Outlook: We've Lost Iraq; Let's Win the Aftermath

Steve Simon and Ray Takeyh, senior fellows at the Council on Foreign Relations, was online Monday, June 18 at 2 p.m. ET to discuss their Sunday Outlook article on why the U.S. is out of options for success in Iraq -- and how it can exit the conflict while improving its stature and influence in the region.

We've Lost. Here's How To Handle It. (Post, June 17)

The transcript follows.

Archive: Transcripts of discussions with Outlook article authors

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San Francisco: You Outlook article was certainly the clearest thinking that's appeared in the Washington Post, gentlemen -- thank you. But I must ask you this: given its extraordinary incompetence at handling war, occupation, basic governance and in all other fields, do you expect the Bush administration is capable of following your prescription for disengagement? Seeming to botch everything they touch -- their "reverse Midas" if you will -- wouldn't we do better to minimize casualties now and leave withdrawal to their successors in early 2009?

Ray Takeyh: Thanks for the comments. Yes I agree that with the Bush team, one has to anticipate poor performance. But you go to war with the army that you have

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Rockville, Md.: I am impressed by the way you fuse charged propaganda with realistic conclusions. I take the opening title ("We've Lost the War") to be more of a decision than a conclusion, but have to admit it is a master stroke of propaganda. Once a person agrees to that, you can say we should have never started the war, all our successes were illusions and we ought to quit now. But the straw figure of an ideal case for a win is hardly realistic, and you propose making the most of the end game.

Most people will agree that we should settle for less. My idea is that our departure should make the most of what we have and do the most we can for those who have allied with us in Iraq. I don't see your position as being all that different. Is it a sort of verbal judo to to say "we lost, now we should do the right thing?" I guess I argue with style and appreciate substance. This is not my usual response to an article. How can we leave Iraq without betraying the Kurds again?

Ray Takeyh: You obviously have made up your mind, and there is not much I can offer you. This was designed to suggest that given the inevitable failure of the war in Iraq we must consider alternatives options. The U.S. still has interests in the Middle East and it behooves us to figure out a way to realize those objectives.

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Minneapolis: The weak spot in your very interesting argument, I think, is the basis for your claim that we don't really have to worry about regional war, genocidal killing or Iraq being a safe haven for al-Qaeda, particularly the last two. Are you really confident that there is not organization and communal support for genocidal killing of the other side, rationalized as self-defense? And the notion that Pakistan being a problem means that Iraq will not be a problem with respect to al-Qaeda strikes me as naive, the same logic as Bush's "we fight them there so we don't have to fight them here." They're not mutually exclusive! I'd also add that Iraq might prove to be more worrisome in terms of regional war because it's likely to be a Shiite Arab state, which might differentiate the situation from the precedents you mention.

So my question is: If there is more cause for concern on these minimalist American interests in Iraq than you suggest, would you change your mind on the appropriate strategy -- say, to something like a drawdown starting in the fall, and phasing out over time in the hopes that enough Iraqis will get on board with assuring basic stability in the face of certain American withdrawal in the near-to-medium term? Something along these lines was suggested by Haass in Robin Wright's article in The Post yesterday.

washingtonpost.com: Analysis: For U.S. and Key Allies in Region, Mideast Morass Just Gets Deeper (Post, June 17)

Steve Simon: Yes, if the premise of my argument were shown to be false, then my conclusions would be different. But I don't see how my premise has been has been falsified.

In any case, the mismatch between the resources that the administration has been willing to put into the war and the interests that the White House says are at stake has been striking. Thus, even if my premise was wrong, the wherewithal to preserve American interests would not be available.

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Columbia, Md.: Have you gentlemen taken leave of your senses? I nearly fell out of my chair when I read your "How to Lose Guide." Your argument is based on a false premise. You say "the most crucial reason why the war is lost is that the American people decisively rejected continuing U.S. military involvement last November." This may be the perception in The Post newsroom and over at the CFR, but this is a subjective interpretation of the election results at best. The election saw a 40 percent turnout, with the vote splitting roughly 21-19 for the Democrats. What do these results reflect vis-a-vis our continued presence in Iraq? Sixty percent of the electorate stayed home -- does this mean they're okay with the present policy? Perhaps. Added together with the 19 percent, does this mean 79 percent of the people want to stay the course in Iraq? Arguably. And what about the current 23 percent approval rate of Congress? How can you base your argument on this false premise?

Ray Takeyh: You obviously are talking about a different country -- maybe a different universe -- if you think that the last election has nothing to do with Iraq. I suggest you get cable TV and better inform yourself.

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Washington: Congratulations on a provocative and useful article. You both conclude that the United States needs to:

"Return to realism. The U.S. defeat in Iraq should finally squelch the appealing but naive belief that promoting democracy is a panacea for the Middle East's ills. Washington faces a bleak choice: It can push its values or realize its interests. It cannot do both."

This is an excellent point to be sure, but elsewhere you only explain containing Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian crisis as U.S. interests. I would think enduring American interests in the Middle East are more expansive than this. What are the top three interests the U.S. must realize in Iraq and the region as a troop drawdown begins?

Ray Takeyh: Thanks. What we were suggesting is a way to reclaim U.S. power and influence in the Middle East. And resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict and dealing with the challenge of Iran in a constructive manner are the best ways of demonstrating to the region that we are still capable of creative diplomacy.

