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Yes, An Iraq Withdrawal Timetable is Important

By Masoud Shafaee - Jun 12th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

If John McCain was trying to divert attention from his earlier gaffe that it "would be fine" with him if the United States spent another 100 years in Iraq, he certainly succeeded yesterday. On theToday show, McCain was asked if he had an estimate of when American troops would be coming home from Iraq, given his contention that the so-called "surge" is working. He replied:

No, but that’s not too important. What’s important is the casualties [sic] in Iraq. Americans who are in South Korea, Americans that are in Japan, American troops are in Germany―that’s all fine. American casualties, and the ability to withdraw. We will be able to withdraw―General Petraeus is going to tell us in July when he thinks we are―but the key to it is that we don’t want any more Americans in harm’s way. And that way they will be safe, and serve our country, and come home in honor and not in defeat which is what Senator Obama’s proposal would have done.

Actually, it is important. Here are six reasons why:

1. The Personal Toll - Even if American soldiers in Iraq were suddenly out of "harm’s way"―a delusional hypothetical at best―these soldiers want to come home. Their families want them to come home. Their country wants them to come home.

2. Weakened Defenses - With many troops having served three and even four tours of duty under the army’s "stop-loss" policy (which many see as little more than a "back-door draft"), our military infrastructure has been considerably weakened. Yesterday, the military’s top uniformed officer admitted that the controversial practice won’t be ending anytime soon. Furthermore, The New York Times reported in May that

the Army has already had to reduce its standards to meet recruitment quotas. In 2007, only 79 percent of recruits had high school diplomas, down from 92 percent in 2003. The Army is also granting an increasing number of so-called “moral” waivers—given to recruits with criminal histories ranging from marijuana use to felony convictions.

3. Fuel to the Fire - A positive development coming out of Iraq last year was key Sunni militant groups’ severing of ties with al-Qaeda. This is significant because the Sunni-Shiite divide is an extremely powerful driving force in Iraq, and, as Jeff Stein of Congressional Quarterly puts it , "If a Shi’a showed up at an al-Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball." This development, then, leaves al-Qaeda increasingly alone and without an internal base of support in Iraq. Under normal circumstances, domestic forces would root out the terrorist group. Currently, however, the United States’ continued presence in Iraq gives Muslims―Sunni and Shiite alike―a cause célèbre, allowing al-Qaeda to continue its recruitment efforts.

4. Historical Revisionism - McCain’s litany of countries in which American forces have been stationed without casualties is seriously lacking any historical context. Let’s go through them.

1. South Korea - The United States entered this domestic dispute at the height of the Cold War. With the domino theory the foreign policy zeitgeist of the day, the United States intervened (and subsequently suffered 390,000 casualties) to prevent the spread of communism. Today, its forces are stationed within the sovereignty of our ally South Korea, not our adversary North Korea. And while American forces stationed at the DMZ face no immediate threat of death some 55 years later, they are nonetheless within the radius of North Korea’s nuclear-strike zone. Incidentally, a joint poll conducted by JoongAng Daily, CSIS, and RAND in September 2003 found that 35.4 percent of South Koreans in their twenties chose the US as their least favorite country while only 4.1 percent percent chose North Korea. They want us out.
2. Japan - The United States obliterated Japan’s infrastructure through extensive fire-bombing, wreaked havoc with two nuclear detonations, and forced the surrender of its imperial throne to make room for democratic reforms. Under these circumstances, with the country suffering 2.7 million deaths, its populace could not possibly have stomached an Iraq-style insurgency. As with South Korea, the Japanese also seem to want us to leave: a survey conducted by Asahi Shimbun found that a whopping 76 percent of Japanese polled want a gradually reduced U.S. presence in Okinawa, while 14 percent want an immediate withdrawal. Only 7 percent want the United States to stay.
3. Germany - With the BBC reporting on Monday that British forces may begin withdrawing from Iraq by the end of the year, Bush’s "coalition of the willing" may effectively be reduced to the United States and the United States alone. This is in stark contrast to what Germany looked like in the post-war years. With the Allied Occupation Zones divided between four countries (the U.S., UK, U.S.S.R., and France), the postwar occupation of Germany was by no means a unilateral endeavor. And Germany’s government formally surrendered, like Japan’s. Once the Berlin Wall went up, the United States had reason to stay. Once the Berlin Wall came down, U.S. troops in Germany faced no immediate danger from a crumbling adversary, just as they don’t today. The United States was never facing a German guerrilla insurgency.

5. What About Vietnam? - Of all the countries McCain could have listed, he failed to mention the only one which carried out major guerrilla warfare against the United States. There’s a reason why there are no American troops based in Vietnam today and McCain of all people should understand why this is.

6. Honor-less? - McCain says that by staying the course, U.S. troops will "come home in honor," but that Senator Obama’s proposal would have the troops return home "in defeat." The implication that these words carry―that a political decision to withdraw from war somehow robs military personnel of their honor―is appalling. The troops will have served valiantly, regardless of the outcome. What makes this statement rather ironic is that McCain himself served in a war that saw an American withdrawal, and yet no one (his most vociferous critics included) dares question his patriotism and honor in serving―and rightly so.

Keith Olbermann, for one, is pissed off. He’ll be giving one of his trademark special comment tirades on this matter later today. Stay tuned.

Tags: 2008 presidential election, foreign policy, international, Iraq war, John McCain, military, national security, Vietnam war