All Troops PIC (1/1)	3

All Troops Extension	4

All Troops Solvency Extension	5

Solvency Take-out	6

Advantage CP – Iran (1/1)	7

2NC Overview	8

AT: Sanctions prevent diplomacy	9

Condition CP (1/3)	10

Condition CP (2/3)	11

Condition CP (3/3)	12

2NC Overview	13

Condition CP extension	14

Condition CP extension	15

Condition CP extension	16

Condition CP extension	17

AT: Maliki will say no	18

AT: Pressure isn’t key	19

AT: Perm – Do Both	20

Iran Relations Frontline (1/5)	21

Iran Relations Frontline (2/5)	22

Iran Relations Frontline (3/5)	23

Iran Relations Frontline (4/5)	25

Iran Relations Frontline (5/5)	26

Iran Relations Extensions	28

Iran Relations Extensions	29

Soft Power Frontline (1/2)	30

Soft Power Frontline (2/2)	31

Soft Power Extensions	32

Soft Power Extensions	33

Soft Power Extensions	34

Overstretch Frontline (1/2)	35

Overstretch Frontline (2/2)	36

Overstretch Extension	37

Overstretch Extension	38

Overstretch Solvency Take-outs	39

Iraq Stability (1/1)	40

Iraq Stability Extensions	41

Iraq Stability Extensions	42

Iraq Stability Extensions	43

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS	44

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Condition CP	45

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Condition CP	46

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Iran relations	47

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Soft Power Adv.	48

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Overstretch Good	49

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Overstretch Good	50

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Iraq Unstable	51

All Troops PIC (1/1)

Counterplan Text: The United States federal government should remove all active service members with the exception of “Advisory Assistance Brigades” by 2011 as specified by the U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement.

Keeping 35,000 troops (AABs) past the deadline solves CMR disagreements and prevents a civil war

Star this card – you are going to want to read it *

Pollack, Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, and Sargsyan, Research Analyst at the Saban Center and Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Government at Georgetown University, 2010 (Kenneth M. and Irena L., “The Other Side of the COIN: Perils of Premature Evacuation from Iraq,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2, pg. 17-32)

Thus, the real threat conjured by these historical patterns is not so much that a hasty U.S. withdrawal could result in a new Iraqi dictatorship. As bad as that would be, it would be preferable to the most likely outcome, which would be a resumption of all out civil war when the would-be dictator’s bid for power succeeded only in fracturing the Iraqi security forces, crippling the government, and prompting all of Iraq’s previously warring factions to resume their unfinished battles. Having made the political decision to withdraw the vast majority of U.S. troops, Washington is, to a certain extent, simply stuck with this risk. But it is a risk that can be mitigated, particularly by modulating the drawdown in accord with Iraq’s political circumstances, and being willing to show the flexibility and adaptability that Obama insisted on in his February 2009 speech on Iraq.18 Perhaps of greater importance still will be the president’s plan to leave behind 35,000—50,000 U.S. troops—many of them combat troops rebadged as advisors in ‘‘Advisory Assistance Brigades’’ (AABs)—until at least the end of 2011 to guard against future instability. Maintaining the AAB force in Iraq will likely be necessary, if the United States is to avoid the mistakes it made in Latin America and Southeast Asia in the twentieth century. These brigades retain virtually all of the personnel and much of the equipment of full combat brigades. Indeed, in an emergency, several of the AABs will be able to rapidly reequip as full-spectrum combat units. Thus, these brigades will perform a dual role: they will serve as advisors in peacetime but could quickly become combat brigades in a crisis. In many ways, the formation of the AABs is a clever way to square the circle between the president’s commitments to transition U.S. troops away from combat missions while still retaining combat capacity in Iraq to guard against crucial problems such as the propensity of COIN-trained developing armies to overthrow civilian governments. In turn, this arrangement highlights another critical political-diplomatic hurdle that the United States faces in Iraq: securing a new agreement with the Iraqi government that would allow U.S. military forces to remain in the country beyond 2011. At present, the security agreement governing the presence of U.S. military personnel in Iraq expires on December 31, 2011. This means that every last U.S. soldier, sailor, airman, and marine must be out by that date. Because this subject is politically sensitive in both the United States and Iraq, no one is willing to discuss it. But Iraqi and U.S. military and civilian leaders alike recognize that a follow-on agreement to extend the U.S. military presence beyond 2011 would be desirable and probably necessary. It is highly unlikely that Iraq will have sorted out its political and security problems by the end of 2011, including finding a solution to the propensity of COIN-trained militaries to move against the civilian leadership. Consequently, it will be critical for the United States to retain at least the AABs for at least 3—5 years after the expiration of the current security agreement to allow Iraqi civil-military relations to mature, Iraqi political institutions to strengthen, and a culture of apolitical professionalism to take root within the Iraqi military before the last U.S. combat troops (even if they are masquerading as advisors) depart.

