He Won't Back Down

Posted By James Forsyth Thursday, October 19, 2006 - 5:12 PM Share

“No good options,” used to be Washington’s favorite cliché about Iran policy. It is in danger of becoming the buzz phrase for Iraq too. The whispers that the Bush administration will accept partition or a coup in Iraq are getting ever louder. Either option would be disastrous. As one of my smartest friends likes to say, partitioning Iraq would be like the partition of India—in which more than half a million people died—but with added AK-47s. As Anthony Cordesman pointed out when Joe Biden and Les Gelb floated this idea earlier this year, "Iraq is heavily urbanized, with nearly 40 percent of the population in the multiethnic greater Baghdad and Mosul areas. We have seen in Northern Ireland and the Balkans how difficult it is to split cities." For difficult, read bloody.

A coup also seems superficially appealing: Get a strong man in, restore order. But a coup is a lot like a stroke, once you’ve had one you’re much more likely to have another. The idea that a coup in Iraq would be a one time event is as naïve as the idea that a democratic society would emerge fully formed from the chrysalis of authoritarianism.

Thankfully,a U.S.-sanctioned coup or partition appears unlikely. Bush doesn’t sound like a man about to embrace either option. “It is [surrender], if you pull the troops out before the job is done,” he told George Stephanopoulos. If it weren't for that pesky cease and desist letter, Bush would be breaking out the Tom Petty again: “I won't back down, no I won't back down, You can stand me up at the gates of hell, But I won't back down.”

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