If “Saving Face” in Iraq is our Top Priority, Here is an Exit Strategy that “Saves Face”.

November 13, 2006 by mugsy.

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Now, I must preface this by saying that I’m NOT necessarilly recommending this as the course of action we should  take, but it’s worth considering if “saving face” in Iraq is your ultimate goal. We are about to be given our best and possibly VERY LAST opportunity to exit Iraq without looking like we are we were chased out, allowing the insurgency to declare victory over the United States. Here’s why:

Saddam Hussein was finally convicted and sentenced to death two days before the election (technically, four days early). If his appeals fail (as expected), he will be executed in January 2007. The next day, we could withdraw EVERY SINGLE TROOP from Iraq, declaring victory, and it would appear that we left after achieving what we set out to do rather than “chased out”.

On the day of Saddam’s public hanging, have a large ubiquitous troop presence on the streets, the same as we did for the Iraqi elections in January, banning all cars and enforcing a strict curfew in the days before. The very next day, have a full 100% redeployment into Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait (and Turkey if they’ll let us). The insurgency can’t claim we were “chased out”, it appears to everyone that we finished what we came for and then left.)

The problem here is that, thanks to the Republican’s refusal to impose time-tables on the new Iraq Government, the Iraqi Army is not prepared to take FULL control of the conflict should we 100% redeploy all at once. If coalition troops were the prime target of the insurgency, then redeployment would reduce violence to a level the Iraqi army could control. But the soldiers are NOT the prime target. It’s a civil war, thus Iraqi troops would end up “taking sides”, split among the factions, and the violence would likly grow.

The ultimate conclusion here is that it looks more and more unlikely that we’ll be able to leave Iraq in any manner in which World Opinion might view the U.S. as “victorious”. But the opportunity was there. It’s a damn shame.

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