A Progressive Iraq: Bill Richardson’s Plan

More than any presidential candidate, Bill Richardson is running on his plan for Iraq. His is the most detailed, the most well supported, and the most hyped. Quite frankly, when compared to every candidate besides Joe Biden, Richardson’s plan comes off as the most concrete and therefore the most compelling. Richardson avoids the overly vague promises and empty rhetoric of other candidates. While his plan is refreshing, is it a progressive plan?

As outlined here, a progressive plan for Iraq adheres to these four assertions:

1. The Iraq War was a mistake.
2. Our presence in Iraq is making things worse, not better.
3. Iraq is a political problem, and it requires a political solution.
4. Our goal in Iraq should not be to “win,” but to leave responsibly.

By reading any policy proposal through this lens, one can conclude that it represents a progressive worldview. Bill Richardson’s plan largely satisfies the progressive test. However, like the presidential plans from Joe Biden and Barack Obama, Richardson’s proposal lacks detail, which makes me less confident in its success.

Bill Richardson never specifically admits that the Iraq War was a mistake. I can understand why a presidential candidate hesitates to come out with such a position, as it would invite criticism and call into question whether our fallen soldiers sacrificed their lives in vain. However, Richardson implicitly takes this viewpoint when he calls the American forces “occupiers” and says that we should admit the mistaken nature of President Bush’s Iraq policy. While this rhetoric won’t go as far as I would like toward restoring our credibility, it is farther than most candidates are willing to go.

Moving on, Richardson makes it clear that he agrees with assertion number two, that our presence in Iraq makes things worse, saying:

We should start redeploying now. The longer we stay, the more people die, the further the situation deteriorates, and the more damage we do both to our military and to our reputation.

As he likes to say, Richardson has a one point plan for the Iraq War: “End it.”

Bill Richardson also clearly believes Iraq is a political problem, not a military one. He says things like, “Iraq’s crisis is a political crisis. It cannot be solved militarily,” and, “The hard political work begins as our troops start to leave,” all of which underscore the point. Richardson advocates an exit from Iraq within 6-8 months, leaving no residual forces behind. At the same time, he advocates for a “surge of diplomacy” within the region to solve political problems.

The phrase “surge of diplomacy” is used by almost every Democratic presidential candidate when talking about Iraq. It’s a nice sound byte, to be sure. However, diplomacy is often treated as a black box, something that doesn’t deserve elaboration or detailed planning. That, I believe, is un-progressive. As Iraq will likely be the chief foreign policy concern of the new administration, the voters deserve to know exactly what a surge of diplomacy means. What countries will be involved in talks? What are the goals of said talks? What leverage can the U.S. bring to bear? What diplomatic carrots and sticks will be used to get things done?

Richardson gives readers more detail than other candidates, but his surge of diplomacy comes up short when compared to policy papers from think tanks on the subject. On a basic level, Richardson says that leaving Iraq will give us political leverage to get things done. This may not always be true. Richardson hopes to use the fact of U.S. withdrawal to put pressure on Iraq’s factions to reconcile, saying that the threat of our imminent departure will bring people to the table and allow the U.S. to serve as an honest broker between the sects.

While the threat of leaving will make the U.S. a more honest broker, it won’t make the U.S. into a long term partner. Faced with the reality that U.S. forces are leaving, Iraqi sects will have less reason to give the U.S. what it wants. However, the threat of a U.S. withdrawal will cause the sects to try and get what they want. The question is, faced with a imminent U.S. withdrawal, will the sects decide to bargain and come to a peaceful resolution with each other? Or will they decide to close ranks, consolidate power, and prepare for a longer struggle? Richardson should be prepared for either eventuality, and it’s not clear that he is.

On the international front, Richardson advocates for discussions with all of Iraq’s neighbors (including Iran and Syria) on the subjects of non-interference and the creation of a multilateral, UN-led (and U.S. financed) Muslim peacekeeping force. This is a very progressive idea and one that I believe has a good chance of succeeding.

Richardson points out that all of Iraq’s neighbors fear widespread war in Iraq, especially one that could spread to other countries. Yet, they are universally opposed to the U.S. occupying Iraq for any length of time. The solution would be a broad-based Muslim peacekeeping force, one that could relate to the local population and more effectively keep the peace between Iraq’s many political factions.

A UN-backed Muslim peacekeeping force would also reduce outside influence on Iraq, something which Iraqis have an uneasy relationship with. Right now, as Richardson points out, Iran exploits “cracks on the ground” to play Iraq’s political factions off each other. With the U.S. gone and Iran now either participating in a peacekeeping force or publicly working against it, Iran would find it harder to be covert about its influence. Iraqis largely reject increased Iranian influence, especially when blatant and uncovered. Therefore, a Muslim peacekeeping force would strip away Iranian cover and decrease meddling by them and other nations.

However, beyond the threat of U.S. withdrawal, Richardson fails to lay out what other diplomatic tools could be used for leverage to create this peacekeeping force. What are we willing to offer Iraq’s neighbors in terms of alliances, aid, or trade to get them to commit troops? More importantly, how would this force be structured to keep it non-sectarian and universal in its mission? There is no guarantee that Arab nations are willing to contribute to a long and politically perilous peacekeeping mission (not to mention an expensive reconstruction effort, another of Richardson’s plans). I wish Richardson had laid out what he was prepared to offer to overcome the obstacles he will encounter in creating this force.

Having somewhat satisfied the first three progressive assertions, does the Richardson plan represent a “responsible” exit from Iraq? That’s hard to answer, given the lack of detail presented. 6-8 months, the timeline of a Richardson withdrawal, leaves little space to put in place the diplomatic agreements Richardson calls for. Certainly a firm deadline will ratchet up the pressure, but without details on what Richardson is willing to use as bargaining chips, it is hard to say whether Iraq’s factions or its neighboring states will be interested in working with the U.S. to the extent that is necessary.

Certainly, if a sufficiently neutral UN-backed Muslim peacekeeping force can be set up in time, our quick exit from Iraq would indeed be responsible. That’s still a big if, and Richardson’s plan, geared towards prospective voters and not policy wonks, doesn’t give often crucial details. I suspect that Richardson holds information back as well, like many other campaigns, preferring to keep its cards close and hold onto surprises for later in the race. Perhaps Richardson has the details worked out, but if such a force can’t be set up, we will leave the Iraqis to their own devices, something that almost all Americans find morally reprehensible.

Bill Richardson’s plan for Iraq hews closely to a progressive viewpoint. It briefly agrees with every assertion put forward above, and its national and international plans make sense. There should be no arguments about whether this plan is a progressive one, only whether it will work as advertised.

I’m inclined to believe that, given Richardson’s diplomatic experience, his plan will be successful. However, major questions linger: Will Iraqi sects decide that reconciliation is the best course of action in a post-occupation Iraq? Will all of Iraq’s neighbors contribute to a peacekeeping force? How will the U.S. keep other nations in the Middle East from exploiting the power vacuum in Iraq for their narrow interests? Without more detail, answers are hard to come by.

What do you think of Richardson’s plan? Is it progressive? More importantly, can it work?

Further Progressive Iraq reading:

We Need A Progressive Plan For Iraq
A Progressive Iraq: Obama’s Plan
A Progressive Iraq: The Iraq Study Group Report
A Progressive Iraq: Looking Far Forward
A Progressive Iraq: The Center For American Progress - Strategic Reset
A Progressive Iraq: Joe Biden’s Soft Partition
A Progressive Iraq: The Brookings Institute - Soft Partition

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