A Rose-Colored Exit Strategy

Mark Wilson/Getty Images NewsThin reed: Senate Democrats are hoping that setting a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops will dry up terrorism in Iraq. But hope is not an exit strategy.

A decision to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by late 2008 would profoundly alter the dynamics of the Iraqi insurgency. Whether the outcome would be reconciliation or civil war depends on whether Sunnis and Shiites can be persuaded to give each other one more chance.

The best-case scenario rests on the assumption that the Sunni insurgency will fragment and collapse once the external enemythe United Stateshas been removed. With no infidels left to fight, so the argument goes, most of al Qaedas foreign fighters will return to their home countries, and Osama bin Laden will lose a major foil for recruiting and propaganda. In Iraq, Sunni nationalists will be pushed to the negotiating table, realizing that the Shiite parties are more likely to offer political concessions as long as they are still exposed to U.S. diplomatic influence and international pressure. The remaining elements may try to keep the campaign going, but with both their former comrades and the community turning against them, they will be easily defeated.

Sounds too good to be true? It probably is.

First, no matter what happens inside Iraq, any U.S. decision to withdraw will be celebrated as a victory by al Qaeda. Whatever way the spin doctors in Washington dress it up, bin Laden is certain to portray the pullout as another example of what he once described as the low spiritual morale of the American fighters. Al Qaeda, in other words, will be emboldenedeven if it fails to set up a permanent safe haven or establish an Islamic theocracy. Most worryingly, the foreign fightersnow experienced and battle-hardened veterans of the global jihadwill soon turn up and cause trouble in other places, such as Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan.

Even more questionable than hoping that al Qaedas victory can be spun away is the idea that the Sunnis can be pushed to the negotiation table. This may have worked in 2003 and 2004. But in the current situation, Sunnis can no longer be assumed to have any faith in a government that a majority of them regard as openly sectarian. With many members of the Iraqi cabinet thought to be linked to the Shiite militias or Tehran, the Sunnis have concluded that the government has little interest in national reconciliation. Rather, they suspect that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his colleagues are bent on cementing Shiite hegemony and making the Sunnis pay for their privileged position under Saddam Hussein.

Hence, a withdrawal announcement is much more likely to drive more Sunnis into the arms of the insurgency than it is to compel the insurgents to the negotiating table. As in many other ethnic conflicts, security and survival will increasingly come to be seen as one and the same thing, with the insurgents the only ones who can be relied on to deliver both. If anything, being seen by their community as the last line of defense against Shiite atrocities will make it easier for the insurgents to overcome their internal divisions.

Even the more politically minded among the Sunni insurgents will find it hard to resist the logic of better safe than sorry. As a result, efforts to prepare for all-out civil war will be spurred, with recruitment, fundraising, and weapons stockpiling all to be stepped up. Indeed, the insurgents are likely to turn to their Sunni neighborsJordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabiafor assistance. The Shiites, in turn, may respond not by holding out the hand of friendship but by accelerating their own preparations for the big confrontation. The result would be a potentially catastrophic arms race in which both sides worst-case expectations reinforce each other andin the absence of an honest brokerturn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If the United States announces a timetable for withdrawal, the only way this grim scenario will not come to pass is if Sunnis and Shiites miraculously learn to trust each other again. Thats becoming more unlikely every day. Its not as if U.S. policymakers havent tried to get both sides to behave responsibly. Time and again, the United States has pleaded with Maliki to confront the sectarian elements within his own government. Time and again, the United States has leaned on Iraqs Sunni neighbors to convince Iraqs Sunnis to reject jihadism and throw their lot in with the political process. These efforts are ongoing, but so far, the results have been meagerso meager, in fact, that the U.S. military has begun walling off entire neighborhoods in order to keep Sunnis and Shiites from slaughtering one another.

In their quest to win the policy argument, those who favor heading for the exits in Iraq shouldnt dismiss as mere political rhetoric the idea that a sectarian blood bathnot reconciliationis the most likely outcome. Most importantly, though, U.S. political leaders should understand that the game is not over once a withdrawal date is set. On the contrary, getting out of Iraq without unleashing a civil war is likely to be as delicate an operation as getting into the country was in the first place. Let us hope that if the United States does leave, the planning is better this time around.