The elections in Iraq scheduled to take place this month need to be postponed. Elections are needed, but the timing is wrong, with the insurgency growing with every passing moment and Iraqis bracing themselves for the worst. Few Iraqis feel safe enough to cast a vote and fewer still know who the candidates are or what they stand for.
As the U.S. occupation of Iraq heads toward its third year, there is a remarkable absence of debate over withdrawal, despite the evidence that a clear majority of the American people want out. Many conservatives are uneasy about the occupation but they are unwilling to challenge the administration publicly. Most liberals in politics and the media appear to believe that invading Iraq was a major blunder, but that withdrawal anytime in the foreseeable future would lead to civil war and chaos.
The U.S. government and most pundits have painted IraqÂs recent elections as a great victory over the Iraqi insurgents, who opposed them, and as a vindication of the Bush administrationÂs policy of bringing democracy to the Middle East. Amid the orgy of self-congratulation over the bravery of Iraqi voters, officials and commentators have ignored the most important story of the election results: a Sunni electoral boycott that demonstrates a level of support for the insurgency in the Sunni triangle that is far greater than what the administration has admitted.
It is now time for the United States to pursue the one policy option that has been missing from the national discussion of Iraq: the negotiation of a peace settlement with the insurgents that would involve the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops in return for the surrender of the insurgents and the reintegration of the Sunni region into the post-Saddam political system.
March 20th marks 731 days–two years–since the first munitions of the second U.S.-led coalition against Saddam Hussein’s regime exploded in Baghdad.
Had Marla Ruzicka not died, she would be busy visiting survivors of the fifty people found dead in the Tigris River. That, after all, was what she did–it was her “windows.”
Editor’s Note: The following essay is adapted from remarks made at a Capital Hill briefing on Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy In Focus. The event was held two days before the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.
For the first 30 years of my brother Sherwood Baker’s life, his mission was to be a responsible citizen. He made oaths and he honored those oaths. This made him a loving father and husband. This also made him a noble and committed soldier. He courageously deployed with his National Guard unit to Iraq in 2004.
As popular domestic opposition to the administration’s policies in Iraq reaches new highs, President George W. Bush’s efforts to justify the ongoing war seem to have reached new lows. Indeed, in the president’s nationally-televised June 28th speech from an Army base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he was clearly straining to defend his disastrous decision to invade and occupy that oil-rich Middle Eastern country.
Despite increased U.S. military operations and the stepped-up training of Iraqis, the Iraq insurgency continues to be deadly—nearly 3 U.S. soldiers died per day in August. Dwarfing that number are Iraqi deaths as a result of the fighting which average 34 every day.