All Troops Extension

The removal of all troops is not possible with current Iraq violence – training personnel must stay to train government forces to maintain peace

Salem-News.com 2009 [Erin S. Margolis, staff writer for the Salem-News, March 8th, IRAQ: Pull out or dig in?

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/march082009/iraq_status_3-8-09.php]

A lot of Americans who voted for candidate Barack Obama because of his promises to end George Bush’s war in Iraq are feeling dismayed, or even betrayed. During the election campaign, Obama vowed to swiftly bring US troops home from Iraq. He denounced the invasion and occupation of Iraq as a `violation of international law.’ Obama did say he would keep some US troops in Iraq for `training’ government forces, but few voters knew what he meant at the time, and even fewer paid attention to this fine print. We believed the Iraq nightmare would finally be over. So will US troops leave Iraq? Will those responsible for this trumped-up war face justice? Probably not. Last week, President Obama announced US combat troops will leave Iraq by August, 2010, and that all US troops would be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.`By August 31, 2010, our combat mission will end,’ said Obama. In fact, it appears the US military occupation may not end, at least not soon. What we are seeing is a public relations shell game. The US has 142,00 combat troops in Iraq. Some 90,000 are due to be withdrawn. But around 50,000 troops and an unknown number of armed US-paid mercenaries will remain in Iraq. Many of the troops to be withdrawn are slated to go to expanding US military operations in Afghanistan. The president and his advisors are re-branding the stay-behind garrison as `training troops,’ as `protection forces for American interests,’ and as `counter-terrorism units.’ These designations arouse suspicion. American `interests’ in Iraq and the wider Mideast will remain after 2011. So will what Washington brands `terrorism.’ Once all US troops are withdrawn, there is a high probability that Iraq’s US-supported government could be quickly swept away and replaced by an Iranian-dominated regime, or even by a resurgent Ba’ath Party. There are many reasons for the Pentagon to demand that the 2011 deadline be extended, perhaps indefinitely.

All Troops Solvency Extension

Obama hopes to leave troops for training purposes

Elliot 05/14 [Justin, staff writer for TPMmuckraker, 2010, “Is Obama’s Iraq Pullout Deadline Still Possible?” TPMmuckraker’

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/obama_iraq_pullout_still_possible_chart.php]

In order for President Obama to meet his pledge to get Iraq troop levels down to 50,000 by August, the military will have to exit the country at a rate of about 14,000 troops per month -- a difficult but doable task, military observers tell TPMmuckraker. The number of U.S. troops in Iraq currently stands at 94,100, according to the Pentagon. Unless Obama changes his policy, the military must get at least 44,000 troops out of Iraq by August. The Pentagon said recently that it expects to get down to 91,000 by the end of May, at which point an accelerated pullout will begin. (See chart below.) While the AP this week quoted two "senior administration officials" saying that "the White House is closely watching to see if the Aug. 31 date needs to be pushed back," military observers interviewed by TPMmuckraker say the accelerated pullout is possible if the will exists. "If we are to meet the president's objective, the logisticians will throw more resources at it," says Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.), who trained Iraqi troops in the early years of the war and is now a senior adviser at the National Security Network. "We do want to pull all their unit equipment out with them. That's not trivial. But major stuff like vehicles that are a bit of a challenge -- it wouldn't surprise me if we would keep some or move those out a little more slowly." Peter Juul, a military affairs researcher at the Center for American Progress, says, "They may be cutting it close in terms of a cut-off point where meeting the deadline becomes unfeasible from a technical perspective, but I haven't seen anything to make me think that they would be missing the deadline." In his February 2009 speech at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Obama pledged that the "combat mission" in Iraq would end by August 31, 2010. The United States would keep 35,000 to 50,000 troops for what he described as a training and advisory mission. He said all U.S. troops would be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. During the campaign, Obama promised "to end the war safely and responsibly within 16 months." If the administration had followed through, the war would have been over by this month. Below is a chart of troop levels in Iraq since November 2008. The Defense Department provided TPMmuckraker with monthly troop numbers, as counted by U.S. Central Command. The figures, Pentagon spokeswoman Elizabeth Robbins tells TPMmuckraker, do not include "small numbers of troops" that are not under Central Command's control.

