the war in Iraq started under false pretenses and continues for largely the wrong reasons. But, this does not mean ending the war means a simple fix. We now have the culpability to repair the society that would otherwise be left in shambles. We entered into this war for self-interested reasons, but we cannot leave under the same interests for different reasons.
This week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats plan to announce a bill that would limit funding for troops in 2008 and end combat in Iraq by next December and begin troop withdraw immediately a vote for today that would limit funding for troops in Iraq, forcing new restrictions to the amount of time troops had to spend at home, meaning a troop withdraw would begin immediately -- an unplanned withdraw that could set Iraq on a path of chaos and corruption for another 50 years.
This strategy has an eerie semblance to the European exit strategies in Africa during the mid-twentieth century. They came into African countries, usually managed a complete upheaval of their pre-existing societies, in governing structure, ethnic identities, the way they made their livelihoods. And then, when times got too hard and Europeans could no longer fund their operations after World War II, Africans started to rebel; so the Europeans left. Take the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for example. In 1960, there was an upsurge of Congolese violence against the Belgians, and within six months, the Belgians were gone, leaving no more than 11 college-educated Congolese to run the entire country. There was no plan, no exit strategy and with little interest in ensuring any kind of stability.
The DRC has remained war torn, poverty-stricken and under a corrupt governing structure for almost half a century. Over 4 million people have died due to fighting in the East, a conflict amplified by other occasions of European negligence of the mid-nineteenth century. Unfortunately, the DRC, while perhaps an extreme case in decolonization was not the exception to the European decolonization tactics.
If history has taught us anything, it's that democracy cannot be carved in two, four, six years. Even our own history shows evidence of this. Our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 but did not manage to ratify our now working Constitution until 1789.
We hastily got into this war, but whether we agreed with starting it or not, we cannot hastily get out. Doing so not only sets up the U.S. for further failure, but it only further threatens our own national interests: If we are to restore our legitimacy in the international arena, we cannot act carelessly in Iraq. We have a collective responsibility to right our wrongs, not just for the sake of the Iraqi people but for the sake of our reputation abroad as well.
We have to change the dialogue from "removing troops" to "restoring and maintaining peace" so that the Iraqi people can go about building productive lives and flourishing society. Isn't that what we mean by "democracy building," anyway?
We started this war. Now we have to finish it, and unfortunately finishing it may take another five years. It's not a simplistic, canned answer, much to the dismay of many presidential hopefuls, of either continuing funding for the war or to bringing troops home. That proves just as black and white as the ideology that got us into this war.
Democrats insist that they way that President Bush has gone about promoting democracy around the world not only proves faulty but inherently flawed. Instead of talking about troop withdrawal and what not to do, they have to start talking about what works. And, what works is promoting democracy with words but sometimes also with a military force that does not promote aggression but works to mitigate threats and diffuse violence.
Yes, a scale back may be in order, but that should not be how we frame our strategy to ending the war. We must use our resources more effectively, which hopefully means scaling them back, but ultimately, it comes down to a mission of building peace and protecting the people's lives we have endangered in continuing the violence and pursuing democracy as if it's the Holy Grail. That kind of trophy, "mission accomplished," will only come with time, with steadfast diplomacy and with some troops that are there that can serve as the money where our mouths are.