"We believe, and Iraqis' national leaders believe, that a long-term relationship with the United States is in our mutual interest," Lute said.
From the Iraqi side, Lute said, having the U.S. as a "reliable, enduring partner with Iraq will cause different sects inside the Iraqi political structure not to have to hedge their bets in a go-it-alone-like setting, but rather they'll be able to bet on the reliable partnership with the United States."
This should be no surprise if you've paid attention. Even when the terrorists are subdued, Iraq will need help to deter foreign conventional attack. And we are needed to train the Iraqis to take over this role. Further, our continued military presence will deter Shias who think a religious dictatorship is the way to go. Our presence will help constrain competition to peaceful elections--and good luck convincing a majority of Iraqis that a Shia mullahcracy is a good idea.
Our presence will be sizable:
The Iraqi officials said that under the proposed formula, Iraq would get full responsibility for internal security and U.S. troops would relocate to bases outside the cities. Iraqi officials foresee a long-term presence of about 50,000 U.S. troops, down from the current figure of more than 160,000.
I've long figured a corps and air power would total 75,000. Perhaps support troops in Kuwait will replace some of the number I assumed needed for Iraq. And reach-back capability means some support can take place from the continental United States. And we may leave fewer than the 7 old-style brigades containing 40,000 troops. Our new brigades are smaller and maybe only four or five (at 3,500 each) will be left.
The President, too, has mentioned that we will seek a long-term enduring military relationship with Iraq.
Secretary Gates a while back saw a number of objectives for Iraq in future years:
It has been my view over the last several months that the next steps in Iraq had to address several or multiple objectives.
First, they would need to maximize the opportunity created by the surge to achieve our long-term goals of an Iraq able to sustain, govern and defend itself, and be an
ally in the war on terror.
This is, of course, obvious. The surge had a point. It was to buy time for the Iraqi government to achieve the ability to fight the war with less US direct combat support. This overall goal is certainly the same as the old goal, but instead we used extra troops to gain the ability to go after the enemy in multiple areas at the same time and to hold the gains instead of turning the responsibility to Iraqi forces. And we want to do this in a way that allows friendly elements in Iraq to govern and help us in the broader war on terror. I've long held that a victory in Iraq will in time provide an Iraq that provides help against jihadi terror rather than needing our help to fight jihadi terror.
Second, the next steps had to avoid even the appearance of American failure in Iraq. Extremist Islam was dramatically empowered by defeating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The first attack against us by the extremists, the World Trade Center in 1993, was launched from Afghanistan just four years after the last Soviet soldier left there. Should the jihadists be able to claim a victory in Iraq over the United States, the sole remaining superpower, I believe it would empower them worldwide far, far more than their victory over the Soviets. The regional consequences would be significant and highly destabilizing.
It is important that our victory in Iraq not just be visible to historians looking back on this decade. It isn't enough for our Left to recognize a victory in Iraq. We will gain a great deal by driving the jihadis into the ground before we pull back and draw down our strength. If we draw down our strength first, the jihadis will believe this is post-Soviet Afghanistan all over where Moscow left a friendly regime in power that eventually fell to tribal warlords and jihadis. Even if we leave behind a friendly government that eventually crushes the jihadis with an alliance of Shias, Sunni Arabs tired of slaughter, and Kurds, in the short run jihadis would be emboldened.
I was willing to take that risk of turning over more of the fight to Iraqis because I didn't think the trends toward victory in Iraq would advance quickly enough to counter rising withdrawal sentiment in the United States. This has always been the major weakness of the anti-war Left. They thought that the war in Iraq was wholly unrelated to the war on terror. But our enemies have not been shy about claiming the importantce of Iraq to their jihad. Despite their base in Pakistan, al Qaeda put their money on fighting in a distant Iraq rather than in next-door Afghanistan. Perhaps bin Laden saw that the 2001 campaign against the Taliban showed that remoteness was no guarantee of safety and that it would be better to seize a more important Moslem state rather than just try to recapture what they'd lost once already.
The surge, however, accelerated existing trends in a manner that far exceeded my hopes back at the beginning of the year. So now, we really could avoid the short-term problem of giving delusional jihadis a shred of evidence to base a claim of victory on. We can leave the main fight against remaining non-jihadi Sunni Arabs and Iranian-backed Shias to the Iraqi government without providing even a flimsy pretense to claim jihadi victory.
Third, the next steps would need to reassure our friends and allies in the region that we will remain the most significant power there for the long term.
Again, Iraq is not an isolated problem. And a continuing presence in Iraq, in addition to our other military assets in the region, will reassure friends that we stay long enough to get the job done and will be there in case Iran directly threatens our friends.
