Tonight, National Public Radio (NPR) correspondent Deborah Amos spoke as part of the World Affairs Council of Western Michigan's "Great Decisions" lecture series. The lecture, which was held at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, was titled "Iraq: No Exit in Sight." In the lecture, Amos drew on her experiences reporting on Iraqi refugees to inform her talk. Amos--who is also a member of the liberal Council on Foreign Relations--presented what could best be described as a "centrist" position on the occupation of Iraq, arguing that while the war may not have gone that well initially, "the Surge" has made some progress and that the US cannot abandon the "broken" country.
A key part of her talk was evaluating the "successes" of President George W. Bush's "surge" policy that escalated the war by adding several thousand troops to Iraq as part of a coordinated counter-insurgency strategy. While she began by somewhat cynically stating that part of the success of the surge was simply due to its removing Iraq as a national issue to some extent, she also praised the surge. She said that it did succeed in lowering casualties, even if it came in part from Iraqis--particularly Sunnis--deciding that they were fed up with al-Qaeda. From the perspective of casualties, she said that the surge has been an "undeniable success." However, she was quite frank in stating that it failed in one of its major goals--giving Iraqis space to improve the political situation in the country. Moreover, she said that a consequence of the surge has been guaranteeing that it the United States will stay in Iraq through the end of Bush's term and well into the term of the next president. The surge has been critical in helping the Bush administration deflect calls for withdrawal.
In part, this is due to a lack of ambition by presidential candidates in the United States. She said that for the most part, there are few substantive differences between the presidential candidates of both major parties on Iraq. She mentioned Republican candidate John McCain who has committed to an indefinite and long-term US presence in Iraq. He has said that he sees the US role in Iraq as being similar to Korea, a position that President Bush is increasingly considering. With regard to the Democrats, she said that neither Obama nor Clinton have a particularly defined Iraq policy. They are each calling for a "withdrawal" of major combat troops, although that would only eliminate half the troops in the country.
She told the audience that the Bush administration is currently in the process of negotiating a "Status of Forces Agreement" with Iraq that would formalize the role of US troops in Iraq. She said that while Iraqis have concerns over sovereignty, many in the government are looking towards a long-term US presence. The agreement will supersede the current United Nations mandate that is ending this year. While some Democrats have argued that it is a treaty and should therefore go through Congress, there has been little opposition to the overall idea of negotiating a long-term US presence.
The most interesting portion of her talk was her discussion of Iraqi refugees, which she has reported on for NPR. She said that two million Iraqis have fled the country and that two million more have been displaced within Iraq. Iraqis have left for a variety of reasons ranging from the violence to lack of jobs. Those who left are--in Amos' opinion--the most qualified to help reconstruct the country. They are people who have college educations, had good jobs, and had a track record of working heard. Many served in the government and now that they are gone, there is a significant lack of government bureaucrats. Lately the media has reported that many refugees are going back to Iraq, but in reality, only 40,000 Iraqis have returned according to numbers cited by Amos.
Amos concluded by saying that things in Iraq are going better than Democrats want to admit, but that the victory in Iraq--as the Republicans claim they can achieve--is no longer possible. Ultimately, it was a"centrist" assessment of Iraq that would not be uncommon for the Democratic leadership in Congress or liberal think-tanks, such as the Council of Foreign Relations with whom Amos is affiliated. The criticisms of US policy in Iraq were fairly muted and were made with the underlying assumption that the United States must "fix" Iraq. Even when weapons of mass destruction came up, Amos barely admitted that the rationale was false and seemed to express support for the idea that the Iraq invasion could succeed as a way of "transforming" the Middle East. There was little assessment of the human costs of the war for Iraqis, with the only exception being her discussion of refugees. There was no mention of the estimated million Iraqis that have been killed because of the invasion or the human ramifications of the surge--namely the collective punishment institutionalized by walling off neighborhoods and separating families.
Finally, it is worth noting that the lecture was sponsored by Wolverine Worldwide, a West Michigan company that has made millions on selling boots to the military.
