Rep. BRIAN BAIRD'S about-face on IRAQ

August 21, 2007

The Washington Post reported on its front page Tuesday that Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA 3rd) has changed his position on Iraq: "Rep. Brian Baird (Wash.) said yesterday that he will no longer vote for binding troop withdrawal timelines."[2]

Baird's switch is an important contribution to making the Iraq disaster an even more thoroughly bipartisan venture than it already is. Since there is disunity in the peace movement, and since constitutional means to oust the Bush administration from power appear to have little prospect of succeeding, the catastrophe in Iraq now seems set to continue for a long, long time.

Was Baird right to change his position? Let's examine his thinking.

News of Baird's shift was first reported by the Olympian (Olympia, WA) in an article published Aug. 17. In it, Baird said: "I know it's going to cost hundreds of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars."[3] But the U.S. has, according to Baird, "a responsibility to the Iraqi people and a strategic interest in making this work."

"People may be upset. I wish I didn't have to say this," he said, but "[o]ne, I think we're making real progress," and "[s]econdly, I think the consequences of pulling back precipitously would be potentially catastrophic for the Iraqi people themselves, to whom we have a tremendous responsibility . . . and in the long run chaotic for the region as a whole and for our own security."

We get more insight into Baird's thinking from his remarks to the Columbian (Vancouver, WA), also published on Aug. 17: "I have come to believe that calls for premature withdrawal may make it more difficult for Iraqis to solve their problems. If you have some guarantee of support, you have working space to reach out and involve the other side. If you think we are going to withdraw and chaos and civil war might ensue, then the decision is different. It's no longer 'Let's reach out,' but 'Let's prepare for the coming war.' That's a very different mind-set."[4]

To the Columbian, Baird also said: "Because of the additional troops, our forces have been able to take it to the insurgents. They have been able to put units out into the field proactively. The more you bring someone in, the more you get contacts to bring the next person in. When you find the bomb factories, you save a lot of lives."

Baird justified his view by saying that he now believes there is "some chance of a reasonable outcome by staying a little longer," adding: "The party leadership may be in a different place than I am right now."

"Every major political leader [sic] in the region has said to me, 'You think you can walk away from all this, but your actions created the instability.' If we fail there, the consequences for our national security interests and for the Iraqi people will be grave."

Baird's remarks indicate that on his trip to the Middle East he fell victim to a number of fallacies: 1) that Iraq as an entity with an effectively functioning government still exists; 2) that there is a unified opposition that can be called "the other side"; 3) that civil war in Iraq is something that "might ensue" and that can be avoided; 4) that the U.S. staying in Iraq will work against "instability."

The first three claims are demonstrably false; the fourth, which has been continuously asserted for more than four years now, is and has long been implausible.

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