'How to stop genocide in Iraq.
Offering the carrot of U.S. withdrawal may be the best way to end ethnic cleansing in Iraq.
By Samantha Power,
SAMANTHA POWER, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning " 'A Problem From Hell': America and the Age of Genocide."
THOSE WHO SUPPORT remaining in Iraq increasingly can be heard invoking the specter of genocide as grounds for staying. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned that, if U.S. troops leave, "You'll see a bloodletting in Baghdad that makes Srebrenica look like a Sunday school picnic." Some defenders of President Bush's approach, having backed the Iraq war from the start, have now settled on genocide warnings after each of their original justifications for being in Iraq — weapons of mass destruction, terrorism prevention, energy diversification, regional stabilization and democracy promotion — has crumbled one by one.Other proponents of remaining in Iraq are not, in fact, looking to redeem their own faulty judgment. They are genuinely frightened that, as ferocious as the civil war there has become, a U.S. withdrawal could unleash an all-out slaughter. With increasing numbers of civilian corpses piling up every day, they have reason to worry.Although critics of withdrawal do a masterful job of painting a grim picture of the apocalypse that awaits, they offer no account of how U.S. forces in Iraq will do more than preserve a status quo that is already deteriorating into wholesale ethnic cleansing. Although more than 115,000 U.S. troops have been in Iraq for the last four years, about 3.8 million Iraqis have fled their homes and at least 50,000 Iraqis are fleeing each month. It would be nice to think the surge of troops to Baghdad would help to staunch the flow. But with only one-third of the new troops on duty at any given time in a city of 6 million people, they will have no more success deterring the militias intent on carving out homogeneous Shiite or Sunni neighborhoods than U.S. forces have had to date. About 74% of Shiites polled and 91% of Sunnis — the people who have the most to fear from genocide — would like to see U.S. forces gone by the end of the year.Unfortunately, many of those who favor a U.S. exit have recklessly waved off atrocity warnings or taken to blaming Iraqis for their plight. What is needed to stave off even greater carnage than we see today is neither assuming massacres won't happen nor suspending thought until the surge has demonstrably failed in six months — at which point other options may no longer be viable. Rather, we must announce our intention to depart and use the intervening months to prioritize civilian protection by pursuing a bold set of measures combining political pressure, humanitarian relocation and judicial deterrence.'
Offering the carrot of U.S. withdrawal may be the best way to end ethnic cleansing in Iraq.
By Samantha Power,
SAMANTHA POWER, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning " 'A Problem From Hell': America and the Age of Genocide."
THOSE WHO SUPPORT remaining in Iraq increasingly can be heard invoking the specter of genocide as grounds for staying. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned that, if U.S. troops leave, "You'll see a bloodletting in Baghdad that makes Srebrenica look like a Sunday school picnic." Some defenders of President Bush's approach, having backed the Iraq war from the start, have now settled on genocide warnings after each of their original justifications for being in Iraq — weapons of mass destruction, terrorism prevention, energy diversification, regional stabilization and democracy promotion — has crumbled one by one.Other proponents of remaining in Iraq are not, in fact, looking to redeem their own faulty judgment. They are genuinely frightened that, as ferocious as the civil war there has become, a U.S. withdrawal could unleash an all-out slaughter. With increasing numbers of civilian corpses piling up every day, they have reason to worry.Although critics of withdrawal do a masterful job of painting a grim picture of the apocalypse that awaits, they offer no account of how U.S. forces in Iraq will do more than preserve a status quo that is already deteriorating into wholesale ethnic cleansing. Although more than 115,000 U.S. troops have been in Iraq for the last four years, about 3.8 million Iraqis have fled their homes and at least 50,000 Iraqis are fleeing each month. It would be nice to think the surge of troops to Baghdad would help to staunch the flow. But with only one-third of the new troops on duty at any given time in a city of 6 million people, they will have no more success deterring the militias intent on carving out homogeneous Shiite or Sunni neighborhoods than U.S. forces have had to date. About 74% of Shiites polled and 91% of Sunnis — the people who have the most to fear from genocide — would like to see U.S. forces gone by the end of the year.Unfortunately, many of those who favor a U.S. exit have recklessly waved off atrocity warnings or taken to blaming Iraqis for their plight. What is needed to stave off even greater carnage than we see today is neither assuming massacres won't happen nor suspending thought until the surge has demonstrably failed in six months — at which point other options may no longer be viable. Rather, we must announce our intention to depart and use the intervening months to prioritize civilian protection by pursuing a bold set of measures combining political pressure, humanitarian relocation and judicial deterrence.'
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