Ritual Reality

Teeth to Tail

June 05, 2006

In the June 2006 issue of The Atlantic, Fred Kaplan nails the following paragraph to the post:

Late in February, U.S. Army generals in Iraq started asking military historians and archivists to dig up official records from the 1970s involving the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. The generals were especially interested in the nitty-gritty of pulling out procedures for disposing and transferring military property, for example, and the precise sequence of demobilization. The message was explicit: we’re going to be staging another withdrawal soon, from Iraq; once it begins, it could spin easily out of control; so we need a plan for an orderly exit now.

Given the article's title, "Hunkering Down: A guide to the U.S. military's future in Iraq", I confess I'm already confused. What's the story Kap, military hunkering or withdrawing?

And yet, in three years of occupation, the U.S. military has taken steps that suggest a total pullout is unlikely for years to come. The most tangible sign of these measures is the far-flung network of Forward Operating Bases, or FOBs. There are more than seventy FOBs scattered across Iraq, many of them elaborate renovations of Saddam Hussein’s former network of military bases and presidential palaces. Some FOBs consist of just a handful of barracks, but more than a dozen of them are vast complexes reminiscent of the West German garrisons from Cold War days.

Oh, I think we're well beyond the Cold War now. These are the Bad New Days, Kap, and Iraq is not exactly West Germany. What's more, this is hardly news. But I'm not criticising Kaplan. I think he's dead-on. He's just a few years, one premeditated invasion, and several thousand deaths too late. But it's about time for the right wingers, the democratizers, the WMD-ers, to own up that they were sold a pack of lies and--credulous or not--shipped it right on out the door to the public.

There’s nothing provisional about these places. They’re often referred to as "enduring bases," and there are plans to keep them operating, in American hands, even if all our combat regiments go home. The Pentagon is requesting $348 million in emergency funds this year for further base construction, beyond the billions already spent.

And so we are operating in an odd state of limbo. It’s clear that we’re getting out of Iraq, and soon, yet it’s equally clear that we’re staying, in a fairly big way. We are simultaneously engaged yet disengaging, hunkered down yet packing up.

Because... because the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been on the books for over a decade, right?

Here’s the little secret that explains the contradiction, understood by all involved: whatever factions end up running the Iraqi government, they’ll need--and want--the U.S. military to stick around for many years. This is true no matter what the political mood is stateside.

Waitaminnit... that's it?! That's the secret?! The poor bastards surfing the Hell Tectonics of Iraq want the USA to stick around a while? I bet they do. But I'm not so sure about that "whatever factions" bit, either. Frankly, day-to-day events in Iraq indicate that several factions don't want the USA to stick around. Or anyone else for that matter.

I think it's safe to say that the faction that most wants to see the USA maintain a military presence in Iraq is... the USA. Well, certain factions within the USA anyway. This is true no matter what the political mood is stateside, to borrow a phrase from Kaplan. I'm sure readers of The Atlantic are by now well familiar with Forward Operating Bases and can suss out for themselves that these installations were on the drawing board for some time. Kaplan seems to understand this as well:

But if things fall apart, the political trick will be to make a case that the mission still makes sense. It would be hard to justify a massive force that just sits there, But an argument could be made for a stripped-down core of 30,000 troops... The United States would be foolish to get militarily involved in an ethno-regional conflict, but it could help deter or mediate one--and having some troops on the ground, and planes in the air, creates diplomatic leverage. But if this becomes a new rationale for military presence, it can work only as one piece of a larger diplomatic initiative. And it would be best to make contact and establish routines with all the bordering nations now, while we are still merely concerned about the dangers and not yet ravaged in the storm.

Indeed. Would that others had been so farsighted. Something Robert Fisk said a while ago comes to mind:

We didn't invade for weapons of mass desturction, because there weren't any. We didn't want to help the Shiites, because we had asked them to rise up in 1991 and sat back while they were all massacred. Clearly, we wouldn't have invaded Iraq if its chief export was cauliflower or carrots. So the oil dimension has to be there. But I think there is something else, too. I was down that horrible Highway 18 in Iraq... I was standing by the roadside and the road started to move. I thought, "My God, it's an earthquake." ... Coming up the highway was an American infantry division. Thousands and thousands and thousands of soldiers, Abrams tanks, Bradley armored vehicles, transporters, truck after truck with the infantry, all wearing shades, rifles pointing out the side like porcupines. It took almost an hour to pass and all the time the ground shook. I remember thinking that 2,000 years ago, a little bit to the west fo where I was standing, we would have been feeling the vibration of centurions' feet... I began to wonder, then, when I saw this massive armored centipede, whether it didn't also represent the visceral need to project power... We can go to Baghdad, so we will go to Baghdad. We can go to Tehran. We can go to Damascus. We will, because we can.

That is part of the way in which a neoconservative thinks. It's easy to sneer at the Cheneys and the Wolfowitzes and the Feiths and the Perles, but we should spend a lot more time examining what their motives are and what makes them tick, because this projection of power is much more important than we realize. Possibly, it's almost as important as oil.

I think it's safe to say that the faction that most wants to see the USA maintain a military presence in Iraq is... the USA. Well, certain factions within the USA anyway. This is true no matter what the political mood is stateside, to borrow a phrase from Kaplan.