Op-ed: Leading to Consensus on Iraq

U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis (SC-04)

America is in Iraq offering lessons from over 200 years of freedom and spending almost $2 billion dollars a week. These things we give freely. The money we can make again, and the freedom is inexhaustible.

The lives of our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen we do not give freely. They are America’s best. Their souls and stories are bound too closely to ours for us to give them freely.

Iraqis should not misperceive the determination they see in the eyes of the Americans surging into Iraq’s most dangerous neighborhoods. Those eyes see the better that could be in Iraq, but mostly they see people and places far away from Iraq.

Back in those places, the people are discussing and partisans are debating the vision, goals, strategies and tactics for America’s involvement in Iraq. If we tune in to the peoples’ discussion and turn down the volume on the partisans’ debate, we can find an American solution to an American challenge.

At the vision level, most Americans would agree that we want a strong, free and prosperous America that is peacefully engaged in a prospering world.

At the goal level, most Americans would accept two propositions. First, we must hunt down and destroy terrorists and terrorist training camps wherever in the world they appear. This vigilance should be rooted in faith, not fear. Faith launches little boats on a big ocean, sends covered wagons west, and lands an Eagle in moon dust. Fear sends a superpower after the illusion of a risk-free world.

The second goal that most would now accept is reasonable stability in Iraq. At the outset some envisioned a far loftier goal than stability. They believed that we could create an American-style constitutional republic in Iraq that would transform the Middle East.

That lofty goal met Middle Eastern realism when the Samarra mosque was bombed in February of 2006. Following that bombing, Iraqi Shias and Sunnis started killing each other. Our troops still fight foreign terrorists in Iraq, but most of the chaos and confusion in Iraq is now internal to Iraq.

Some would say that changing the goal from “Iraq in our image” to “stability as success” is defeatist. But it wasn’t defeatism to accept a Soviet Union at the end of World War II and a North Korea at the end of the Korean conflict. In a fallen world there are limits to what can be accomplished. To assume otherwise is to presume that America the mighty is America the Almighty.

Baghdad overhead

If we can agree on the goal, the strategic decisions follow naturally. Most would agree that we should establish “benchmarks” (President Bush’s terminology), “success checkpoints” (my terminology) or “timelines” (the Democrats’ terminology) for Iraqi progress. Our generals have told us that stability will come only if the Iraqis reach the reconciliation mileposts of dividing up the oil fairly, letting former Baath Party members participate in governance and amending their constitution to ensure minority rights.

It’s only at the tactical level that we begin to encounter the disagreement. We’re divided on how to handle the Sunni-Shiite violence. Some agree with the President that surging into Iraq’s most dangerous neighborhoods will bring security, confidence in the Iraqi government and, ultimately, stability. Others, like me, think that there’s no future in fighting someone else’s civil war.

We’re also divided on what consequences should follow if the Iraqi leaders fail to meet reconciliation benchmarks. The President wants to announce no consequences of Iraqi failure, but many of us think that accountability is the key to Iraqi success. The President sensibly vetoed a Democrat withdraw supplemental and understandably opposes a short term (2-month) supplemental. Now then, we can unify around accountability and pass a supplemental that attaches rewards for Iraqi success and consequences for Iraqi failure.

Rewards could come in the form of additional non-military projects like power plants and water facilities. Consequences could start with the withholding of these non-military projects and escalate into military consequences. If the failures are persistent, we could take our troops to the perimeter, leaving the Iraqi Shias and Sunnis to fight or find peace—their choice in their country.

Our forces don’t want to leave Iraq without success. You can see it in their warhorse eyes. Straining with muscle and sinew, they will take whatever ground the rider signals. Or they will die trying. That commitment is coupled with at trust—that America’s civilian leadership will value the commitment, consider that cost and engage wisely.

Horse and rider are a team, each with its own role. The horse takes the ground ahead; the rider looks to the destination ahead. America’s civilian leadership owes it to our military and to the American people to set definable and achievable goals; to set accountable benchmarks that carry rewards for success and consequences for failure; and to lead with faith, not fear.