by Robert Cogan

Created on: January 20, 2008

There is now a politically feasible New Way Forward to support our troops by getting them out whole-country counterinsurgency civilian protection in Iraq and out of the whole country in two presidential terms.

By November 2008 there should be bipartisan agreement that in seeking to promote democracy all over the Middle East by war in both Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush bit off far more than the American people are willing to chew. Not he or even any Republican candidate has insisted that we must re-institute the draft to get a big enough military and tax ourselves to pay for the general war to do so. So what to do? Satisficing is an economists word. I'll use it loosely to mean finding a set of measures, regarded under uncertainty, but likely to maximize (or minimize) some quantity(ies). The quantities here will be casualties and expense in Iraq and in a much wider and longer Middle East War to come. The measures below deal only with Iraq, not the Israel - Palestine or Afghan parts of the Middle East problem. No interest group is going to get everything it wants out of the Iraq disaster.

A wider war or a Euro-Korean length occupation of Iraq (50 -60 years) is an abyss into which we must not plunge. Big, primitive countries like Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan will never have full control over armed groups in them. Israel could still feel a need to attack Iran by air. Iranians would retaliate in part by infiltration into Iraq and attacking our troops. Worse yet: Bush could order an attack that would almost certainly leave American hostages in Iran, trapping the next U.S. president in a nightmare hostage crisis. That would happen before summer 2008, while our troops are still at surge strength. In Iraq, Turks attacking across the northern border, conflict among Shia groups in the south, the bombing and assassination of Ms. Bhutto causing destabilization of Pakistan are all harbingers of a wider war. And our military is not quite broken: Bush could transfer troops from the over 60,000 in Germany and 45,000 in Japan.

Soft partition should mean that U.S. troops, while withdrawing from Iraq's cities, would escort only willing Iraqis to resettle to zones of others of the same sect. Under soft partition Iraqis unwilling to move would assume the risk of fighting or making peace. Mixed marriage Iraqis should be helped to emigrate. Assumption of risk is a principle of freedom. Door-kickin'-in forcible occupation is a principle of domination. Baghdad can be partitioned

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