The Baker-Hamilton Panel on Iraq tells us the obvious about the need to change course

By Pamela K. Taylor

Today's headlines:
Panel: Bush's Iraq policies have failed
Gates says U.S. isn't winning Iraq war
Panel Urges Basic Shift in U.S. Policy in Iraq

As much "I told you so's" are not useful, this is really a "haven't we been saying this for months" moment.

The fact of the matter is, having made a huge mess in a country we should have left alone in the first place, we are now stuck. If we pull out, Iraq seems sure to descend into a really nasty civil war, and will likely emerge with an Islamist regime along the lines of its neighbor, Iran. If we stay, we get dragged into the really nasty civil war, lose a lot more American lives, and are unable to prevent that Islamist regime from coming into power. Either way, it seems pretty much inevitable that large numbers of Iraqis are going to lose their lives along the way, and the eventual government of Iraq is going to hold substantial grudges against the US.

So what can we do?

It's pretty clear to me that the longer we stay, the worse it is going to be. Violence against people perceived as collaborators is at an all time high. That's what much of reported sectarian violence is about. It's more the people cooperating with the US vs the people resisting what they perceive as an occupation than it is sunni vs shi'a simply because they are sunni and shi'a. Pre-existing political tensions between the former ruling Sunni minority and the Shia majority, as well as religious differences only exacerbate the situation, but the underlying cause is the continued presence of American combat troops in Iraq and divisions between Iraqis as to what to do about it -- go along with American plans as nicely as possible so we will leave sooner, or try to force us out.

The longer we stay, the greater the military attempts to get us to leave, and to pressure our collaborators, will become. If we leave in three years, it will be worse than if we leave in two years. If we leave in two years, it will be worse than if we leave in one. The sooner we can begin to withdraw, the sooner Iraq can begin to heal.

It is probably not a good idea to simply leave a vacuum. The Arab states, or the UN should send peacekeeping forces to the country in an attempt to minimize the bloodshed, but what really needs to happen is something along the lines of Truth and Reconcilliation a la South Africa.

Iraq has lived for decades under a ruthless military dictator and the wounds from that time are still festering. Two wars with America and one occupation later, and the wounds are becoming life-threatening. Only by a national reconciliation process will the country be able to heal and put the past behind it. Otherwise, simmering tensions will surely erupt in ten, twenty, thirty years as they did in the former Yugoslavia.

As much as I think the US ought to make feasible this sort of effort with monetary contributions, I also think that we need to stay out of the process. It must be 100% genuine and 100% Iraqi, with no possibility of a perception of outside interference.

As we withdraw and after we have withdrawn, we need to make reparations to the Iraqi people. I'm not talking throwing some money at American contractors... money that never gets translated into projects that improve the quality of life for Iraqi people. I mean rebuilding the country's infrastructure, building hospitals, universites, factories, providing scholarships for Iraqis who want to study in American universities, especially Iraqis who want to study medicine, engineering, chemistry, business administration, etc.

We owe Iraq a lot after supporting Hussein, the first Iraq war, ten years of sanctions, and the second Iraq war. Having devastated their country, it is our responsibility to rebuild it. And rather than trying to dominate whatever new government emerges in Iraq with force and military threats, we should win their trust with generosity.

And we shouldn't expect to be met with smiling faces, rather we can expect to be greeted with suspicion and mistrust for many, many years to come. The Iraqis aren't going to forget what we did to them any more than the Iranians forget the Mossadegh and the Shah. Americans may not remember that the Iranian Revolution was a direct result of us toppling the democratically elected Mossadegh and supporting the Shah with his notorious secret police, the Savik, but the Iranians surely so.

So too, we can expect the Iraqis to hold long grudges that we supported Saddam Hussein when he was gassing his own people, and sending political enemies to be tortured. We can expect them to remember that we invaded their country on false pretenses. If we take the steps to atone for our treatment of their country, they and other people's who rightfully view the US as a self-interested bully, will slowly rediscover respect for us.

There is an awful lot that is good about America -- from our Constitution with its freedoms, particuarly freedom of speech and religion, to an insistence on due process in the courts and checks and balances in federal and states governments, and a individualism that has historically resulted in the most class fluid society in the world.

But that beauty and moral high ground has been crowded out by our unconscionable foreign policy since WWII, both in countering the spread of communism and in ensuring access to the world's oil reserves and other natural resources.

I know the deplorable conditions in many countries with rich natural resources cannot be laid solely at the feet of multi-national corporations and the countries that back them up -- indigenous mismanagement and corruption has played a vital role. And I know that people will say that only developed nations had the expertise, wealth, and technology to be able to develop those resources, which may well be true.

But it remains the case that we have developed natural resources without at the same time developing the countries where those natural resources are located, we have protected our own access and ability to continue developing those resources at the cost of human dignity and at the price of huge amounts of human sufferring.

It would have been better to help those countries build the infrastructure, manufacturing base, techonology sector, etc, to use their own resources themselves. Would we have been less wealthy -- in terms of dollars? Yes. In terms of our contribution to human welfare? No. In terms of friends and allies? Definately not.

Our foreign policy has concentrated on material wealth over human dignity and the importance of building allies through generosity for too long. Iraq would be a good place to start changing course.