To Withdraw Or Not to Withdraw... That Is the Question

Anne Applebaum in WaPo:

"No troops? Though deeply appealing to the "we told you so" crowd, this plan is clothed in the greatest degree of hypocrisy. How many of the people who clamor for intervention in Darfur will also be clamoring to rush back into Iraq when full-scale ethnic cleansing starts taking place? How many will take responsibility for the victims of genocide? I'm not saying there will be such a catastrophe, but there could be: Mass ethnic murders have certainly been carried out in Iraq before."

Matthew Yglesias responds:

This line of argument has been in vogue for some time now, but it seems singularly nonsensical. For one thing, I think there are real questions about the math -- how many people arguing for withdrawal for Iraq really are advocates of large-scale insertion of US ground forces to Darfur? Not me! Numbers aside, I think it's fairly obvious that if the US does withdraw from Iraq and full-scale ethnic cleansing does result (something Applebaum concedes is by no means certain) that very few withdrawal advocates are going to be clamoring for intervention. Here, I guess, is where the hypocrisy comes into play.

But it's not actually hypocritical to favor interventions to prevent mass slaughter where you think such interventions will be effective, but not otherwise. The idea that consistency's sake requires one to either be a pacificist or else to support whatever military adventure happens to be fashionable in the Washington Post opinion pages at the moment is daft.

It's "daft" and "singularly nonsensical"? I mean... no it isn't. It's true that wonky types like Matt don't want to withdraw from one country only to invade another, but the sort of "Hollywood left" -- the Clooneys, et al -- want us to do exactly that (as do many in the university scene). And, to be perfectly clear, stopping genocides is a perfectly fine use of the U.S. military, and we can stop pretty much any genocide we want to stop.

Matt seems unsure that genocide will occur if we leave Iraq. But his whole rationale for wanting to leave is that the two sides are irreconcilable, and they've got to duke it out once and for all. We can't fix it, they've got to have it out. So, basically, he's predicting an escalation of violence once the prevailing authority (the U.S., such as it is) leaves. Much of Iraq has already been ethnically cleansed, but the violence hasn't stopped. The only thing keeping it from all-out, open genocide -- a la Bosnia -- is the U.S. military. Perhaps Ms. Applebaum is unwilling to predict it; perhaps Matt doesn't want to believe it (or simply doesn't care); but it is the most likely result. Factor in Saudi Arabia and Syria/Iran using Iraq as a proxy war, and large-scale genocide seems like the only likely result.

Some of Matt's comments recognize the Bosnia similarities, but then get the story wrong. The violence there didn't magically end one day; it was through NATO intervention and the involvement of the West on the peace negotiations (and promises of Western enforcement) that peace occurred. The peace accords were signed in Dayton, OH, not Sarajevo, with Clinton, Chirac, Kohl, and Major all present. The U.N. also had troops on the ground from the first year of the war until the end of it. That war would not have ended so quickly without a LOT of pressure from the international community, or without military engagement.

Matt's question at the end similarly looks at things the wrong way. Does he really think that the U.S. couldn't prevent some or most of the killing in Sudan, had we acted earlier? Does he really think that the situation in Iraq won't deteriorate massively if we leave? How, exactly, does he define an "effective" military intervention?

Honestly, from this vantage point, it seems like Yglesias has decided that the cost to Americans of staying in Iraq is too high to warrant staying; whatever happens to Iraqis after we leave doesn't factor into his calculus. And that is truly daft.

Update: Brad DeLong apparently likes what Yglesias has to say.

Update2: Scott Lemiuex doesn't get it either:

So the potential for bad things to happen after the troops leave -- which I've heard few opponents of the war deny -- is neither here nor there given the obvious inability of the American military to create a strong Iraqi state ex nihilo.

But it's very much "here". It's the most important point: will Iraqis be better off under a U.S. occupation, or worse off? It seems almost insane to say "better off," since any security, infrastructure, economy, etc. which does exist in Iraq is all there because of the U.S. presence. If we leave, so does the money we pump into their economy. If we leave, so does the security we provide (which obviously isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than none at all). If we leave, the constant sabotage attacks on infrastructure (oil pipelines, schools, etc.) will continue, with no one there to rebuild, or prevent the attacks. If we leave Iraq completely falls apart.

Some people, like Andrew Sullivan, seems to think that this would be a good thing; he thinks that, once the dust settles, there will be de facto partition, which may become codified by eventual peace negotiations. So he's basically arguing in favor of ethnic cleansing (which is what partition really is). But just as likely, the Shiite will just domineer the Sunni, take all the land and oil, and the fighting won't stop. Or, even if some sort of real partition occurs, there will be fighting over boundaries, and territories, and oil fields. Then, who's to say that they won't continue to fight, even after the establishment of multiple states?

People who argue for withdrawal do so because things aren't getting substantively better in Iraq. But they also aren't getting substantively worse; at least, not when compared to the alternative. At this point, that's probably as good as we can hope for.