Redeployment

Daniel Pipes, respected middle east authority has suggested a redeployment plan for US troops in Iraq.

I suggest pulling coalition forces out of the inhabited areas of Iraq and redeploying them to the desert.

This way, the troops remain indefinitely in Iraq, while withdrawing them from the urban carnage. It permits the US-led troops to carry out essential tasks (protecting borders, keeping the oil and gas flowing, ensuring that no Saddam-like monstrosity takes power), while ending their non-essential work (maintaining street-level order, guarding their own barracks).

I’ve not had an opportunity to think this all the way through; so, I’m not really sure about potential holes in the plan. The obvious benefit to this plan is that it gets the troops out of the major population areas, while still allowing them to accomplish a number of necessary thigs:

• Letting Iraqis run Iraq: Wish the Iraqis well but recognize that they are responsible for their own country. Or, in the words of a Times (London) headline, “Bush to Iraqis: You take over.” The coalition can help but Iraqis are adults, not wards, and need to assume responsibility for their country, from internal security to writing their constitution, with all due urgency.

• Seeing violence in Iraq as an Iraqi problem: The now-constant violence verging on civil war is a humanitarian tragedy but not a strategic one, an Iraqi problem, not a coalition one. The coalition should realize it has no more responsibility for keeping the peace between Iraqis than it does among Liberians or Somalis.

• Terminating the mammoth US Embassy in Baghdad: The American-created Green Zone in Baghdad is too high profile already, but work now under way to build the biggest embassy in the history of mankind, a 4,000-employee fortress in the heart of Baghdad, will make matters significantly worse. Its looming centrality will antagonize Iraqis for years or decades to come, even as it offers a vulnerable target for rocket-wielding enemies. Scheduled to open in June 2007, this gargantuan complex should be handed back to Iraqis, the more than $1 billion spent on it written off as a mistake of war, and a new, normal-sized embassy built in its stead.

• Ending the coddle: The inept, corrupt, and Islamist leadership in Baghdad discredits the Bush administration’s integrity; conversely, its getting hugged by Washington makes it look like stooges. Other Iraqi institutions - my pet peeve is the National Symphony Orchestra in Baghdad - also suffer from the patronizing embrace of American politicians. Muslim sensitivities about rule by non-Muslims makes these rankling offenses.

• Reducing coalition ambitions for Iraq: From the start, Operation Iraqi Freedom was too ambitious and too remote from American interests (”Operation Coalition Security” would have been a better moniker). Give up on the unattainable goal of a democratic, free and prosperous Iraq, a beacon to the region, and instead accept a stable and decent Iraq, one where conditions are comparable to Egypt or Tunisia

Read it over, think about it, and feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section.