[Dialogue] From Thomas Friedman

[FacilitationFla at aol.com]

Set  a Date and Buy Some Leverage  
By _THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/thomaslfriedman/index.html?inline=nyt-per)  
Published: December 8,  2006 
The brutally honest Baker-Hamilton  assessment of the Iraq morass  implies 
that we need to leave Iraq if the factions there don’t get their act  together, 
but it also urges a last-ditch effort to enlist the help of  Syria and Iran to 
salvage  something decent. Both are good suggestions, but they will only have 
a chance of  being effective if we go one notch further and set a fixed date —
 now — for  America to leave Iraq. Skip to next  paragraph 
The  only hope of moving the factions inside Iraq, not to mention Syria and 
Iran, toward  reconciliation is if we have leverage over them, which we now 
lack. The currency  of Middle East politics is pain. And right now,  all the pain 
is being inflicted on us and on Iraqi civilians. Only if we tell  all the 
players that we are leaving might we create a different balance of pain  and 
therefore some hope for a diplomatic deal. Trying to do diplomacy without  the 
threat of pain is like trying to play baseball without a  bat. 
Yes, yes, I know, the conventional wisdom is  that if the U.S. sets a date  
to leave Iraq the whole  Middle East will explode in a Shiite-Sunni war.  
Maybe, but maybe not. 
Let’s play this out. What happens if we set  a date to leave? The war in Iraq 
will get worse, but for how  long? Right now our troops are providing a floor 
under the civil war that allows  some parties to behave outrageously or make 
impossible demands — because they  know that we won’t let things spin totally 
out of control. Would they behave  more cautiously if they knew they had to 
pay retail for their madness? I’d like  to find out. 
Moreover, while our presence in  Iraq helps control the situation, it  also 
aggravates it. For many Sunnis, and a growing number of Shiites, we’ve  become “
occupiers” to be resisted. Our leaving will both unleash violence and  
eliminate  violence. 
As for the neighbors, well, right now  Iran, Syria and some other Arab states 
look at  Iraq and clearly believe that the  controlled chaos there is their 
friend. For Arab autocrats, chaos is their  friend because a burning Iraq on Al 
Jazeera sends a message to  their own people: “This is what happens to those 
who try democracy.” And for  Iran and Syria, anything that frustrates the  
U.S. in Iraq and keeps America bleeding weakens its ability to confront  Tehran.  
 
The minute we leave, chaos in  Iraq is not their friend anymore.  First of 
all, if there is a full-fledged civil war, Syria, a largely  Sunni country, will 
have to support the Iraqi Sunnis. Shiite Iran will have to  support the Iraqi 
Shiites. That would mean Iran and Syria, now allies, will be on  opposite 
sides of the Iraqi civil war. That will leave them with the choice of  either 
indirectly fighting each other or working to settle the  war. 
Moreover, right now we are “Mr. Big” in  Iraq, soaking up all the popular  
anger. But the minute we’re gone, Iran becomes “Mr. Big” and the  age-old 
tensions between Iraqi Arab Shiites and Iranian Persian Shiites will  surface. 
Iran and Moktada al-Sadr will be at  each other’s throats. 
Also, as long as our troops are in  Iraq, we are pinned down and  an easy 
target for Iran to hit, should we ever want to  strike its nuclear facilities. 
Once we are out, we will have much more room to  maneuver. I’m not saying we 
should attack Iran, but I am saying Iran will be  much more worried than we will. 
 
As for the Arab states, they’ve done little  to promote peace in Iraq. They’
ve basically said to  America: “You can’t leave and we  won’t help.” O.K., we
’re leaving. You still don’t want to help? The only thing  the Arab regimes 
fear more than democracy is  fragmentation. 
As I’ve written before, our real choices in  Iraq are 10 months or 10 years.  
Either we commit the resources to entirely rebuild the place over a decade, 
for  which there is little support, or we tell everyone that we will be out 
within 10  months, or sooner, and we’ll deal with the consequences from afar. We 
need to  start the timer — today, now.  
As long as we’re in Iraq, Iraq implodes, and we absorb a lot of the pain. The 
 minute we leave, Iraq explodes — or at least no one can be sure it won’t  — 
and that is a real threat to the Iraqi factions and neighbors. Even facing  
that reality might not knock enough sense into them to compromise, but at least 
 then they’ll have their medieval religious war without  us. 
Only that threat will give us leverage. Yes, it  would be a sad end to our 
involvement there. But everything Iraq’s leaders have done so far suggests that 
a  united, democratic and pluralistic Iraq is their second choice. Tribal  
politics is still their first choice. We can’t go on having our first-choice  
kids dying for their second choice.  


Cynthia N.  Vance
Strategics International Inc.
8245 SW 116 Terrace
Miami, Florida,  33156
305-378-1327; fax 305-378-9178
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