Americans Are Finally Waking Up to the Failure of U.S. Policy in Iraq
By Ivan Eland*
June 20, 2005
Although the American people slept through the facile national debate about whether the Bush administration should
invade Iraq and the post-invasion unraveling of justifications for doing so, the public is finally waking up to the
nightmare of U.S. policy in Iraq. And their representatives in Congress, many of whom were previously hiding in the
bushes, are now beginning to get the courage to finally speak out.
A recent New York Times poll shows how low support for the Bush administration’s adventure in Iraq has sunk. Sixty
percent of the American public thinks that the U.S. effort to bring stability to Iraq is going badly, fifty-nine percent
disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the situation, and 51 percent now believe that the United States should
have stayed out of Iraq in the first place. All of these measures of support for the war effort have gradually
deteriorated over time and can be expected to decline further as the carnage continues.
This erosion of support has emboldened some thinking members of Congress to propose a resolution calling for the
president to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq by October 1, 2006. The sponsors of the resolution come from across
the political spectrum, including a liberal, a moderate, a conservative, and a libertarian. Although the resolution does
not specify a date for the completion of the draw down, it is a long overdue exercise of Congress’s underused
constitutional role of determining whether, when, and where U.S. forces are in harm’s way around the world. The last
time Congress flexed its muscles and ended an unnecessary Executive Branch–initiated quagmire was the termination of
funding for the Vietnam War. Since then, a cowed Congress has blindly gone along with many ill-advised presidential
brushfire wars.
Representative Walter B. Jones (R-NC), a conservative, Ron Paul (R-TX), a libertarian, Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), a
moderate, and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a liberal, are laudably attempting to reinstate the Founders’ original conception
of a substantial congressional role in foreign policy. Jones’s support for the bill is most significant because he is a
conservative who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, represents Camp Lejune Marine base, and originally voted
for the war.
Similarly, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the House Minority Leader, unsuccessfully attempted to introduce a measure that would
require the administration to give Congress criteria for determining when U.S. troops could be pulled out of Iraq. More
and stronger congressional actions to end the war will arise as popular support for the war continues to erode.
Such congressional opposition to presidential meddling in brushfire wars of choice is sporadic and often delayed.
Initially, in any military action, the public usually gives the president the benefit of the doubt and members of
Congress, even if they think the foreign intervention is unneeded or harebrained, are scared of being labeled
“unpatriotic” if they oppose war. But if the United States begins to lose the conflict or is perceived to be doing so,
takes too long to win, or experiences too many casualties, the war can quickly become unpopular—as it has in Iraq.
Democracies that fight wars that are not critical to their security are always at a disadvantage. Guerrilla movements
only need to keep an army in the field and wait until public opinion in the invading country turns against the war. In
other words, if the guerrillas don’t lose, they have a good chance of winning.
The Iraqi guerrillas have ample evidence that the American pubic will eventually react to mounting casualties and
elusive victory. In the last three or so decades, the United States not only withdrew from Vietnam, but also left
Somalia and Lebanon because of public disapproval of excessive casualties in faraway wars.
The Bush administration is pinning all its hopes in Iraq on eventual Sunni participation in the political process and
the quick establishment of competent Iraqi security forces. But the Sunni Arab guerrillas will be better off if the
United States leaves. They have few incentives to throw down their arms and join a political process that does not
guarantee that a U.S.-backed Shi’ite-Kurd government will refrain from paybacks for the abuses of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni
regime. Also, the Iraqi security forces desperately need to be fully capable before the American public inevitably loses
patience with the war. Using existing local security services to quash a rebellion is hard enough, but the Bush
administration is now trying to reconstitute security forces it disbanded after the initial invasion, while the
insurgents are targeting the recruits. Many experts agree that years will be required to make those forces fully
functional.
The American people and their congressional representatives are unlikely to wait that long. The administration should at
least be honest with itself, if not the public, and realize that the war has been lost. It should follow the proposal of
the aforementioned bipartisan congressional group, setting a schedule for withdrawal, and begin negotiations with all
Iraqi groups—including the Sunni guerrillas—for a comprehensive peace settlement.
***********
Ivan Eland is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute in Oakland, California, and author of the books The Empire Has No Clothes, and Putting “Defense” Back into U.S. Defense Policy.