The Mess In Iraq: Which Way Out?

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The Mess In Iraq: Which Way Out?

Letters to the Editors
NY Times
May 26, 2005

To the Editor:

Niall Ferguson ("Cowboys and Indians," Op-Ed, May 24) makes a good case that immediate United States withdrawal from Iraq could be disastrous. But in asserting that we need to stay there, possibly for the better part of the century, Mr. Ferguson seems not to consider either that the occupation is disastrous in itself, with Americans and Iraqis dying and with its enormous expense, or that there are alternatives.

Having found no caches of weapons of mass destruction, the United States has just one reason to occupy Iraq: to clean up the mess that it created. That job might be done better by the United Nations, which, not carrying the baggage of having made the mess, could benefit from the good will of the Iraqi people.

Jill Hacker Reston, Va., May 24, 2005 •

 

To the Editor:

Niall Ferguson asserts that "civil war and chaos tend to break out when American military interventions have been aborted," but in the countries he cites - Vietnam, Cambodia, Lebanon and Haiti - it was the American intervention that either provoked or contributed to the ensuing violence.

 

Wars inevitably have unforeseen consequences, and the longer they go on the more irreparable the damage will be. The invasion of Iraq by United States forces resulted in the overthrow of a tyrannical regime but destroyed the fabric of a functioning society and opened deep fissures between Iraq's ethnic and religious groups.

There is no good solution to the tragedy taking place in Iraq, but since the presence of our troops is helping to fuel the insurgency rather than end it, the least bad solution would be to call them home and allow the Iraqis to put their country back together.

Rachelle Marshall Stanford, Calif., May 24, 2005 •

 

To the Editor:

While Niall Ferguson deplores "a hasty American withdrawal," his own evidence actually suggests that the United States has no option but withdrawal.

He notes three ways that the United States can still win: send hundreds of thousands more American troops, get that many troops from allies or be more ruthless. But the United States cannot even recruit enough troops in the status quo, and its allies are fleeing Iraq. Enormous human rights abuses such as leveling insurgent cities would have a catastrophic effect on the war on terror.

The insurgency is looking more and more like a civil war. After the liberation of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein's capture, the handover of sovereignty and the January elections, Iraq was supposed to get better. It did not. How long will our men and women have to die before our leaders see it is time to come home?

Jeremy Pressman Storrs, Conn., May 24, 2005 The writer is an assistant professor of political science, University of Connecticut. •

 

To the Editor:

Niall Ferguson's advice that the United States should learn from how the British handled the Iraq insurgency of 1920 implies that British policy in Iraq was eventually successful. In fact, there continued to be coups, countercoups and uprisings in Iraq, another British occupation during World War II, and a revolution that overthrew the British-installed monarchy. All of which eventually led to the Baath Party takeover for the latter part of the 20th century.

This more complete historical perspective is not promising for the current intervention, whether one argues for withdrawal or staying the course.

Barbara Parmenter Brighton, Mass., May 24, 2005 •

To the Editor:

Niall Ferguson makes a good case for long odds against United States success in creating a stable democracy in Iraq. But Mr. Ferguson makes a couple of gratuitous comments.

First, he confuses the cost and value of life in comparing the cost of training and equipping an American soldier with that of an Iraqi insurgent. He may think that "the American side takes its losses so much harder," but he must be impervious to the daily scenes of public grieving of Iraqis who have lost loved ones in yet another car bombing.

Second, he frets that "too few American liberals seem to grasp how high the price will be" if the Bush administration's policy in Iraq fails. Actually, we do. That is why we thought the policy wrongheaded in the first place. It is the Bush administration, cynically or otherwise, that chooses not to understand.

Harry Vonk Carlsbad, Calif., May 24, 2005 •

 

To the Editor:

The main problem with Niall Ferguson's argument is that Iraq should not be our first priority, cannot be a top American priority well into the future - indeed, should never have been a priority at all. Reducing the two gravest threats to the planet - nuclear proliferation and global warming - were and are the correct policy and moral imperatives of the world's only superpower.

Tom Parrett New York, May 24, 2005 •

To the Editor:

Niall Ferguson clearly sees that the obstacle to "winning" in Iraq is our reluctance to do what the British did in 1920: deliberately escalate attacks on civilians. And because, unfortunately to him it seems, the "humiliation and torture of prisoners have not yielded any significant benefits," he is left with only one last proposal. We must maintain an occupation by bribing underprivileged immigrants to be mercenaries.

That Americans will not accept these solutions is not a military setback but an advancement of our morality.

Mr. Ferguson's suggested course of action would only prove what history has shown, and what the British and the Iraqis can attest to; it would prove all that I've known since my brother, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was killed in Iraq last year: these conflicts are not marked by winners and losers, but by irreversible tragic acts against humanity that are embedded in the souls of the affected.

Dante Zappala Philadelphia, May 25, 2005

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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Niall Ferguson is a history professor at Harvard and a senior fellow at the very conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford. His book "Colossus: The Price of America's Empire" argues in favor of an American Empire and he also backed the US invasion of Iraq from the beginning. His op-ed article, "Cowboys and Indians," can be read at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/24/opinion/24ferguson.html?pagewanted=print  

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