The Iraq Issue

Blair and Bush are finally conceding that they made some mistakes in Iraq. The de-Baathification of the government led to a large number of angry people with guns while reducing the effectiveness of any army the US and UK help them put together (as every extensively trained Iraqi is disenchanted with us due to the de-Baathification). They admit that removing Hussein from power was not what was needed to spark a democratic Iraq and that they needed a plan before having gone into the country. Politically-wise, this concession helps them stop the bleeding by appealing to the sympathy of the voters. However, now that they have admitted to the mistakes, they need to start doing something to fix Iraq.

First of all, we need to admit this is not going to be a short term situation. We are stuck there. If we leave now (or soon), all we do is show the Middle East that we do not much care for them and that we entered Iraq for all the reasons they think we entered for: oil, imperialism, war against Islam, etc. As such, I agree we need to train Iraqi forces, but that does not mean our troops are leaving very soon (I see at least 3-4 years more there). But the sudden rush to increase Iraqi forces has been incredibly bad: widespread corruption, uniformed death squads, etc. are consequences that come to mind. We need to take our time - even artificially sown democracy does not rise overnight.

Second, we need to focus more on the humanitarian aspect of our invasion of Iraq. We killed a few tens of thousands of Iraqis and displaced probably even more. It is unsurprising that we do not have a positive image in their eyes. As such, we need to bring in NGOs to aid in rebuilding people's lives. This would mean a huge relief fund built especially for NGOs within the Coalition of the Willing who are willing to go into Iraq and help people settle down again. That could be anything from physically helping them rebuild their houses, help them setup educational facilities from elementary school to secondary institutions, help them establish local governance, etc. The list goes on and on. It will cost a lot and there will be a lot of failed attempts, but, I think, this is the most important part of any long-term improvement of Iraq.

Finally, if our efforts in Iraq are to succeed, we have to alter perceptions of America and American actions in the Middle East (as explained by ex-Secretary Albright). A large part of why al Qaeda succeeds in recruiting new terrorists is that Muslim youth feel that America is an evil entity desirous of the end of Islam. Of course that is untrue, but al Qaeda is able to spin everything that the US does into a large-scale assault on Islam. We need to correct that perception. To do so will involve not just a PR campaign but also a campaign of positive action involving massive efforts to improve relations between Muslims (within and outside the US) and the rest of the population. Bringing NGOs into Iraq could be considered a part of this effort, but it should be the best fleshed out part, because I truly believe it is the most important one.

I imagine there are tons of other aspects to Iraq that I have not thought about yet. However, in my eyes, the aforementioned three would go a long way to improving what is, at this point, an utter and absolute mess.

(I realize this is a rather liberal point of view on the whole Iraq issue. Although I imagine most people reading this will be rather liberal, if anyone can think of any other improvements for Iraq, I would be interested to know them (liberal or conservative).)