Exit Strategies

I think the flame wars over IWR...who supported it...who opposed it etc are getting boring. I also think the Dem candidate with the best plan to exit Iraq will win the nomination and also has the best chance to win the GE.

Please support your candidate and his or her plan to get out of Iraq, and explain why their plan will work.

Respectful criticism on why said plans might not work are also encouraged.

Frankly, I think Bush has painted us into a corner and booby trapped the room with land mines.

One exit strategy that MIGHT work is to invade Iran, then move all our troops from Iraq to Iran. Next invade a country neighboring Iran and move all our troops out of Iran, repeating the process until our troops are in Kamchatka. Finally, invade Alaska, moving all our troops into the U.S.

Crazy? Perhaps, but it's no crazier than the mess George Bush has created. (And he probably plans on attacking most of the countries between Iraq and Alaska eventually, anyway.)

So thanks alot Kerry, Gephardt, Lieberman and Edwards.

seriously...I am interested in knowing more about the candidates exit strategies...you are not going to win an election saying "they did it"

basically, isn't everyone saying turn it over to the UN and get out?
Kucinich was saying he would pull the troops out tomorrow if he could but he might have amended that a little.


edited for wrong word. UN replaces Iraq

to see the differences

nt

undecided voter here...please educate me!

Wesley Clark would call a summit of world leaders to bring about a fresh consensus on Iraq, as well as on shared environmental dangers such as global warming, test ban treaty, ICC, etc., so that American foreign policy is no longer taken in a selfish and unilateral way.

He accepts that the UN is not in a position to govern in Iraq or to oversee its reconstruction, so he proposes a new international authority with representatives of the EU and the Middle East region to act in an interim capacity to oversee the reconstruction and the establishment of an Iraqi-run government. He would bring in the fifty elected regional council members (like senators) to elect a preliminary national government. The preliminary government would take charge of foreign relations, oil revenues, writing a constitution, and establishing the terms for national representative elections.

Militarily, he would turn the occupation into a NATO operation. The commander of US forces would report to the NATO Council, as Clark did in Kosovo, and NATO forces would be involved in the stabilization effort. He would adapt the "force mix" to fight more unconventionally with lighter forces and machinery suited to counter-insurgency methods, as opposed to full battle. He would reassign linguists and intelligence specialists who are searching for WMD and provide more advanced technology in intelligence gathering.

Iraqis would be put in charge of basic security. Police would be trained first and then the army reconstituted and deployed at the local level to keep order and to guard border Iraqi borders. Foreign troops and surveillance technology would be used to destroy or secure weapons stockpiles left over from Saddam Hussein's rule.

He would engage diplomatically with Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia to get Iraqi borders closed while the stablization and reconstruction takes place. He would try to convince these alienated countries that it is in their interest to help stablize the region by closing their borders to Al Qaeda and other fighters.

Throughout, he would engage the UN, NATO, and the Arab League in the process of stabilizing Iraq and getting it in shape to run itself. Once the process is underway, he would use the same multinational approach to finish in Afghanistan.

So, basically, he is saying about Iraq, we went over there and destroyed their country and now we have to fix it. He is saying about Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, we have not forgotten you are the real enemy and we're coming for you, but we're coming with the weight of the rest of the world behind us.

this sounds reasonable and plausible...I am sure Clark's experience in NATO would help here.

I hope we hear from others.

Thanks for posting this, windansea, giving you a :kick:

Excellent Summary Jerseycoa. Thanks!!

:toast:

have the UN participate. The measure of success will be whether there is a democracy in place run BY Iraqis FOR Iraqis. If it's a US protectorate making profits directly or indirectly for Bush cronies, then it's a failure.

:kick:

From Dean's 7 point plan for reconstruction:

• a NATO-led coalition should maintain order and guarantee disarmament.


• Civilian authority in Iraq should be transferred to an international body approved by the U.N. Security Council.


• The U.N.'s Oil for Food program should be transformed into an Oil for Recovery program, to pay part of the costs of reconstruction and transition.


• The U.S. should convene an international donor's conference to help finance the financial burden of paying for Iraq's recovery.


• Women should participate in every aspect of the decision-making process.


• A means should be established to prosecute crimes committed against the Iraqi people by individuals associated with Saddam Hussein's regime.


• A democratic transition will take between 18 to 24 months, although troops should expect to be in Iraq for a longer period.

but it is all hopeless.

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
— Joshua, an AI system in the 1983 movie War Games

There are some very easily understood limits to this discussion.

1. Everybody has a plan for this, with the possible exception of Holy Joe. You cannot run a serious campaign without a statement on this issue.

2. The plans are best judgements on what might work.

3. The plans are generally leveraged off the notion that the existing policy must be changed. (This seems reasonable at the momment, but all the details supporting existing policy are not known by the candidates.)

4. Life is what happens when you have planned for something else. This is the basic notion that any plan will have to be adjusted substantially once the international political environment and situation on the ground is fully assessed in January 2005.

Attempts to internationalize this problem are well intended. Most candidates support the UN or NATO in - US out theme.

However, the international community seemed to advise that we avoid this course of action. Their cooperation to help us clean it up will likely come at some substantial cost. Perhaps this is why Bush* is not pursuing this angle himself.

Finally the more detailed the plan the more opportunity for Bush / Rove to dissect it. "being President, I know the facts, that this item will not work" Even if an outright lie, you know that they will do it.

We broke the dishes and we're going to have to pay to clean them up. But the problem for Bush is that these countries don't want to help him. They would be very happy if their unwillingness to help him, led to his downfall in November.

I think a good statesman like approach by a new president could make a world of difference.

Forget about whose money, and instead think about how to reduce the cost, by getting some Arab countries to own a piece, and reduce the anger against the US. Starve the attackers by removing some of the support.

Clark can get these kinds of things to happen, because he will remove the impression of US imperialism from the rebuilding effort.

Everyone else has come to the conclusion that the US is the only force capable of providing the security element in Iraq. NATO seems to be the prefered choice to run the operation with the UN having a role as well. The sad fact is at this point our troops are going to have to remain there for quite some time. Nobody will say for sure but I'm thinking three to four years at a minimum.

So, I'm not sure that I agree with your opinion that the candidate with the quickest exit strategy will, or should win the nomination. There is no turning back the clock, and we have to deal with what is. At this point I don't see leaving immediately as the smartest thing to do.