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Thursday, April 15, 2004

Should we stay or should we go?

I readily admit I don't swim as far out as many bloggers in the swells of Iraq analysis, but I do take a daily casual dip in the shallows. It suddenly struck me today as weird that I haven't seen any discussion of using the opportunity of our military occupation to organize and, along with sufficient legitimate U.N. observers, supervise a sweeping [isn't that the usual adjective?] Iraqi referendum just on the U.S. presence (nevermind the constitution of the Iraqi government). Of course, logistically a referendum would be difficult and expensive to pull together and conduct openly and fairly. But it's certainly not impossible. Would it really cost us more in the long run to hold soon a legitimate nationwide vote on our presence than to continue sluicing money into our military approach, in the dark about the will of the people? Sure, extremist parties might threaten to boycott the polls. But mightn't we come up with some sort of incentive to vote that would be difficult for non-extremists to turn down (vouchers for food or some govt benefit, plus a credible guarantee of voters' security and anonymity)? Then the world would have at least a version of a sense of the Iraqi people's voice. The question could be fairly simple and straightforward:
The United States military should either:
  1. pull out of Iraq completely as soon as possible by [June 30, or whatever]?
  2. continue its role in maintaining Iraqi security and inhibiting internecine violence until [some date arrives or condition is met] and then pull out

I was tempted to add a question about the form the Iraqi govt should ultimately take, but I think that a simple referendum on the desirability of our presence/assistance should be the first step.

Maybe this is pie-in-the-sky thinking.

I've never actually spent time thinking about a pie in the sky.
Posted by: Mika / 4/15/2004 06:11:00 PM permalink  · 0 comments
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