SAVING WHO WE CAN….Ah, the conundrum that is The New Republic. Today’s essays from their “What To Do About Iraq” issue include two pieces, both by political science professors, that are diametrically opposed and yet still manage to contain not a single glimmer of intelligent thought between them. (Your choices: James Kurth suggests we obliterate the Sunnis because they’ve been such bastards, while Josef Joffe suggests we team up with the Sunnis in order to annoy Iran. Neither writer even remotely explains how we’re supposed to accomplish either one of these goals.)
But then there’s George Packer, who writes a genuinely thought provoking piece. Iraq is well and truly lost, he says, but a lot of Iraqis who worked with us and trusted us will die hideous deaths if we abandon them:
Those Iraqis who have had anything to do with the occupation and its promises of democracy will be among the first to be killed: the translators, the government officials, the embassy employees, the journalists, the organizers of women’s and human rights groups.
….If the United States leaves Iraq, our last shred of honor and decency will require us to save as many of these Iraqis as possible. In June, a U.S. Embassy cable about the lives of the Iraqi staff was leaked to The Washington Post. Among many disturbing examples of intimidation and fear was this sentence: “In March, a few staff approached us to ask what provisions would we make for them if we evacuate.” The cable gave no answer. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad does not issue visas.
….We should start issuing visas in Baghdad, as well as in the regional embassies in Mosul, Kirkuk, Hilla, and Basra. We should issue them liberally, which means that we should vastly increase our quota for Iraqi refugees. (Last year, it was fewer than 200.) We should prepare contingency plans for massive airlifts and ground escorts. We should be ready for desperate and angry crowds at the gates of the Green Zone and U.S. bases. We should not allow wishful thinking to put off these decisions until it’s too late. We should not compound our betrayals of Iraqis who put their hopes in our hands.
On moral grounds, it’s hard to conceive of any argument against Packer. The only question is: Is it practical? Can we actually do what he suggests? How would we address the obvious security problems inherent in a relocation program?
The only way to know is for people with experience to study the issue and create a plan. But what are the odds that anyone in the Bush administration will ever allow this to happen?
