Exit Strategy

[Torrere]

Today, I've read three articles which have compared -- mostly in passing -- the American excursion in Iraq to the Athenian excursion in Syracuse during the Poleponnesian War. During an interlude in the war against Sparta, Athens decided to conquer Sicily and take control of their wealth in grains. The Athenians sent a massive fleet against Syracuse, but soon became mired in a stalemate. Eventually, the Syracusans (with the help of new-found Spartan friends) trapped the Athenians in the harbor of Syracuse and routed them.

Modern history suggests that our current deadlock in Iraq will continue until we either give up (Vietnam, Boer War), appease the people's demands and supplant the need for the guerillas (Malaya), or finally defeat the guerillas (usually at a price of ten-soldiers-per-guerilla).

I think that existing the plans aren't going to be enough to get us out successfully. It looks like Bush's exit strategy is to give nominal power to an Iraqi government, staffed with American advisors and supported by the American military which would slowly Vietn^H^H^H^H^H^H become the legitimate Iraqi government. Kucinich's plan is to insert the United Nations as a skirmish guard while we withdraw: hand over political control to the UN and apologize. One idea that I've had is to feed power to an Anti-American Iraqi cleric (a la al-Sadr) until they control a substantial portion of Iraq. Hand over nominal power to them and run away, hoping that central power will coalesce under someone.

The Iraqi insurgency isn't going away, and I don't know how we're going to, but we're going to have to sometime. I suspect that my plan is a terrible way to go about it -- anyone have better ideas? UT? tw?