Exit plan benchmarks

President Bush’s monumental blunders in post-Saddam Iraq have left no thrilling exit strategies. The idea of a unified, democratic, stable and nonsectarian Iraq is fatuous. An exit plan should be more earthbound. Its benchmarks should be fourfold: The United States should not appear to have been defeated by the terrorist insurgency; a civil war in Iraq should be averted; Iran should not be left to dominate the region; and U.S. troops should be withdrawn within 12 months.

Setting a fixed timetable for American troop withdrawals without more would be clearly deficient. Islamic fanatics would be seen to have defeated the “Great Satan” and recruitment into terrorist ranks would soar. Remember the enormous boost to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden when the Islamic resistance in Afghanistan (supported by the United States) was seen to have triumphed over the then-superpower Soviet Union. The result was the rise of Taliban, and ultimately the terrorist attacks on America of September 11, 2001.

In addition, a troop withdrawal, simpliciter, guarantees a murderous civil war between Sunnis, Shi’ites, and Kurds. Iraq is already wracked by gruesome sectarian strife. The religious and ethnic distrusts and hatreds there are centuries old. From its inception, Iraq was an artificial country concocted for the benefit of Great Britain after World War I. Only the gun and terror wielded by a dictator or autocrat kept the nation from splintering in the years before the overthrow of Saddam. For the United States to depart knowing its departure would ignite a bloodbath would be an obscenity, a first cousin of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and the burning of Moscow before his ignominious retreat.

A civil war in Iraq would also strengthen Iran. It would become the dominant military and political power in the Middle East, and manipulate events in Iraq to its advantage. Indeed, a major reason for U.S. support of Iraq under the dictatorship of Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war was to contain Iranian ambitions in the oil rich Persian Gulf.

As I have previously elaborated, President Bush’s plan to remain in Iraq until its political, militia and religious leaders agree to turn swords into plowshares and make war no more means perpetual occupation and the senseless loss of American lives. It is indistinguishable from a romantic belief in Rousseau’s “noble savage,” and no more credible than expecting Hezbollah or Hamas to negotiate their differences with Israel in a few months or years. Further, additional United States military troops or more Iraqi soldiers or police trained in weaponry will neither solve nor mitigate the ethnic and religious suspicions and the absence of a democratic culture that fuel Iraq’s convulsions.

In contrast to Mr. Bush’s indefinite occupation or withdrawal on the installment plan, organizing three regional independence plebiscites looking towards the partition of Iraq would satisfy minimum exit plan benchmarks.

The United States would draw boundaries for northern, central, and southern statelets composed predominantly of Kurds, Sunnis, and Shi’ites, respectively. Ethnic or sectarian cleansing would be required to make the statelets homogeneous and willing to sacrifice to defend their respective sovereignties. Despite its reprehensibility, ethnic cleansing has been accepted by the international community in Kosovo, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia.

Twelve million Germans were ethnically cleansed from European countries after World War II. While ethnic cleansing is wrenching, in Iraq it would be less bad for the displaced than the prevailing anarchy and violence.

Partition has been a frequent solution to intractable intramural divisions. British colonial India was partitioned into India and Pakistan. Eritrea was partitioned from Ethiopia. Czechoslovakia was divided into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. Yugoslavia splintered into Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, and Macedonia. Montenegro separated from Serbia. East Timor split from Indonesia. Kosovo is slated for independence from Serbia. Partitioning Iraq would thus create no novel or destabilizing precedent.

Kurdish independence in the north could be conditioned on ratifying a treaty with Turkey that renounces territorial ambitions, requires cooperation in suppressing the PKK terrorist organization, and ensures fair and equal treatment for Turkmen in Kirkuk or elsewhere. The Sunni statelet could be guaranteed billions in annual revenues from Saudi Arabia or sister oil rich Arab states. Shi’ite independence in the south could be conditioned on prohibiting a military alliance with Iran or annexation. The borders of the statelets could be guaranteed by the United Nations Security Council.

The regional plebiscite plan would deny the terrorist insurgents in Iraq any actual or apparent victory over the United States. It would avert an ethnic or sectarian civil war. It would thwart Iran’s ambition to dominate Iraq. And the plebiscites could be organized, partition completed and U.S. troops removed from Iraq within one year.

The three-statelet plan could give rise to unforeseen evils. For example, one or more of the statelets could become sponsors of terrorism or be overrun by foreign terrorists. But that small risk is worth taking because all other exit plans will assuredly yield far worse disasters.

Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer and international consultant with Bruce Fein & Associates and the Lichfield Group.