US and the World

U.S. Options in Iraq

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

This is a succinct analysis by Charles Peña of the CATO Institute of what we are facing in Iraq and a triage of options for coping with them. While invoking memory of the Clint Eastwood film "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," there is nothing good here at all, least of all a heroic way out. Instead, the "Good" is the least bad: a complete exit from the region. The "Bad" is to increase the forces on the ground, a move that would exacerbate the problem with Iraqi and regional perceptions of the U.S. mission. And the "Ugly"? You guessed it, what Dubya seems on a course to do: turn the operation of the country over to Iraqis but retain a military presence for the forseeable future.

He concludes:

The current administration plan to try to have its cake and eat it too is a train wreck in the making -- pinned down in Iraq and forced to adopt Israeli-style tactics, a la Operation Iron Hammer, that do more to create anti-American resentment, fuel the insurgency, and create a pool of would-be suicide bombers for al Qaeda. It is the worst of all worlds -- a combination of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, where military action to suppress the insurgency creates more new terrorists and an endless cycle of violence, and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, where Muslims from around the region (if not the world) flock to Iraq for jihad against the American infidel. It doesn't get any uglier than that.