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Tomdispatch Interview: Juan Cole on Withdrawal from Iraq

[Note to Tomdispatch readers: Part 1 of the Juan Cole interview, "The Treasure, the Strongbox, and the Crowbar," can be read by clicking here. Tom]


Throwing Grenades in the Global Economic Cockpit
A Tomdispatch Interview with Juan Cole (Part 2)

On September 22nd, Tomdispatch posted a piece by Michael Schwartz, Why Immediate Withdrawal Makes Sense, which ended:

"American withdrawal would undoubtedly leave a riven, impoverished Iraq, awash in a sea of weaponry, with problems galore, and numerous possibilities for future violence. The either/or of this situation may not be pretty, but on a grim landscape, a single reality stands out clearly: Not only is the American presence the main source of civilian casualties, it is also the primary contributor to the threat of civil war in Iraq. The longer we wait to withdraw, the worse the situation is likely to get -- for the U.S. and for the Iraqis."

The next day, at his Informed Comment website, Juan Cole posted a response in which he wrote, "I just cannot understand this sort of argument," and then laid out the nature of his disagreement with it in some detail. This started several days of debate among various experts, scholars, and bloggers at his site (and elsewhere) which resulted in Cole rethinking his position somewhat and issuing an eloquent call for American ground troops to be withdrawn from Iraq. (If you haven't read it, you should!)

This debate and discussion provides the basis for the second half of Tomdispatch's interview with Cole. My own thoughts on withdrawal can be found at Withdrawal on the Agenda, a June 2005 updating of a piece, Time of Withdrawal, I wrote six months after the fall of Baghdad. You should also know that I consider the "nightmare scenario" Cole lays out below but one (frightening) possibility in Iraq's future. Based on memories of the Vietnam era, I'm wary of all predictions about the horrors that are bound to occur if the United States were to withdraw, or withdraw too quickly, as well as fears of a "bloodbath-to-come." This is a complex issue I hope to take up in a dispatch later in the week. Meanwhile, onward.

Tomdispatch: Now I want to turn to the issue of withdrawal. I've been particularly impressed that, at your site, you post your own intellectual development, so to speak -- and that includes putting up letters and essays by people who take you on. This is unbelievably rare. The reader can actually see a brain at work, regularly reassessing a changing situation. It's been especially true on the question of the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. Having gone back recently to read your site's earliest months, it's obvious that you've become fiercer and angrier as time has gone on in relation to the Bush administration. You recently wrote a piece saying that U.S. ground troops must come out now, "for the good of Iraq, for the good of America." Would you discuss the development of your thoughts on this? Where are you now on the issue of withdrawal and how it might happen?

Click here to read more of this dispatch.

** Read more of Tom Engelhardt's intelligent, informative, profound Dispatches and Tomgrams at Tomdispatch.com

posted by Annamarie at 11:26 PM