Exit Strategy

Since about two months after our invasion of Iraq and overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime, there has been an outcry, mostly from the President's political foes, for an exit strategy. Some of those demanding an exit strategy seem to be talking about a plan for withdrawal -- a specific timeline for pulling all our troops and equipment out of Iraq and bringing them home. Others seem to want discrete measurable criteria specified as a basis for the withdrawal rather than a specific timeline; that is, a results based strategy. What the latter group is asking for is closer to an actual strategy than the former group, but even they are demanding too much specificity. A strategy should be simple enough to be stated in one or two sentences and it should be goal oriented. A plan, including a timeline, is the instrument for executing a strategy. Stated more specifically, an exit strategy is a definition of the conditions that trigger the execution of a withdrawal plan, not the plan itself.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines a military strategy as "the science and art of using all the forces of a nation to execute approved plans as effectively as possible during peace or war." Wikipedia says that an exit strategy "is a means of escaping one's current situation, typically an unfavorable situation. An organization or individual without an exit strategy may be in a quagmire. At worst, an exit strategy will save face; at best, an exit strategy will peg a withdrawal to the achievement of an objective worth more than the cost of continued involvement." Both support my contention that a strategy is distinctly different from a plan.

Any military force that initiates an operation of the magnitude of the Iraq invasion should most definitely have an exit strategy in hand. And it should have at least the basics of a plan to execute the exit, but it is not necessary to make the exit plan public. In fact, there are very good reasons not to make it public. Contrary to his political opponents' constant dissembling, President Bush has clearly stated his exit strategy from the beginning of the operation: We will withdraw from Iraq when the Iraqis have a stable government in place and are able to provide their own security. That is all the public needs to know. The method of determining when those criteria are met should be closely held.

Some might argue, justifiably, that Bush's exit strategy doesn't cover the possibility that we never meet its conditions. That doesn't mean, of course, that he hasn't considered that possibility; it just means that he chooses not to talk about it. Does any rational person think that he should be publicly stating this exit strategy?: We will withdraw from Iraq when the Iraqis have a stable government in place and are able to provide their own security, or when we've been there five years. How foolish would that be?

On a humorous note, George Saunders at Slate proposed an exit strategy, or at least a strategy to subvert Bush's exit strategy. In essence he recommends that we just convince the insurgents to stop killing us long enough for us to get out. He wrote this over a year ago so now he would probably agree that we also have to convince them to stop killing one another.

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