The Kissinger-Schultz Article An article jointly authored by Henry Kissinger and George Schultz in the Washington Post entitled Results, No...
The Kissinger-Schultz Article
An article jointly authored by Henry Kissinger and George Schultz in the Washington
Post entitled Results, Not Timetables, Matter in Iraq argues that
a definite timetable for an American withdrawal in Iraq is not as important as
the attainment of a definite goal which represents success. They argue that it
is the achievement of the goal which is vital.
A precipitate American withdrawal would be almost certain to cause a civil
war that would dwarf Yugoslavia's, and it would be compounded as neighbors
escalated their current involvement into full-scale intervention. ... We owe
it to ourselves to become clear about what post-election outcome is compatible
with our values and global security.
Much of the article focuses on the what they believe to be the desirable
endpoint of the political process, of which the elections on January 30 are but
a part. Their recommendations implicitly assume that Iraq must be preserved as a
multiethnic, unitary state. Kissinger and Schultz believe that the minimum
outcome should be:
The Constituent Assembly emerging from the elections will be sovereign to
some extent. But the United States' continuing leverage should be focused on
four key objectives:
(1) to prevent any group from using the political process to establish
the kind of dominance previously enjoyed by the Sunnis;
(2) to prevent any areas from slipping into Taliban conditions as havens and
recruitment centers for terrorists;
(3) to keep Shiite government from turning into a theocracy, Iranian or
indigenous;
(4) to leave scope for regional autonomy within the Iraqi democratic
process.
The article repeatedly warns against letting the almost foregone Shi'ite
majority ride roughshod over the Sunnis, however bitter their memories; however
brutal the campaign by "insurgents" against them has been. The one
thing that must never be permitted, in Kissinger and Schultz's view is "a
Shiite-dominated bloc extending to the Mediterranean"
The reaction to intransigent Sunni brutality and the relative Shiite quiet
must not tempt us into identifying Iraqi legitimacy with unchecked Shiite
rule. The American experience with Shiite theocracy in Iran since 1979 does
not inspire confidence in our ability to forecast Shiite evolution or the
prospects of a Shiite-dominated bloc extending to the Mediterranean. A
thoughtful American policy will not mortgage itself to one side in a religious
conflict fervently conducted for 1,000 years.
This proposition should be read in conjunction with Gerecht's The
Islamic Paradox, who observed that a Shi'ite dominated Iraq is not
necessarily the same as a clerically dominated Iraq, which must certainly
be Kissinger and Schultz's meaning for their injunction to make any sense at
all, for Iraq by ethnic composition will be Shi'ite dominated by definition.
Gerecht wrote:
So, is there a Sunni parallel to the political evolution among the Shiites?
Inside Iraq, it is easy to find Arab Sunnis who want to see democracy triumph.
If for no other reason, fear of a Shiite dictatorship appears to inspire a
certain Sunni willingness to embrace some kind of a democratic order. ...
Given the widespread Sunni-led violence in Iraq, particularly among the
hard-core takfiri fundamentalists, we can lose sight of the fact that the
Sunnis will still likely follow the Shiite lead, however reluctantly. ... Arab
Sunnis today realize they are vastly outnumbered by “the other side.” ...
Even if Sistani dies, the Hawza will remain a more influential force than any
association of Sunni clerics. And both Arab Sunnis and Shiites regularly
remark about the lack of revenge killing since the fall of Saddam Hussein even
though the pursuit of revenge (intiqam) for perceived wrongs is a leitmotif of
Iraqi Arab culture. ...
The Kissinger-Schultz requirement to keep the Sunnis in play, no matter how
they may subject themselves to old Ba'athist influences creates a problem for
the counterinsurgency strategy, especially if has to be addressed within the
requirement of preserving a unitary Iraq. Kissinger and Schultz say:
It is axiomatic that guerrillas win if they do not lose. And in Iraq the
guerrillas are not losing, at least not in the Sunni region, at least not
visibly. A successful strategy needs to answer these questions: Are we waging
"one war" in which military and political efforts are mutually
reinforcing? ... Do we have a policy for eliminating the sanctuaries in Syria
and Iran from which the enemy can be instructed, supplied, and given refuge
and time to regroup?
Here lies the core of the problem. The policy of keeping the Sunnis within
Iraq at all costs in conjunction with the Kissingerian imperative that the
insurgency be 'defeated', not merely contained, sets up a potential
contradiction, one that Gerecht has already foreseen. Unless the Ba'athists and
their backers in Syria are to be implictly given veto power over the birth of a
democratic Iraq, either the risk of widening the war, or decisive closure, even
if it means partition, must be accepted.
But democracy in the Middle East obviously does not rise or fall on the
participation of Iraqi Sunnis. The principal question is then whether
Sunni Islam writ large is able to embrace a democratic ethic? Democracy could
triumph in Iraq because the Iraqi Shiite community wills it, but if
representative government does not spread to the Sunni nation-states, where 85
to 90 percent of all Muslims live, then the nexus between dictatorship and
Islamic extremism is little changed.
Yet despite these remaining questions, the Kissinger-Schultz article
indicates that the post-Saddam regime is already fait accompli. That is
already a sign of strategic success. It is far from clear the proposition that
"guerrillas win if they do not lose" is a valid axiom. There are
hundreds of guerilla groups throughout the world that will never 'lose' yet we
never hear of them, perhaps in part because the press does not care about them.
Yet Kissinger and Schultz are undoubtedly correct in maintaining that the
only way forward is through success and not via some arbitrarily selected date
on the calendar.
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