The Plan

First note: Nate need not be self conscience about our online goodwill. I like debate. I just haven't always responded to his critiques, for lack of time and energy. The fact is, believe it or not, things other than blogging about Iraq interest me, and sometimes I decide to spend time doing those things.

Anyhow, the Drum post is good, but nothing that hasn't been raised before. The left (if we need these distinctions for terms of debate) is always critizing the right (in this case, my position on winning the Iraq war), for not having a plan to win the war. But a question worth asking is upon who is it incumbant to define a plan? I could argue that not invading Iraq was just as bad a plan as invading, that the "low level" Civil War and high Iraqi casuality rate are happening right now was an inevitablity in Iraq at some point down the line.

There is still a presumption by the left that if we had ignored Iraq, left the failed sanctions and Saddam's terror state in place, that somehow we would be LESS responsible for the atrocities that were bound to happen. I'm not sure that is morally defensible. At best, it is practically defensible, because atrocities in Iraq could not then be blamed upon us (although Islamacists had already been blaming the UN/US on starving Iraqi children with the sanctions, although this was not a widely supported or popular view with most of the world).

So, while the war in Iraq is only part of the larger war on Islamic Fascism, I'll try to say as little about the larger war as possible and focus on the Iraq issue. But as basic conceit, that we are all probably willing to make, is a democratic Iraq would be preferable to a Saddam ruled Iraq, both from a moral and strategic point of view. The strategic, perhaps even more valuable than the moral, because the theory is that one example will lead to the "domino" effect across the rest of region, liberalizing country after country - hopefully, Iran, Syria, Palestine, and eventually Saudi Arabia. Ultimately, I believe the only way to eliminate the Islamicist threat to provide an alternative form of government from corrupt autocrats and a fascist, fantasy, Islamicist state (which is the only current alternative in the region because the one institution even the autocrats couldn't eliminate was the mosque - hence all the fasicsts use it as cover.)

All right...enough...the plan:

FOR the US:

1. Kill Zarqawi. Killing the A-list terrorists, I think, is fundamental to demoralizing the organizations. So, get Zarqawi, OBL, and Zawahri. Obviously, we've done a shitty job of this so far...so I say, get creative, listen to plans, hire Leon the Professional, pay the money, I don't give a shit. Make a truce with the lower level guys, something, anything. I don't think it should be as hard as it's been. The guy is running around war zone, for Chrissake.

2. Bring other countries on board. I think we need to renew our efforts to make Iraq a multinational effort. This is one of the reasons I voted for Kerry, that I thought we'd be in a position to make a "peace" offering to France and Germany and get others on board. We need, if nothing else, the illusion of cooperation. What's done is done, there's no use in crying over spilt milk. This should be the second most important issue to the State Department. The first - no Iranian nukes.

3. If the generals think we need more troops, let's get 'em. If this means a draft, so be it. If it means paying soldiers, more so be it.

4. Create a multinational police force. I think it's obvious our enemies recognize a weakness in our military capabilities - battling insurgents/criminal gangs in highly populated areas. Our army is not trained as police. We cannot train native police forces fast enough. We need to develop a multinational police force, skilled in the post-war militia and insurgent type battles we've seen in Mogadishu, Bagdad, etc. This organization could be part of the army or the FBI, or even the UN, but it needs to be trained to deal with a specific type of fighting that our regular army is not equiped to do. The force should be multilingual, un-uniformed, be able to assimilate into countries/areas, work with and support native police, train native police forces, etc. In short, we've seen trends of the ways our enemies are choosing to fight us, and we need to adjust...it's like when defensive coordinators starting using the 3-4 defense and were dominating offenses, the West Coast offense developed, short passing game, to react to the development. Same thing here. We will use this force to combat genocides in the future.

FOR IRAQ:

Our goal in Iraq is to develop a community. In my game class, we talked about online community development, but these are ideas that apply to any sort of real or virtual community. There are 9 elements of community development. Iraq, under Saddam for 30 years, had many of these elements demolished. We need to help them rebuild it.

1. Purpose: Iraq needs a simple, stated purpose that everyone can buy into. Iraq, I don't think we should have any bones about it, should strive to be a model for a peaceable, multi-ethnic, democratic state that will shatter the myth that Muslims/Arabs are not suited for modern democracy.

2. Flexible Places: There need to be FLEXIBLE places for people to congregate. The mosque, community centers, coffee shops, cinemas, I don't know the details of Iraqi social life, but there need to be MANY of these options and they need to reflect how Iraqis like to gather.

3. Member Profiles: People need the opportunity to grow, be creative, have reputations, etc.

4. Roles: Vistor, citizen, leaders, regulars, etc.
5. Levels of Leadership: leaders of groups, mosques, mayors, businessmen, etc.
6. Etiquette: rules of behavior considered right and wrong. Suicide bombing would be considered bad etiquette.
7. Cyclic Events: oscars, superbowl, etc, iraqi style
8. Integrate Rituals: marriage, graduations, quinceanera
9. Member run Sub-groups: probably ethnic groups, but hopefully cinema clubs, etc.


Anyhow, those are some of my initial ideas.