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Munich, Germany: You mention that the risk of a regional Shiite-Sunni war is modest, and give previous examples of civil wars in Algeria, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan and Yemen that have not spread outside their borders. But isn't the war in Iraq already affecting the war in Afghanistan? Before the Iraq War, no one in Afghanistan had heard of an IED, and suicide bombers were almost non-existent. Don't you think that in the information age, and the entire concept of "Global Jihad" has increased the potential for civil wars to become regional conflicts?

Steve Simon: That Afghan insurgents adopted a weapons tactic used elsewhere is a far cry from the assertion that Iraq somehow has caused the Afghan insurgency, or warfare anywhere else in the region. There was a terrorist attack against Jordan, which would have been a better example, but this isn't what the administration means when it discusses prospects for regional chaos.

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Oslo, Norway: Can't you learn anything from Gaza? World opinion demanded that Israel pull out of Gaza in the name of peace. Now the world has another Nazi-esque, terrorist-run state. Do either of you really think pulling out of Iraq would have different results?

Steve Simon: Your question implies that the U.S. presence in Iraq is preventing Iraq from turning into Gaza. With respect to violence in Iraq, it has increased as the U.S. force presence has increased. Besides this curious fact, Iraq and Gaza have vastly different histories, which would dictate vastly different futures.

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Wheaton, Md.: You've both got it backward: The war was won. From the beginning, Bush made it clear that the war was with Saddam Hussein, not the people of Iraq. That mission was accomplished. The aftermath, I agree, is lost. Where Bush failed was trying to impose democracy on various terrorist factions.

Ray Takeyh: I agree that the mission has changed so many times that it is hard to suggest a coherent path forward. However, the changing reasons: democracy and security, imply the untenable nature of the mission.

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Washington: Excellent article. While you articulate U.S. interests and the necessity of accepting our position in Iraq as untenable, the article does not deal at all with the biggest issue -- namely, what does a "methodical drawdown" of U.S. troops look like? We need some idea of how long a drawdown would take, the residual missions U.S. forces need to perform, and a broader regional strategy that places a drawdown in a diplomatic context. What are your thoughts concerning what a responsible "methodical drawdown" would look like?

Steve Simon: You might want to read the Council on Foreign Relation Special Report on Iraq called "The Case for Military Disengagement" (.pdf file). It's free on the Web site and discusses your very good questions in some detail.

Basically the U.S. would need about 18 months, maybe a bit longer, to move out in a systematic way. It will be complicated -- force protection, counterintelligence concerns and logistical issues will be very vexing. Residual forces will be needed, quite likely to secure the airport, green zone and access routes between them. Some rapid-response capability also will be necessary.

Another reason for the time lag is exactly the diplomatic process you flagged. Again, this is discussed in detail the CFR special report.

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Rockville, Md.:"Ray Takeyh: You are obviously talking about a different country; maybe a different universe, if you think that the last election has nothing to do with Iraq. I suggest you get cable TV and better inform yourself."

I have to admit that there is no way I could make up an answer like this. Did you flunk statistics? Logic? People are reading this stuff. But it was a good article and you ought to defend it.

Ray Takeyh: As mentioned, the critical issue of the most recent election and the next one is Iraq. So long as American military personnel are dying in a distant land, that is the issue. Iraq today is defining our political culture and elections -- that is just the reality of our time. And to suggest other issues are relevant -- such as corruption and immigration -- is fine, but that is not to discount the centrality of Iraq in today's politics.

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Bow, N.H.: I guess I agree with your premise that we've lost the war in Iraq, except I never knew what the mission or strategy was, and so am unclear as to what we lost. That being said, I do wonder about two aspects of this: What is the risk that our departure from Iraq will embolden China to do something like invading Taiwan, in the way our departure from Vietnam led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? Also, isn't our whole current involvement in Iraq just another chapter in the decades-long war between Iraq and Iran?

Steve Simon: Re: The first question, China will base its decisions on how it perceives U.S. behavior, capabilities and expressed or inferred intentions vis a vis Taiwan at the moment of this hypothetical confrontation. They're not likely to say, "gee, five years ago the U.S. pulled out of Iraq when it looked like a losing proposition, so the U.S. is going to surrender on Taiwan now." If anything they'll look at the military campaign that took Iraq down and say, "gee, their military is pretty effective." And how did our departure from Vietnam effect the Soviet decision to invade Afghanistan? That's news to me.

Re: The second question, no, except insofar as the U.S. invasion removed the Iraqi threat to Iran. But it was part of another long-running war between the U.S. and Iraq.

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Reston, Va.: Given the enormous quantities of tactical materiel and construction materials we have stashed in Iraq, how long do you think it would take to logistically move all of this stuff, not to mention personnel, out of the country, and how dangerous tactically would you foresee the withdrawal becoming?

Steve Simon: Eighteen months to two years would be my guess, if we didn't want to leave anything behind or give others the perception that the U.S. had been utterly routed.

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Lyme, Conn.: To perhaps oversimplify the problem in Iraq, there are two sides, each of which has a "winner take all" strategy. What strategies do you see that will get each side to agree to find some compromise, or do you think this is not something that one cannot expect to change, at least during the current generation?

Ray Takeyh: The sectarian conflict in Iraq unfortunately will likely be mediated through a degree of violence. At this point a civil war is not to be avoided.

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Ray Takeyh: Thanks, everyone, for writing in.

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