Something to think about, courtesy of Daily Kos:
When the Democrats take the White House in 2004, they will face a daunting task — a government in DEEP red, starved of tax revenues by the irresponsible borrow and spend Republicans. They will face a hostile word, uniting in opposition to US interests, regardless of their legitimacy. They will need to deal with joblessness, a double-dip recession, and corporate scandals.
But most daunting of all, they will need a solution to the Iraq mess.
For purposes of this thought experiment lets assume the most probably outcome — a relatively quick takeover of Baghdad and Basra, 2-6 weeks from now. A restive population, suicide attacks against our forces, a massive army of occupation, unrest in the Arab street, and skyrocketing costs to hold and rebuild Iraq.
So pretend you are a presidential candidate. It is November of this year. Iowa is a few short months away and Iraq is the issue dominating the news. You are asked: “What’s your plan for Iraq”?
How do you answer?
I’m sure I’m woefully unqualified to give this a truly decent stab, but hey. That never stopped me before, right?
- Apologize to the U.N., and to the world at large. More precisely, don’t be afraid to do a little ass-kissing. We used to have many allies all over the world. We could again, if a new administration could admit that the previous administration made mistakes, and was willing to work with the U.N. and other nations, rather than playing the role of the schoolyard bully and running roughshod over them.
- Launch/allow a non-partisian (possibly U.N.-led) investigation into the buildup to the Iraqi invasion. There is a lot of evidence that our invasion of Iraq has been discussed and planned in certain circles for at least the past decade, and that September 11th is being used as (poor) justification through blatantly propagandistic (er…is that a word?) means. If we truly believe that Bush is not just egotistical, self-centered, and stupid in his approach, and is actually breaking both U.S. and international law, then we should have the guts to look into that, and face the possibility of consequences if it is found that the U.S. acted unjustly in invading Iraq.
- Work as quickly as possible to decrease U.S. military presence in Iraq. This alone needs several smaller steps, of course.
- Establish a new Iraqi government. This new governing body would most likely need to involve as few current Iraqi political leaders as possible, as they’re all probably exteremely closely tied to Hussein’s politics and tactics. Possibly create a governing body supplied at least in part by U.N. approved personnel to assist the Iraqi goverment in rebuilding and reinventing itself.
- Establish a U.N. peacekeeping force. Rather than relying solely on our own soldiers, use a multinational force through the U.N. to keep the peace. The goal should not be to try to enforce U.S. policies, but to keep retalitory violence (both among what various Iraqi political and religious factions might exist, and between Iraqi militants and U.S. military personnel) to a minimum.
- Let other nations assist in the rebuilding of the Iraqi infrastructure. Contracts to rebuild and recreate the Iraqi physical and business landscape are already being dolled out to U.S. companies. While in one sense this is a mess very much of our own making, and we should play a large part in cleaning up after ourselves, it’s no secret that from a business perspective, there could be much to be gained in having a hand in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. If other nations — and companies based in other nations — are willing to take on a share of the burden, then let them have a share of the profits, also.
- In short, convince the world that the U.S. isn’t in this purely for its own interests. Not an easy thing to do, but not impossible, either.
Naïvely idealistic, I’m sure, and not likely to ever happen. But I can hope. Of course, as I said at the beginning, I’m incredibly unqualified to do justice to a question like this — feel free to pick apart what I’ve posted, and toss other ideas about.