… most of those with a modicum of experience in guerrilla warfare and the Middle East are persuaded that the war is not winnable and that the only thing in doubt is the timing of the U.S. departure.
– Ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, in Roger Burbach & Jim Tarbell,’s Imperial Overstretch (2004)
A cartoon in a recent issue of the New Yorker (Oct. 20) depicts a man sheepishly poised on a boardroom table doing a "ta-da," surrounded by six of his colleagues. "Agreed, there’s a middle ground between stay the course and cut and run," says one of the seated executives. "But I’m quite certain it’s not dance and flirt."
Not a gut-buster, I admit, but it does capture the essence of the recent debate in America (and elsewhere) about what to do in Iraq.
Much like a doomed Hollywood romance, "stay the course" and "cut and run" have once more been prominent in the news recently. "There is no option for the international community to cut and run," said Iraqi deputy prime minister Barham Saleh, following a meeting with British PM Tony Blair in London last week. Blair, apparently, had endorsed this sentiment.
Meanwhile, as the death toll on all sides continued to mount, U.S. President George W. Bush seemed to contradict reports that American troops would soon be withdrawing from Iraq. "This stuff about ‘stay the course’," Bush said in an off-camera interview last Wednesday, "– stay the course means, we're going to win."
The origins of the two phrases themselves are somewhat interesting. The first clear reference to "cut and run" dates back to the early 18th century, alluding to the practice of cutting the anchor rope and running before the wind in order to make a hasty departure. Over time it entered popular speech, as when Joe Gargary tells Pip in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, "I'd give a shilling if they had cut and run, Pip."
On the face of it, "stay the course" looks like it might be another nautical metaphor, perhaps referring to a ship’s captain’s determination to hold steady in stormy seas. However, the first use of the phrase in print actually comes from the late 19th century and instead refers to a racehorse’s ability to reach the finish line.
The point is that neither saying carries any moral or judgmental weight. In its original form, "cut and run" does not imply cowardice or lack of resolve, nor does "stay the course" connote a superior ethical position. Yet in current usage, the former has clearly come to signify a failure of nerve, the latter a Charlton-Heston-faced determination to overcome any and all moral obstacles.
It was perhaps telling, then, that last week saw several rejections, or at least repudiations, of Bush’s resolve to "stay the course." Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix described Iraq today as "a pure failure," and argued that "it doesn’t seem that the United States can help to stabilize the situation by staying there."
Blix, of course, may be regarded as having an axe to grind. But the same can hardly be said of James Baker, head of the Iraq Study Group charged with recommending policy changes to the president, who last week characterized the situation in Iraq as "a helluva mess."
Other voices have been equally critical of U.S. policy regarding Iraq. "It’s not too soon to suggest that the American-British invasion and occupation of Iraq proved to be the greatest strategic blunder of our time," weighed in British professor of European studies Timothy Garton Ash last week. And even General George Casey, the top-ranked officer currently serving in Iraq, has proposed that U.S. troops should withdraw within the next 12 to 18 months. While this may not be a plan to "cut and run," neither does it endorse Bush’s determination to "stay the course."
The main objection to pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq "prematurely" is that this will only result in a bloody civil war in that country. Let’s leave aside, for now, the claim by British medical journal The Lancet that as many as 600,000 Iraqis have already died from violence since the U.S. invasion of March 2003, a figure 20 times higher than that acknowledged by the Bush administration.
No, instead let’s consider what a course of action between "stay the course" and "cut and run" might entail. Almost nobody is advocating an immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops. Rather, the schedule suggested by most policy analysts over the past year is in line with Casey’s 12-to-18-months scenario. This, at least, is the action proposed by Barry Posen, Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT, and Charles Peña, advisor to the Straus Military Reform Project.
Posen argues that prolonged U.S. occupation of Iraq can only worsen the situation for three main reasons. First, Iraqi politicians will not improve their own security forces as long as they know that the U.S. is there to "protect" them from insurgents. Second, the Iraqi forces themselves will not grow in capability and confidence as long as the Americans are there. And third, none of Iraq’s three main factions — Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds – will make difficult but necessary compromises as long as the U.S. remains in the country.
Peña echoes this commentary, adding that a vast majority (over 90 per cent) of Iraqis oppose the present U.S. occupation, that this occupation only serves as a recruitment tool for anti-American Islamic radicals in Iraq, and that the "stay the course" policy does more to breed and train terrorists elsewhere than it aids the so-called "war on terrorism." In short, the longer the U.S. occupies Iraq, the worse it is making matters.
Inevitably, if and when the U.S. exits Iraq — and the historic experience of Korea and Vietnam, as well as common sense, says it must eventually leave — bloodshed and civil war will continue. But, as Peña writes, that may be a "tragic and unfortunate necessity." Not everything inside Iraq has to do with America. Rather, Iraq has its own historic, religious and political disputes to work out, just as Britain did in the 1600s and the American colonies did in the 1700s.
It’s time to pull out and let history take its course. |
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