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The new Iraqi authorities must be able to challenge the insurgency on nationalist, political, and religious grounds. But Iraqi leaders will not have the cultural and political space to do so unless the United States takes several difficult steps. First, the United States must announce and execute a phased withdrawal of troops to be completed ...

By George A. Lopez

October 21, 2009, 5:04 PM

The new Iraqi authorities must be able to challenge the insurgency on nationalist, political, and religious grounds. But Iraqi leaders will not have the cultural and political space to do so unless the United States takes several difficult steps.

First, the United States must announce and execute a phased withdrawal of troops to be completed by February 2006. For this action to be credible, the United States must also scale down its embassy, making it equivalent in size to others in the region. Next, the United States must dismantle the military bases now under construction to remove the image of an Iraqi government dependent on U.S. force.

There are two principal objections to this strategy. The tactical objection is that an announced deadline provides insurgents with a substantial advantage in their own planning. In the political realm, critics assert that these steps constitute a "cut and run" strategy that will be interpreted by both our allies and enemies as a sign of weakness.

The first claim is not credible. U.S. leaders have been consistently incorrect about the scope, motivations, and strategies of the insurgency. During the past two years, the administration has announced that attacks would ebb after the capture of Saddam Hussein, after the handover of authority by the Coalition Provisional Authority to the Iyad Allawi interim government, after the reconquest of Fallujah, and after the January election. Instead, the insurgency has intensified and solidified. It is now apparent that the pervasive U.S. presence motivates quite disparate dissenters to spread anarchy. Announced deadlines will provide Iraqi authorities the best bargaining leverage they can have in this environment.

The fear that aggressive withdrawal will signal U.S. weakness misses the point. Iraq’s desire to be rid of the occupiers is clear. A January 2005 Zogby opinion poll found that 82 percent of Sunnis and 69 percent of Shiites favor U.S. withdrawal "either immediately or after an elected government is in place." Withdrawing in the face of such strong national consensus is not a policy of weakness but one of appropriate deference to the wishes of the Iraqi people. And through its subsequent actions, the United States ultimately will be able to determine how that withdrawal is judged. A continued commitment to economic aid and to the political choices Iraqis make for themselves will provide ample positive data for history. A U.S. withdrawal would be a victory of good sense over exaggerated fears.

George A. Lopez is the vice president of the U.S. Institute of Peace's Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding, and a senior fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.