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• Wednesday, December 6, 2006 11:58 PM

  Exit Strategy?

  For a long as I can remember, it has been accepted wisdom that the stability of the Persian Gulf region was a fundamental strategic necessity for the United States and all of the industrialized western economies that depended upon reliable access to the relatively cheap petroleum and related chemicals produced there. Furthermore, it has been an axiom of Middle Eastern geo-politics that the tensions associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict posed a significant threat to that stability.

  The failure of the Baker Commission Report to frame its recommendations in terms of these over-arching strategic necessities speaks to the short-term domestic political agenda that it was intended to promote from its inception. Essentially, any plan that states as its priority, a concern for the political stability within the borders of Iraq, ignores a basic element of our national security. While the will of the American electorate could not have been expressed more clearly regarding the war in Iraq, our political leaders including the Baker Commission, have not honestly discussed the probability of Sunni-Shia sectarian warfare (with "covert" Iranian backing) spreading into Kuwait and the eastern provinces (that's where the oil is) of Saudi Arabia. Meaningful discussion of the impact our failure in Iraq is likely to have on the surrounding nations, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey, has not occurred.

  Let's be clear, the Baker Commission, with its superficial treatment of the rapidly deteriorating stability in the Persian Gulf, has confirmed that's its only real purpose was to delay any progress in the public debate regarding Iraq until after the Republican Party could secure the best possible outcome in November's election. Its failure to achieve that domestic political objective is now obvious as well. Nine months have elapsed since the Commission's establishment and it is recommendations now come much too late to significantly alter the course of events in Iraq.

  With the transparent and superficial domestic political agenda revealed with the Baker Commission Report, the combatants in Iraq have a green light to continue the violence in pursuit of their sectarian, tribal and criminal objectives. While we verbally reject partition, we have clearly signaled that we will not stand in the way of the sectarian division taking place in Iraq. We have stated with both our votes and our rhetoric that we recognize the futility of fighting an indigenous insurgency. There is obviously no meaningful national identity remaining in Iraq. The ethnic cleansing process has reached unstoppable velocity. The outcome is inevitable.

  The influx of Sunni refugees has already destabilized the demographics of Jordan and Syria. The Turks are facing a dilemma with the consolidation of a Kurdish entity on their southern border. Their choices are to invade and occupy Kurdistan or to initiate their own ethnic cleansing and drive their indigenous Kurds across the border. A broader war is probable there, either way.

  With our invasion and the consequent sectarian civil war in Iraq, the United States has started a regional war in the Middle East. If we manage to remove some troops from Iraq in the next year, it is likely to be only a temporary redeployment. We will be forced to return to the Gulf region, probably in even larger numbers for the purpose of attempting to influence the progression of the regional conflict and to secure Kuwaiti and Saudi oil production. It is doubtful that we will be able to accomplish that with military force, but global economic and political necessity will compel us to try.

  It is no wonder that George Bush, the elder is so easily driven to tears.

  —Mike from Bedford Read Mike from Bedford's other letters
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