Fourth, the next steps had to signal potential adversaries that we are not leaving Iraq to their ambitions and that we will remain the dominant force in the region.
This is where the fight to establish rule of law and fight corruption comes in. We can't let our wartime sacrifice be undone by enemy covert actions while we go back home with flags flying and bands playing, oblivious to enemy machinations.
This requirement also means that we must leave at least a division headquarters in Iraq controlling 4 or 5 brigades plus land-based air power and nearby naval forces to deter a foreign invasion while the Iraqis transform their current counter-insurgency army into a conventional force that can provide its own combat support and combat service support without our help.
Fifth, those steps also had to signal the different factions in Iraq that we would not abandon them in the near term and are prepared to have a modest-size, long-term, residual military presence there as a stabilizing force, thereby also discouraging them from counterproductive actions predicated on their anticipation of possibly precipitous American departure.
Our conventional forces will serve this function. But in addition we will need special forces and advisors to directly help the Iraqis transition to a regular military that does not seek political power either to "save" the country or to support narrow sectarian ambitions. And we'll need advisors to mold a court system and civil service that rejects corruption and serve rule of law.
Sixth, our actions would also need to signal the Iraqis that they must assume ever greater responsibility for governance and security.
This is an old problem. But it does us no good to get frustrated and walk away if that just means the Iraqis fail. We must push, pull, and cajole--but never abandon--the Iraqis.
Seventh, here at home, our next steps would need to create the best possible chance for broad, bipartisan support for a sustainable American policy in Iraq that protects long-term American national interests there and in the region.
Hopefully, with lower and only occasional US casualties, our political leaders will be able to ignore the calls from fringes to abandon the region. Both the hard Right that prefers the idea of more rubble means less trouble and the nutso Left that prefers American defeat will be marginalized.
And eighth, and finally, whatever we might do had to preserve the gains made possible by the service and sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, and thus reassure them that their service and sacrifice truly has mattered.
Victory does that. Repeated claims that you support them so much that you want to yank them from Iraq do not.
So can we do all this? I think so. We've done it before in Japan, Germany, Italy, and South Korea. All are now peaceful democracies planted on inhospitable ground and our allies. We are in relatively early stages in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Given time, Iraq will be a free country invested in the stability that our other "new" allies value so much. Our troops bought that time (as did far more Iraqis, to be sure, but it is their country). We owe it to all of them to keep investing our money and interest even as our troops transition to a supporting role in the next couple years.
It is a good sign that Iraq's leaders want more time and believe our troops can help them reach beyond mere battlefield victory over the jihadis and insurgents.
It isn't enough to win a victory. We must defend it, as well.
UPDATE: You know, I thought this was just a routine evolution of our strategy. But this press conference is just embarassing for the reporters involved. The question about whether a bilateral defense agreement is unprecedented is hardly an unprecedented display of press ignorance about defense matters.
Yes Virginia, there are many such agreements with countries around the globe--as General Lute patiently explained without ordering the reporter killed just for the blinding ignorance exposed by the question.
But poor knowledge I am used to. What is intolerable is the very ignorance of their lack of knowledge which leads to astonishing arrogance.
Like this "question":
How can any nation make a deal under occupation and not feel coerced? And anyway, they don't really have a sort of government there at all.
Where to begin? I look forward to the day that Germany, Japan, and South Korea can finally not feel coerced about signing international agreements.
Yet the UN recognizes both our presence to defend the fledgling democracy in Baghdad and that government.
And that "sort" of government has been ratified by the people of Iraq through three national elections to select a provisional government, approve a constitution, and elect a regular government. And all have been blessed as free and honest elections by the international community. Not even Jimmy Carter said anything to undermine their legitimacy.
The UN is made up of thug states without any real sort of national government (think Democratic Republic of Congo (old Zaire), Somalia, Chad, and Sudan to name four) as well as many more members whose sort of government has not been approved in any free election.
But this reporter thinks Iraq doesn't have any sort of government. Arrogance built on a foundation of ignorance isn't a pretty thing to behold.
UPDATE: Strategypage doesn't think 50,000 troops will be part of this agreement:
[It] would probably be closer to 10,000. All you need is a "tripwire force" (attack it, and a lot of U.S. reinforcements will promptly arrive).
Maybe in ten years we'll have a tripwire presence, but I find it hard to imagine that the initial force will be less than 4 brigades of troops plus special forces, combat support elements for our forces and the Iraqis, Air Force elements, and advisors. We'll want real combat power on the ground to back up the Iraqi army and police and to be a physical presence to keep troublemakers from acting up. The war isn't over.
And with the war still going on, I just don't believe we'd leave so many support troops and scattered Americans around Iraq without a ground force insurance policy.
