Make Them Fight All of Us / By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN / NY Times / 1/13/07

I’ve heard the president’s surge speech, and I have a reaction, an observation and some advice.

My reaction to the president’s speech was to recall a line from Bill Maher’s book about the war against terrorists: “Make them fight all of us.”
Mr. President, you want a surge? I’ll surge. I’ll surge on the condition that you once and for all enlist the entire American people in this war effort, and stop putting it all on the shoulders of 130,000 military families, and now 20,000 more. I’ll surge on the condition that you make them fight all of us — and that means a real energy policy, with a real gasoline tax, that ends our addiction to oil, shrinks the flow of petro-dollars to bad actors and makes America the world’s leader in conservation.

But please, Mr. President, stop insulting our intelligence by telling us that this is the “decisive ideological struggle of our time,” but we’re going to put the whole burden of victory on 150,000 U.S. soldiers. Yes, you’re right, confronting violent Islamic radicalism by trying to tilt Iraq and the Arab-Muslim world onto a more progressive track is indeed hugely important. But the way you have fought this war — with our pinky — is contemptible. For three years you would not summon the military means to back your lofty ends. That led to a vacuum. The Sunnis, who refused to accept majority rule by Shiites, went on a murderous rampage, and that rampage has now metastasized into five different wars in Iraq : Sunnis against Shiites; Sunnis and Shiites against the U.S. “occupiers”; Al Qaeda against the U.S.; Shiite theocratic thugs against ordinary Shiites; and Iran ,Syria and all the Arab autocrats against any kind of democratic, Shiite-led Iraq that could be a model for their own people.

Hence my observation: The notion that the only war in Iraq now is good guys versus terrorists is ludicrous. There is no center in Iraq . And when there is no center and you put in more troops, you end up supporting a side. (See Lebanon : 1982)
And now for the advice. At this 11th hour, with Iraq’s sectarian fires raging, the only way more U.S. troops might bring stability is if you add two missing elements: a deadline and a floor.

You need to tell Iraqis that by calling for a surge in troops you’re giving them one last chance to reconcile, otherwise we’re gone by Dec. 1. And you need to tell Americans that you’re creating a $45-a-barrel floor price for imported oil, so investors can safely finance alternatives without worrying that they’ll be undercut by OPEC.

By not setting a hard date to leave Iraq , we are only putting a floor under bad behavior and allowing Iraqi leaders to pay wholesale, not retail, for their tribal politics. If Sunnis or Shiites want it “all” in Iraq , they have to pay for it all.

Of course, just leaving would be bad for us and terrible for those Iraqis who have worked with us. We need to give them all U.S. passports. We have a moral responsibility to them. But it would also be bad for a lot of bad people. They would be left to fight it out with each other. And yes, Syria and Iran would “win” Iraq — meaning they’d win the responsibility of managing the mess there or have it spill over on them. Have a nice day.

And by not setting a hard floor price for oil to promote alternative energy, we are only helping to subsidize bad governance by Arab leaders toward their people and bad behavior by Americans toward the climate.

Make them fight all of us, Mr. President, or don’t do it at all! If we made ourselves energy independent, we would bring down global oil prices, which would not only shrink the resources for mischief by our enemies and limit Saudi Arabia’s ability to transform Islam all over the world into its most intolerant Wahhabi form, but also, more important, would force the Arab world to reform. It would force Arab leaders, including Iraqis, to organize their societies in ways that would tap their people, not just their oil wells — whether our troops were there or not. Also, if the rest of the world saw all of us sacrificing to win this war, we might actually be able to enlist them to help a little.

More troops alone will not suffice. The only tiny hope left of transforming Iraq is if its leaders have to pay the full retail price of their passions and we have to pay the full retail price of our oil. And if even that won’t work, then setting a date and setting an oil price will extract us from this disaster and make us less vulnerable to the madness we leave behind.

If we fail in Iraq , at least let America be stronger — by being energy independent — the morning after.