Solvency Take-out

"Combat troops" is a term of art - only 15 of the 50 brigades in Iraq are designated as such

Auken 2008 [Bill Van Auken, staff writer for the WSWS, “New York Times bares Obama’s campaign lies on Iraq war” Dec. 6th, 2008 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2144121/posts]

As the article makes clear, "combat troops" is a term of art, or in the case of the Obama campaign, of deception. Only 15 out of 50 brigade-strength units now deployed in the occupied country are formally classified as "combat" troops. The rest are considered "support" units, though large sections of them are armed and participate in combat operations.

Advantage CP – Iran (1/1)

The United States federal government should maintain the UN sanctions and engage in diplomatic talks with Iran

The only solution for Iran relations is to utilize both the sanctions and diplomatic negotiations – they offer the most success

Associated Press 03/05 [no author given, staff writer for the Associated Press, “China backs diplomacy, not sanctions, on Iran”, 2010, http://www.japantoday.com/category/world/view/china-backs-diplomacy-not-sanctions-on-iran]

Western powers pressed for new sanctions against Iran on Thursday but China and Russia called for diplomatic negotiations as the best way to achieve a peaceful settlement of the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program. China and Russia also urged Iran to resolve a standoff with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency and key powers on how to supply nuclear fuel for Tehran’s research reactor, saying this is key to easing current tensions. Neither China’s deputy U.N. ambassador Liu Zhenmin nor Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin responded directly to a proposal for a fourth round of sanctions against Iran, backed by the U.S., Britain, France and Germany, which was sent to their governments in recent days. It would target Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard and toughen existing measures against its shipping, banking and insurance sectors, according to well-informed U.N. diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are taking place among capitals. China, which relies on Iran for much of its energy, traditionally opposes sanctions, but it went along with the first three sanctions resolutions. It has been skeptical of the need for a fourth round of sanctions, which Western powers are seeking to pressure Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program, especially following a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that said Tehran may be making nuclear bombs. But Liu said Beijing remains in favor of addressing the Iranian nuclear issue through “the dual-track strategy” of diplomatic engagement and pressure through sanctions—a comment which U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice called “important.” She said discussions were continuing among capitals on “concrete and specific ways” to increase pressure on Iran. “The choice that Iran faces (is) quite clear: it can engage seriously in diplomacy and resolve our collective concern about its nuclear program ... or it can face greater pressure and isolation,” Rice said. Liu said Beijing has “strictly observed” its obligations to enforce the three rounds of U.N. sanctions imposed on Iran since 2006, but he stressed that Beijing does not believe that sanctions can resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which Tehran insists are purely peaceful and aimed solely at producing nuclear energy. “We believe that sanctions are not an end in themselves,” Liu said. “In no way can they provide a solution to this issue. Therefore, diplomatic negotiations and the peaceful settlement still remain the best approach.”

2NC Overview

The plan doesn’t engage in diplomatic negotiations with Iran, only the CP does, means the CP solves the Iran relations advantage better by their own solvency advocates.

