Iraq-Nam Calculus Shows No Benefit to Staying On

All of Washington has been awaiting the Iraq Study Group’s report for weeks in childlike (or childish) anticipation. James Baker, Lee Hamilton and company will hand over their final suggestions for US policy in Iraq-Nam on Wednesday. Since there are no good options for the region, the ISG will largely fudge the matter and try to sell the world on the least bad. However, implicit in the least bad is a moral and political calculation that few in Washington and elsewhere understand.

If one accepts, via Clausewitz, that war is politics by other means, the concept does yield to a cost-benefit analysis. In baldest terms, the idea behind war is to purchase one’s political ends with the lives of some and the treasure of others. If the goals are achieved, one is said to have won the war. In the case of Iraq-Nam, the goals aren’t even defined. Originally, the goal was to disarm the Saddamite regime, to take away its weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons didn’t exist. So, the war measured that way was unnecessary, and thus a bad exchange – lives given up in exchange for what already existed.

After the initial lie was exposed, the war aims changed to removing a dictator and creating a democratic Iraq-Nam. That has happened to a degree, but an Iraq-Nam that still has “terrorists” or that is in the middle of a civil war didn’t really satisfy. So, the president said as Iraqis could stand up, the Americans could stand down. After half a year, it is clear that the Iraqis with the guns have little interest in standing up for the government that the people elected.

The question before the nation and the world is simple. After almost 3,000 American dead, and countless Iraqis in the same condition, what benefit will accrue to the US with each additional dead soldier? To civilians, this seems an immoral suggestion, but military science is quite comfortable with the idea of “acceptable casualties,” an objective achieved at the cost of a given number of lives. The calculation is easy enough. What objective is achievable in Iraq, and how many lives will it cost to achieve it?

If the ISG is honest, it will report that Iraq-Nam is going to bounce along as it is doing now for many years. The various militias will fight, and the politicians will squabble, and the last year is more or less what the next decade will resemble. In situations like this, the tide doesn’t suddenly turn. It takes a long time for the inertia of chaos to wear itself out. Moqtada al-Sadr may wind up running the whole show, or Kurdistan may declare its independence. These are details. The big picture is merely more of the same.

How many more lives is it worth to perpetuate the nihilism that seems self-sustaining in Iraq-Nam? Can things get worse? Actually, no, they can’t. For them to get worse, additional destructive resources would have to appear. The emergence of a militia with air power, or a sudden Iranian invasion would be needed. Such things appear unlikely at best. And things will not improve for a long time.

Whatever the ISG says, the fact remains that further American casualties can neither improve the situation, nor make it worse. America has become irrelevant to the equation. The 3,000 lost thus far cannot be brought back, regardless of policy. However, it is still possible to prevent casualty numbers 4,000 and 5,000 and 10,000. Retreat is never easy, but when the alternative is simply more losses for no gain, it becomes the only strategy a worthy commander will pursue.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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