(Updated, below)

My Trellon colleague Dan offers a couple responses to my previous post agitating for a withdrawal from Iraq in the comments. His thoughts pretty closely map to ideas I used to have, so I'll reply with a new post for greater clarity/visibility.

His first post is a rebuttal to the idea that reconstruction would be better served if we were to generously fund locals:

Nowhere, ever, has there been a case where "generously supporting indigenous reconstruction" has worked without a lot of oversight... none of the civilian organizations who would normally oversee that sort of disbursement, for building things, training people, buying supplies, etc, are willing or able to do it right now...

Actually, most reconstruction contracts have gone through civilian corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, often on a cost-plus basis. Most of the actual work, though, is done by subcontractors, most of them locals, with huge margins for the contract holder. There are at most a few thousand US Nationals in Iraq working on reconstruction. Most of the work is being done by Iraqi Citizens, but Iraq is retaining maybe maybe 10% of the funds we allocate at most.

Clearly there are issues with corruption whenever any endeavor of this nature is undertaken. However, I think the net effect would be positive if that corruption slushed to Iraqis rather than Americans.

Right now reconstruction is arguably a failure, with total oil, electricity and other key outputs stuck below pre-war levels. It's also failed to create strong Iraqi entities which can manage and maintain the infrastructure. These used to exist: prior to the first Gulf War Iraq was the most developed country in the region, and that was all done by locals, although under a command rather than market economy.

The point is, that the expertise and will exists there for these people to rebuild and manage their own critical infrastructure. It was always a mistake to run that through US corporations.

i think there are a fair amount of internal struggles going on in iraq that would explode overnight if we left... i'm sure we're also causing such death, and suffering it as well, but do you think there will be less if we left? why? if you're saying that we have to leave and let them find balance on their own, by killing each other for a while, and reaching peace on their own, you gotta come out and say that.

That's pretty much what I'm saying, although I don't know how good or bad it has to be. Here's the logic:

It's not possible for Iraq to have stability and peace as long as we remain an occupying power. It's not just that we kill people. It's because we're a catalyst for killing, and no government that relies on our forces will ever have real legitimacy in terms of the monopoly on violence because they will face insurgent attacks.

We're not going to "win" against the insurgency, which isn't actually surprising, so this situation can go on for as long as we can afford to continue it, and never really get better. There's no "corner" to turn here.

Further, it seems unlikely that the Iraqi Army and paramilitary "police" forces -- which we are arming and equipping -- will remain non-partisan when it comes to sectarian tensions, or even be reliable against insurgents. Again, this lesson was there to learn from previous occupations of Iraq and our own experience in Vietnam, but since the architects of this thing believed we were at the "End of History," I guess they thought that didn't count.

At best, out continued presence keeps the underlying tensions in Iraq at a slow burn. As long as we stay, we continue to loose lives, torture and kill people, run down our military, and run up our deficit. When eventually/inevitably we do leave, that explosion will still be primed and waiting to happen. It is beyond our power to defuse the situation.

Unfortunately, I actually think it's more likely that we'll face a worse scenario: shit blows up before we're gone, and we're caught in the middle. That'll be fucked up on a whole new level.

And so I believe the best we can do is withdraw our forces in an orderly and structured fashion, starting now. It's not a lovely idea, but I really can't see how our continued presence is going to improve things.

Update: And another thing: Iraq is currently a huge terrorist training ground. It's like Afghanistan and Beirut combined, with a 21st-Century edge! The minute we leave, that's over. The Iraqis won't tolerate the attacks on their own people, civil and cultural institutions without the justification of occupation; Iraq will cease to be an autonomous zone for terrorists.

Also, on the GWOT: total withdrawl from the Middle East is key. Without us there to inflame tensions generally, we will be able to throw serious money, expertise and effort at busting down on known and emerging terrorist networks throughout the region. Our inability to do this is part of Bin Laden's fucking plan!