Unrest may only be a spasm after our troop withdrawal the way past milestones were exploited by the enemy with attacks to prove our latest step was a failure. I don't assume Iraq's democracy will falter, even though I think the odds of failure are greater without our troop presence.
But even if things work out in the end, don't assume it had to be that way and it excuses our failure to engage. I shudder to think about what might have happened after World War II if we had left Japan (where a coup was plotted):
Two CIA documents said the plot reportedly had the support of 500,000 people in Japan, and that the group planned to use a contact who controlled a faction inside the National Safety Agency - a precursor to the Defense Ministry - to help launch the coup.
The files reviewed by the AP strongly suggest the Americans were unaware of the plot until after it had been dropped. The plot was developed after the U.S. postwar occupation of Japan ended in April 1952, and the CIA files say American financial support for Hattori's group had dried up by then.
And we remained in Germany (where, despite my inability to find the source, I read not too many years ago that the East Germans planned to attack West Germany following World War II with "volunteers", assuming the West would not respond), which is now also strong and prosperous and a friend.
So no, it isn't surprising that unrest exists in Iraq between factions or that Iran might plot against Iraq. Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia probably all have their fingers in there trying to make sure Iraq evolves in ways favorable to them. We are surely doing it, too, despite dropping the most effective tool we had to bend events. We might win even with our self-imposed handicap. But we rely on the Iraqis making good decisions without as much input from us and with more from actors who wish only the worst for Iraq.
Yet I worry that too many people around President Obama (and perhaps the president himself) would heave a sigh relief if Iraq fails. They said the war was wrong and that we could not win, and if the price of confirming their wisdom is merely the fate of Iraqis, I think these war opponents would prefer not to have their positions on the morality of the invasion and the chance of success challenged.
In that light, is Maliki swerving into authoritarian rule that wrecks democracy a welcome event for these people?
In an interview with Foreign Policy on Wednesday from Sulaymaniyah in Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region where the vice president has fled to evade an arrest warrant, Hashemi declared that the Iraqi political system is "drifting from building democracy to building an autocratic regime" -- and implied that Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was becoming a new Saddam Hussein.
The unsettling coherence is that many on the Left opposed removing Saddam because they said Iraq needed a strongman to hold the place together and suppress sectarian violence. The Iranian- and Syrian-supported sectarian slaughter that peaked in 2006 and 2007 was proof of that need to these critics of intervention and democracy building.
In that light, these critics of the democracy project and foreign policy realism might silently be applauding this purported shift to an autocratic regime and simply be interested in making sure that Maliki remains our SOB. And truth be told, even changing Iraq from an enemy under Saddam to an ally under a Shia strongman would be a narrow victory. But if that is all we wanted, we could have avoided a lot of casualties by simply getting out of the way in 2004 to let the Iraqi Shias and Kurds slaughter as many Sunni Arabs as they needed to win the ugly way.
But we should not welcome a "stabilizing" dictator who works with America even if in the short run it allows war opponents to confirm our inability to win, the inability of Iraqis to govern themselves, and proof that "realism" that keeps friendly despots in power is the best strategy to avoid chaos.
The Arab Spring shows this just puts a lid on the boiling problem. And if we are to have an Arab Spring that actually produces rule of law, it would really help to have a working example making progress in Iraq. And a working example that we will be steadfast in supporting such a shift from autocracy to democracy.
We all want victory in Iraq. I just wonder how some of us define "victory."
UPDATE: A lot of things happening in our absence could send Iraq into renewed civil strife. This is the heart of the problem, as so many of us have warned over the past years (going back into the Bush years when looking ahead past victory--even in the dark years):
The withdrawal of all American military forces has greatly reduced America’s leverage in Iraq. U.S. military forces were a buffer to prevent political and ethno-sectarian friction from becoming violent by guaranteeing Maliki against a Sunni coup d’état and guaranteeing the Sunnis against a Shiite campaign of militarized repression.
I don't think threatening to cancel arms sales (F-16s and M-1s) is the way to persuade Maliki. Arms sales enhance our leverage in the long run and if we exercise our leverage too early, Iraq can buy weapons from plenty of eager sellers around the world who won't annoy the Iraqi rulers about how they govern. Iraq's primary military foe is Iran, remember, so even relatively obsolete planes will beat Iran's definitely obsolete planes.
Is it too late to return American forces to Iraq? Of course not! Just decide to do it, seriously talk to the Iraqis about what is needed, and tell the anti-war Left here that they just need to be quiet about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Hell, blame Bush and claim the Obama administration needs more time to correct the errors and protect Iraqis from more death than they've endured the last several decades.
Nor do I think that encouraging the overthrow of Maliki is the answer. We have to stand by rule of law so that Maliki's opponents can oppose him within the system.
All this also assumes Maliki is not responding to real threats, of course. What I've read indicates that this is a power grab. But if Hashmemi is guilty--or just people under him are guilty--trying to totally reverse Maliki's actions will just enable "former" Baathists to continue to plot for complete control.
