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Revealing the Blueprint
There's a lot riding on the war in Iraq -- the lives of our soldiers, the stability of a fragile Middle East, the reputation and influence of the United States, and, not least, the welfare and destiny of the Iraqi people. What's our best plan for the months and years ahead? Reader's Digest called on two Senators with different views: Republican John McCain of Arizona, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Democrat Joseph Biden of Delaware, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Both men, likely candidates for President in 2008, believe they have a blueprint for ultimate victory in Iraq.RD: What does it mean to "win" in Iraq -- and is victory still possible?
McCain: "Winning" means a flawed but functioning democracy in Iraq, one equipped with a security service that can keep the insurgents at bay. It means an Iraq that does not threaten other countries but is not so weak that it invites meddling from its neighbors. Violence and trouble continue, but we and the Iraqis have accomplished a great deal -- toppling a tyrant, writing the most democratic constitution in the Arab world and, last December, choosing a new government in free elections.
True success in Iraq means more than this, however. The road ahead will be long and hard and expensive -- in both blood and treasure. But not only can we win, we must win.
Biden: We can still win in Iraq, but we have to be realistic about the mission. Iraq will not become a model democracy in our lifetimes. The best we can hope to achieve is a unified country, with a representative government in which all three groups have a stake, and which poses no threat to us or to Iraq's neighbors.
That's why the moment we've now reached is so critical. The Iraqis are discovering whether they can agree on a government and a constitution that can unite the country instead of divide it. The United States can't guarantee that outcome -- only the Iraqis can.
RD: What is at stake for Iraq, America and the world?
Biden: The whole world is better off with Saddam gone, but if this war results in trading a dictator for chaos in the heart of the Middle East, then we will have failed. If we don't succeed in Iraq, a full-blown civil war likely will erupt among the Shia, the Sunnis and the Kurds, and would dwarf the violence we're already witnessing. It could lead to widespread regional conflict. Even worse for U.S. interests, Iraqi Sunnis would forge stronger ties with foreign jihadists, making Iraq what it was not before the war: a training ground for terror groups, like Afghanistan before 9/11.
McCain: The stakes in Iraq are enormously high -- higher, I believe, than they were in the Vietnam War. Success or failure in Iraq is the transcendent issue for our national security, for now and years to come. There is an understandable desire to see a quick and easy end to our intervention in Iraq. But when America toppled Saddam, we incurred a moral duty not to abandon the people there to terrorists and killers.
And the implications of premature withdrawal from Iraq are not moral alone. Withdrawing before there is a stable and legitimate Iraqi authority would turn that country into a failed state in the heart of the Middle East. Instability in Iraq would invite further Syrian and Iranian interference, bolstering the influence of two terror-sponsoring states firmly opposed to American policy. Iraq's neighbors -- from Saudi Arabia to Israel to Turkey -- would feel their own security eroding, and might be induced to act. And jihadists would interpret our withdrawal as a great victory against our power. This uncertain swirl of events would damage our ability to promote positive change in the Middle East, to say the least.
Because we cannot pull out and simply hope for the best, because we cannot withdraw and somehow manage things from afar, because morality and our security compel it, we have to see this mission through to completion.
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