Wednesday, November 26, 2003
SHOULD WE GO OR SHOULD WE STAY?
The press has been buzzing over the last few weeks with reports about the Bush administration's decision to accelerate the end of Allied "occupation" in Iraq and turnover of government and security to Iraqi control. Fine. Good idea. But what about the purely military and strategic question? Is it a good idea for U.S. forces to more or less pull out of the Middle East?
I say no. The Middle East is and will continue to be the least stable and most threatening part of the world to U.S. interests and the interests of civilization generally into the foreseeable future. The long-term likelihood of destabilizing war and the growth of Islamic radical influence in the region is not that much less now than it has been for decades. The possibility that the U.S. will have to deploy significant force into the region is higher than at any time. So why pull back to the U.S. all that hardware we spent so much money to move to the area? Especially when there's a near-perfect place to store it?
Where is that? The far western Iraqi desert. The famous "H-1" and "H-2" airfirelds near the Syrian border would make excellent basing sites for up to two divisions of U.S. armored force and as much air power as we could conceivably need. These facilities are surrounded by some of the most empty and least useful land on the planet. No one wants or cares about this land and, better yet, unlike the empty areas of the Arabian peninsula, no one considers this dirt to be "sacred." Muhhamed never conducted caravan raids there, so this region has no special significance to Muslims.
It would be perfectly rational and fair for the new Iraqi civilian government to invite the U.S. to remain at H-1 and H-2. No one would ever see these forces -- unlike the troops and tanks and planes that have remianed in Germany and Japan since the end of World War II, the forces remaining in the empty areas of western Iraq would not be a constant reminder to the Iraqi population -- the vast majority of whom live along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers -- of American military presence in their country. But at the same time, as the famous cavalary charge up that desert corridor in the Spring of this year proved, the empty quarter of Iraq provides a perfect highway leading to other parts of the region. If necessary, a large fighting ground force based at H-1 and H-2 could be anywhere they are needed in 72 hours, instead of six months.
This is such a good idea, I have a hard time imagining why the U.S. wouldn't do it.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:27 AM
