Negotiate a US exit from Iraq

The United Nations must lead the effort to broker an orderly withdrawal.

from the June 14, 2007 edition

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Charlottesville, Va. - Can Washington disentangle itself from the lethal imbroglio of Iraq without radically revising the prickly, dismissive attitude it has maintained toward the United Nations for the past five years? I doubt it.

For if America's very vulnerable troop presence in Iraq is to be drawn down, either partially or – as I believe is necessary – wholly, and in anything like an orderly way, then that withdrawal must be negotiated. And no body but the UN can successfully convene these negotiations.

The strong support that the US military's engagement in Iraq once enjoyed from the US public has now crumbled. A recent USA Today/Gallup poll found that 56 percent of Americans said they would support legislation related to the Iraq war only if it includes a timetable for removing US troops from the country.

Even former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has shifted. In August 2005, he wrote in The Washington Post that "victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy."

By January of this year, he was calling for a negotiated US troop exit without any mention of "victory." In an essay published May 31 in the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Kissinger noted that a "rapid unilateral [US] withdrawal would be disastrous." But he stressed, again, that in Iraq, "a political solution remains imperative."

I have been calling for a negotiated troop withdrawal from Iraq since 2003. However, my lengthy studies (and personal experience) of several conflicts during the past 30 years lead me to understand the complexity of the diplomacy required to convene and structure this negotiation.

The broad distribution of US troops throughout Iraq and the vulnerability of their supply lines make the task of extracting them and their equipment safely through the single, close-to-Iran choke point of Basra/Kuwait unthinkable unless a multilayered agreement on the modalities of this large-scale troop movement is reached in advance.

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