Samantha Power’s Interview with Tucker Carlson:
(h/t sagereader)
Power lays out Obama’s Iraq plan in detail, addressing the details of a residual force:
Power: What Obama has said is that he would start withdrawing immediately. The generals with whom he’s consulted have told him that you can do so responsibly out at about a brigade or two a month.
And he wants to keep a residual force to do counter-terrorism, as distinct from counter-insurgency. It’s unclear yet whether that would be in Kurdistan or where you would put a kind of quick reaction force. But also, as you suggest, to maintain diplomatic installations and so forth. You don’t want to leave civilians in Iraq without the protection that they need to do their work — which is in fact where the future of Iraq is going to rest, is with diplomacy and with the politics of the place.
The important things to note here, combined with Obama’s statement yesterday on NPR, are that the Obama team is talking about a rapid response force, focused solely on counter-terrorism and not counter-insurgency, stationed in Kurdistan or in neighboring countries — in either case, with American troops away from daily policing patrols and government protection.
In the most interesting exchange, Tucker Carlson addressed Obama’s qualifier that he would train Iraqi security forces only if those forces are proven not to pursue sectarian ends:
Tucker: So Senator Obama says that we should not continue to train Iraqi security forces if they maintain their sectarian cast? Will stopping the training of those forces make them less sectarian? Wouldn’t it make them more sectarian if we pull out and stop training them?
Power: Well, the fact of the matter is that we’ve been arming the Bahdi militia to do things to Sunni that I don’t think the American taxpayer feel completely comfortable with… with our taxpayer dollars going to that cause.
We have to be careful with just hemorrhaging more money, more arms into the sinkhole that is the central government — that ultimately is the very Iranian-dominated government that President Bush warns will come with a withdrawal.
In very tough language, Power argues that government security forces that American troops are training are, at a minimum, being used for sectarian ends and, at worst, using American arms and training to commit war crimes. She doesn’t equivocate when Tucker challenges the position but emphasizes that the Iraqi government must reach political compromises before American training continues.
If you read Obama’s plan carefully, you’ll also see this:
Refuse to Provide U.S. Assistance to Sectarian Actors: The Obama plan would encourage the Iraqi government to adopt policies that give regional and local groups a sufficient stake in the center so they are deterred from attempting to overthrow the central government or completely break away. He would work to ensure local communities can protect themselves without threatening other groups. He would fight for greater transparency in local security efforts to reduce anxieties among all sects that America intends to support one sect over another. Obama also would crack down on the use of American foreign assistance to sectarian ends or by sectarian actors. This problem was made clear by two recent studies, one of which concluded the United States cannot account for 190,000 weapons provided to Iraqi Security Forces and another which found weapons issued by the United States to Iraqi Security Forces among Kurdish militants in Turkey.
The net result of these preconditions is a scaling back of the size of the residual force to predominantly protecting American embassy staff and other civilian personnel.
Samantha Power on the Ongoing Refugee Crisis in Iraq:
Tucker also pushes the Republican talking point that Iraq will devolve into chaos and genocide if American troops pull out. Power’s response is interesting:
Tucker: […] But I was troubled and kind of amazed by the lack of specifics about what he thinks is going to happen when we leave. Towards the end of the speech, he kind of hints at what he thinks and he appears to believe that they’re going to be more refugees, greater displacement, more sectarian violence. And then he says this, ‘We have a strategic interest and a moral obligation to act to prevent those things.’ But won’t our pulling out increase those things, increase the displacement of refugees, and increase the sectarian violence?
Power: Well really, I couldn’t disagree more with your characterization of his speech, and I urge your viewers to actually go online and read the speech, because I think actually what this does is it moves us away from denialism on the part of the Bush administration again that there is a humanitarian catastrophe underway in Iraq and the flippancy of some on the left who suggest that we can just withdraw and everything will be fine because we’re the source of all the violence.
I think what Obama actually does is lay out a constructive, responsible program for how we try to protect civilians. There’s a lot of rhetoric on both sides of the aisle about how this is all about the Iraqi’s, ‘we’ve gotta protect the Iraqi’s, the Iraqi’s, the Iraqi’s’… and very little in the way of policy has actually been oriented towards deterring atrocities, enhancing civilian protection, and assisting neighboring countries who are dealing with these 2 million who have flowed into those neighboring countries. As you know, Tucker, we’ve only let in 190 Iraqis into this country this year, whereas Syria, one of our great nemeses, has let in a million. So we have actually got to be sure, in announcing that we’re going to withdraw, giving people fair notice, facilitating their movement if that’s what they want. I think that’s about a responsible withdrawal.
Power highlights Obama’s recognition of the humanitarian catastrophe taking place in Iraq and his plan for: A: Providing an additional $2 billion in refugee assistance B:
Fulfill America’s Obligation to Accept Refugees: The State Department pledged to allow 7,000 Iraqi refugees into America, but has only let 190 into the United States. Obama would expedite the Department of Homeland Security’s review of Iraqi asylum applicants. Obama also would appeal to the Coalition’s original partners to expand their refugee quotas. Coalition partners such as Great Britain, Australia, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Japan have done woefully little to meet the refugee crisis, and must be encouraged to do more. Arab governments, especially American allies such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, should also be enlisted.
C: Ensure the UN establishes “establish an independent war crimes commission or a special investigator who can gather testimonies of survivors and investigate war crimes.” D: Setting up an international working group of neighboring countries to coordinate humanitarian aid.
Conclusion: Why Need To Get Out Of Iraq:
To get back to the interview:
Tucker: But again, if he’s says clearly, we have a moral obligation to help prevent sectarian violence, maybe even genocide, won’t our withdrawal of most US combat troops increase the level of sectarian violence? It seems like a central contradiction, kind of…
Power: There’s a lot of imperfect information that all of us are operating with. What we do know is that, of course, the United States troops were a magnet for al Qaeda and a magnet for a whole number of other foreign fighters. We do know that the Iraqi people who should themselves, if poll data is to be trusted, have the best sense of what will amplify the violence and what will tone it down — they have consistently asked over the last five years for a US withdrawal. That’s not to say all of them have. Obviously Sunni are feeling very, very vulnerable in the Sunni triangle.
But the fact of the matter is that the American people have spoken; global public opinion has spoken; it’s incredibly that we can move on and actually deal with the al Qaeda challenge we face worldwide — so that we can begin the challenge of restoring our leadership worldwide — to get out of Iraq. That signal has been sent again and again.
What’s important about Obama’s speech today is that he’s not saying let’s get out of Iraq willy-nilly and consequences be damned, he’s actually trying to manage those consequences by focusing on regional diplomacy, by assisting the countries that are going to be most affected by any sectarian violence and he basically recognizes that if there is a short-term spike in violence with a US departure that in long term what he’s looking to is the long-term stability of Iraq and that’s going to come about not because of military action and US troop presence but because of politics.
And that’s what the Anbar results, which everybody are vaunting as they should be — that’s all about local politics and local diplomacy, micro-diplomacy. It’s not about a military surge.
