An Activist Guide to the Exit Strategy

“So we have to go. But how to get out is the great question. Somebody should
write a book about military withdrawals because they are so much more difficult
than invasions.” - Richard Cooper, British diplomat, 2004

There are three purposes for advocating an exit strategy from Iraq. The first to enable the peace movement to have a positive, plausible plan against the Bush Administration's stubborn insistence on “victory” at any cost, and the Democratic leadership's fear of appearing “weak”. The second reason is to begin shaping the debate about the inevitable endgame itself, because wars do not continue forever. The third is to position the peace movement to speak for a majority agenda now and in the future, instead of being marginalized.

By exit strategy I mean a humane alternative to the “no exit” nightmare described long ago by Jean-Paul Sartre. But recognizing the term is inadequate, too mechanical for some, I believe it should be understood in the context of the art of conflict resolution, the substance of Dennis Kucinich's proposed Department of Peace.

We are only beginning the national conversation about an exit strategy. Congressional hearings will commence in September. Recently, a number of individual scholars and journalists have written helpfully [see Gareth Porter in Mideast Policy, Fall 2005; Robert Dreyfuss on the American Prospect website and TomPaine.common sense; the Project on Defense Alternatives, “400 days and out”, July 19, 2005; Phyllis Bennis and Erik Leaver, “Ending the US War in Iraq”, Institute for Policy Studies, January 2005; Larry Diamond, “Beat the Insurgents by Talking to Them”, Los Angeles Times, July 3, 2005; Aiham Al Sammaraee, “Insurgency and Iraqi Politics”, Middle East Institute, July 19, 2005; and websites ranging from Democracy Rising to Cato.] A left to right spectrum of viewpoints is converging on a consensus that it is time to go.

Some exit strategies are less than they appear. To take the most significant one, former CIA director John Deutsch dropped a bombshell for peace on the op-ed page of the New York Times on July 15 calling for withdrawal. His message echoed legislation setting 2006 timetables for withdrawal introduced by Jones, Abercrombie, Kucinich, Woolsey in the House and Feingold in the Senate. While important departures from the war mentality, none of these proposals speak of ending the occupation of Iraq which consists of a sweeping neo-liberal privatization program benefiting American contractors. In fact, Deutch argues that “if we want to influence the behavior of nations, we would be better servcd by combining diplomacy with our considerable economic strength.” Among well-known writers, only Naomi Klein has consistently exposed the plan to impose a market economy on Baghdad. The first steps were orders by Paul Bremer, the managing director of Henry Kissinger's corporate consulting firm, to privatize Iraqi's state-owned economy, thus weakening the sovereignty and powers of any future nationalist regime. Since tampering with public subsidies for food and fuel would cause rioting in the streets, Baghdad's transition to a private economy is being discussed in “closed cabinet sessions.” The ultimate goal, “preferably after the next national elections”, is to open Iraq's oil industry to control by private [American] corporations. The cabinet already has approved the first step, a regulation allowing the private sector to enter the oil export business, following by refining. Entry into the World Trade Organization is all but final. The US strategy is to lock in corporate guarantees for banking, investment, taxes, trade and other economic policies before a façade of “democracy” is established and troops withdrawn.

There are other exit strategy debates about the length of time that should be allowed before the US troops withdraw. But none are as important as clarifying that the peace movement exit strategy should call for end of the entire occupation, not guarantees for a Walmart in Baghdad before the American troops leave.

The essentials of an exit strategy, with some further elaboration, are these:

First, as a confidence-building measure, the US government must be pushed and persuaded into announcing a clear shift in policy from military occupation to a conflict resolution model. That means a clarification that the US has no plans for permanent military bases, no plans for controlling Iraqi oil, no plans for an embassy with four hundred CIA agents becoming the forward staging area for control of the Middle East. It means rejecting the neo-conservative agenda and turning to a more realistic one [ see “Get Real”, an opinion piece by the managing editor of Foreign Affairs magazine ] the US must recover credibility in Iraq and much of the world through an official disavowal of imperial designs. Larry Diamond, who advised the occupation, says that “this suspicion feeds the intense nationalism underlying the violent resistance. In fact, it is the only factor uniting its disparate elements.”

Second, instead of claiming there are no plans for withdrawal [Bush] or obsessing too finely over “out now” versus eighteen months from now [how pure is pure], the point is to push the Administration to declare its intention to end the occupation and bring the troops home in months, not years. Since actions speak louder than words, an initial troop withdrawal, as well as ending offensive search-and-destroy operations, should happen before this December, not as a token gesture amidst next year's Congressional elections. If the Administration refuses to set a date or take action, that should become a serious dividing line in the 2006 Congressional budget vote and elections. [exploit the worry of the conservative's shrewdest strategist, Grover Norq uist, that “if Iraq is in the rearview mirror in the '06 election, the Republicans will do fine. But it's still in the windshield, there are problems.” ]

The moderate Republican strategy is to sign on as co-authors of the Jones-Abercrombie legislation to fend off the voters for the election year. That hurts Bush, however, by opening a split in the once-monolithic Republican Party, and helps in peace organizing in the so-called “red” states. It should be possible to achieve over one hundred co-authors of the legislation by January, perhaps with Republicans in double-digits. Such legislation should be amended, however, to replace the current language calling for the Administration to provide an exit strategy - it won't - with new principles adopted by Congress members themselves at the demand of civil society. [see the “People's Petition for a Peace Process in Iraq” at any peace group website].

