ShrinkWrapped summarizes a radio commentary on what would follow a precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq. The commentator is Time magazine’s Baghdad bureau chief, and the report was on National Public Radio, so these are not the opinions of a bloodthirsty neoconservative warhawk.
Ghosh started by describing how the Sunni tribes have been breaking their ties with al Qaeda and forging alliances with the Americans in Iraq. He offers several reasons for this and does not hesitate to describe the current alliances as based more on bottom line utility than any profound philosophical awakening to the value of Democracy. He also points out that the recent statements repudiating al Qaeda by the leader of the Sunni scholars and Imams in Iraq is extremely significant. His conclusions are striking. He makes it quite clear that any efforts to withdraw would endanger all of these advances. The tribes, for purposes of self preservation, would not only immediately drop out of the fight against al Qaeda, but the Sunni provinces would in short order become al Qaeda mini-states, offering a source of manpower, training, funding, and support that they currently do not have anywhere in the developed world.
Do critics of the American presence in Iraq have reasons (other than sheer hope) for thinking that forecast is wrong? Or do they view the prospect with indifference? There isn’t a third choice.
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