John McCain blusters about the war opponents presenting no alternatives (translation: they are presented, e.g., ISG, but he does not like them). Although the burden of proof should be on those who want to continue to lose a battalion of US soldiers to death and injury per month to demonstrate that that sacrifice will bring a substantially better outcome, McCain laid down a gauntlet, and he might as well be answered.
Here are several practical steps we could take to begin to wind down US involvement in Iraq:
1. Begin in Baghdad. Everyone agrees that that is the most difficult, so an alternate policy that handles Baghdad will be a big step in the right direction. We begin by using the correct language, otherwise it is hard to develop policy. It is a civil war with ethnic cleansing. So, Senator, let us call it what it is. Reference: the latest NIE.
2. Announce the withdrawal within 6 months of US troops to the perimeter of Baghdad, or to bases.
At this point the McCain-aanites (= McCain, Lieberman and Lindsay Graham) interject their apocalyptic visions of the ensuing bloodbath, even worse than it is currently. That is where the conversation, if one can call it that, has stopped. Each side then speaks to its own version of future projections. This is a standard rightwing tactic: winning an argument is great, but stopping the discussion in its tracks is almost as good.
So, let us call their bluff, and accept in general terms their vision of the consequences, and construct a solution for those consequences. Having announced the redeployment in Baghdad, then
3. Go to the United Nations. To prevent Baghdad from descending into the bloodletting the McCainaanites predict, the US-announced withdrawal shifts preventing that outcome to the world community. Will France, Russia, China, Germany, Italy feel content to do nothing "knowing" a Rwanda-scale massacre is in the offing? May be, may be not. Our 6 month pre-announcement will give the Security Council time to determine what, if anything, they are going to do to prevent it. With everyone seeing it coming, they will under heavy pressure to do something concrete.
Importantly, UN-intervention to prevent a predicted bloodbath can achieve solutions the US presence prevents: 1) certainty the US will leave releases a pressure valve that inhibits cooperation with any solution that is tainted by association with the US; 2) if relocation/territory exchanges between Shia and Sunni are necessary to prevent the bloodbath, UN-auspices are the only feasible structure under which that can occur; 3)bringing back UN negotiators may enable Constitutional changes necessary to bring the warring factions together.
Finally, if the UN does not act, and if Iraqi politicians decide to fight to the bloody finish, creating that bloodbath, then there is nothing the US could have done anyhow. The US will bear a large part of the responsibility for the bloodbath, but the world community, and the Iraqis themselves, will share the blame.
4. Realpolitik, create a positive from a negative. Use Iran's ascendency that the US has enabled, to get the Sunni Arab states, who share with Israel a fear of Iran, actively behind a two-state solution to the Palestine-Israeli conflict. As John Kerry commented from Davos, the details of that solution have been worked out in Taba, right before Bill Clinton left office; all that remained was water rights and several hundred meters of territory. Only history will determine whether Iraq was Bush's largest failure, or his refusal to pursue Taba to a conclusion after taking office (his radical rightwing supporters do not want a two-state solution, they are happy to see Israelis die to fulfill their Biblical visions).
It will immediately be argued that this strategy has a low chance of success. True. At least it is a specific strategy whose implementation leads to our disengagement regardless of the outcome. That is quite different from the McCainaanite prescription for more US deaths, more US injuries and deeper US involvement. Moreover, withdrawing first from Baghdad provides the US the opportunity of preventing the bloodbath from spreading rapidly, a major McCainaanite fear factor that prevents realistic dialogue and policy.
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