In January will come the fight over opposing or attaching conditions to the next supplemental appropriation request, one on which the Democratic leadership defaulted this year. Movement pressure should be placed on Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi, whose own city of San Francisco voted over 70 percent in favor of withdrawal last November. Information on what one billion dollars - the cost of one week of this war - are readily available at costsofwar.com. And remember, your money is funding war through public pension fund investments - $55 million in Halliburton by California's public employees retirement system, millions more into General Electric for Apache helicopter engines. With enough pressure, those investments can be yanked.

Third, the US will have to request the United Nations, or a body blessed by the United Nations, to establish protocols to monitor the military cease-fires, de-escalation, disengagement and ultimate withdrawal. No international conference is likely to occur, and no international body will consider this challenge unless the US is willing to relinquish its unilateral military intervention and neo-liberal agenda for a conflict resolution approach. Needless to say, a withdrawal plan must include some twenty thousand stateless mercenaries, the second largest force in the “coalition of the willing”, as well as British, Italian, South Korean, Japanese and other interventionists allied with the US.

Fourth, the US must request that the United Nation or a related body take the lead in organizing a peaceful reconstruction effort. The US must accept its obligation to fairly compensate Iraqis for damages and assist Iraqi reconstruction while not imposing privatization schemes and while ending the dominance of US contractors. The incentive for many countries - including China, Russia and Europe - is ending the American monopoly on the Iraqi economy, in which US contractors pocket 73 percent of the money.

Fifth, and most urgently, the US government should immediately appoint a peace envoy independent of the occupation authorities to underscore a new commitment to an entirely different mission. The peace envoy cannot play the honest broker role which Sen. George Mitchell did in Northern Ireland, but would serve as the American representative in talks with the Iraqi opposition, including insurgent groups, for example those already in contract with the Iraqi self-appointed mediator, Aihim Al Sammarae. Larry Diamond confirms that “for almost two years [TH note: that's virtually the whole war] some insurgents have been sending signals through international intermediaries that they want to talk directly to the United States.”

The Bush “exit strategy”, faithfully endorsed so far by the mainstream media, consists of pressuring for the inclusion of a handful of Sunnis into the constitutional discussions in hopes, motivating a majority of Sunnis to vote in the proposed elections, thus magically undermining the insurgency just as the US congressional election season begins. While a better spin than that of the floundering Democrats, the Bush plan leaves no political opening for the majority of Iraqis who oppose the occupation. In reality, the US has legitimized, armed, trained and funded Shiite and Kurdish militias under the cover of building up the Iraqi security forces, thus moving Iraq towards an incipient civil war. Therefore the insurgency is bound to continue. But if the Iraqi majority is promised that the occupation will end by a reasonable date, much of the rationale for violence would disappear. In the Project on Defense Alternatives' paper, “400 Days and Out”, Carl Conetta concludes:

“the key to enabling total US troop withdrawal from Iraq within 400 days is achieving a political accord with Sunni leaders at all levels and with Iraq's neighbors - especially Syria and Iran…the strategic price of this diplomatic initiative would be a return to self-governance in Sunni areas, a guaranteed level of representation for these areas in the national assembly, an end to broad-brush measures of de-Baathification, and an amnesty for most indigenous insurgents and for most former Baathists, and a de- escalation of the US confrontation with Syria and Iran regarding a range of issues.”

These measures, if undertaken, would mean a painful and bitter medicine for the Bush Administration, the politicians of both parties who endorsed this war, and for many other Americans. But the longer the apparently faith-based decision is delayed, the worse the outcome may be. More dead on all sides, more money wasted, an increased danger that the Green Zone itself may be bombed and overrun. At this point, the President could save some face by claiming victory over Saddam Hussein, praising American troops, acknowledging that military occupation cannot deliver Iraq to the Iraqis, and announce a withdrawal plan. Done now, and not three years from now, the Administration might leverage promises of a relatively smooth withdrawal, no jihadist attacks on Israel from Baghdad, an assurance of stable oil supplies, and whatever else may constitute its mystery agenda. Further delay will weaken any American influence over the endgame.

Instead of ranting against those who would “cut and run”, conservatives should follow the more prudent maxim, “cut your losses while you can.”

As for liberal hawks, their dilemma is having no exit strategy whatever for a war they say was unwarranted, fabricated, a diversion. Is there any point, any time, when the Al Frankens will support withdrawal? If not now, when? If Bush has paralyzed them into fearing the consequences of pulling out troops “now”, the exit strategy offers a rational path for leaving folly behind.

Finally, here are some practical steps to implementing the exit strategy:

1. Sign the petition now. Numbers matter.
2. Read the plan and discuss it with your anti-war friends.
3. Discuss it with your pro-war friends too.
4. Pursue endorsements from local organizations and send to the website.
5. Demand that your representatives endorse the exit plan and vote for peace.
6. Use grass-roots people power to undermine the pillars of policy. Join a vigil, a counter-recruitment campaign, invite an Iraq veteran to speak, listen to independent media, give someone hell everyday.