Current UN sanctions preclude the ability to engage in diplomatic negotiations with Iran – only the CP uses a combination of the most recent sanctions and diplomatic negotiations to ease tensions and aid the relationship between Iran and US

Only the CP solves the Kupchan evidence – the plan doesn’t utilize diplomacy

** (should be run with frontlines for other advantages or with some DA)

AT: Sanctions prevent diplomacy

The sanctions don’t preclude diplomacy - the combination allow for negotiations, easing the tensions between the US and Iran

Bloomberg 06/10 [Bill Varner, staff writer for Bloomberg, Bloomberg Businessweek, “Iran Hit With New UN Sanctions; China Urges Diplomacy”, 2010 http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-10/iran-hit-with-new-un-sanctions-china-urges-diplomacy-update1-.html]

United Nations sanctions on Iran adopted yesterday by the Security Council include restrictions on financial transactions, a tighter arms embargo and authority to seize cargo linked to nuclear or missile programs. The 15-nation council voted 12 to 2, with one abstention, to approve a resolution that also freezes the assets of 40 companies, banks and government agencies, and bars the foreign travel of Javad Rahiqi, head of a branch of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Turkey and Brazil voted against the measure, and Lebanon abstained. China, which joined in voting for the measure, said today the sanctions don’t close off continued diplomacy. A solution to the nuclear standoff should be resolved through dialogue and diplomatic means, spokesman Qin Gang said in comments posted on the Foreign Ministry’s website after the vote. “We will ensure that these sanctions are vigorously enforced,” President Barack Obama said at the White House after the vote. “A nuclear arms race in the Middle East is in nobody’s interest.” The new penalties, the fourth set of sanctions imposed on Iran by the council since 2006, aim to block Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons and pressure the country to join international talks on the issue. Iran maintains that its nuclear development work is intended for energy production.

The UN sanctions will bring Iran back to negotiate – the sanctions combined with diplomacy will lead to compromise

TIME 5/21 [Tony Karon, staff writer for TIME, TIME in collaboration with CNN, “Iran: Can Sanctions and Diplomacy Be Combined?” http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1991035,00.html, 2010]

"The purpose of sanctions is to bring the Iranian side to the negotiating table," said Li Baodong, China's U.N. ambassador, this week, explaining how Beijing could simultaneously support a new uranium-swap deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey and endorse new U.N. sanctions. The Obama Administration appears to have convinced China of its view that sanctions pressure is integral to achieving a diplomatic compromise. That two-track concept of combining punitive pressures with diplomatic engagement may also partly explain the U.S. slap-down of the deal brokered by Turkey and Brazil — even though that agreement may have been pursued at the encouragement of the Obama Administration.

Condition CP (1/3)

The United States federal government should withdrawal all troops by 2011 if the Government of Iraq agrees to completely implement Article 140 of the constitution.

Article 140 should have been addressed in 2007 but it has been indefinitely put off – it’s key to prevent escalating ethnic violence

Katulis, Lynch, Juul, 2008 [Brian, Marc, Peter, Center for American Progress, Brian Katulis is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where his work focuses on U.S. national security policy with an emphasis on the Middle East, Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict and Pakistan, Katulis received a master’s degree from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs and a BA in History and Arab and Islamic Studies from Villanova University, Marc Lynch is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University., Peter Juul is a Research Associate at the Center for American Progress, where he specializes in the Middle East, military affairs, and U.S. national security policy. He holds degrees in international relations from Carleton College and security studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. “Iraq’s Political Transition After the Surge”, September, 2008, Pg. 20]

The constitutional provision addressing the status of the disputed city of Kirkuk—Article 140—consists of three main steps to settle Kirkuk’s status: “normalization,” or a return of people displaced by Saddam Hussein, a census, and a referendum. This process should have been completed by the end of 2007, but neither a census nor a referendum has been finalized because of unresolved disputes between Iraq’s Arabs and Kurds. The United Nations is currently attempting to broker a solution outside the Article 140 framework. Failure to resolve Kirkuk’s final status has left inter-ethnic tensions between Kurds, Arabs, and Turkomans to simmer. These tensions came to a boil in late July 2008 when a suicide bomber targeted Kurds protesting the proposed provincial election law. Kurds subsequently went on a sectarian rampage, targeting Turkoman parties they held responsible for the attack. Without prompt and fair resolution, further violence between Kurds, Turkomans, and Arabs over and within Kirkuk will become increasingly likely.

Condition CP (2/3)

Exiting without adopting the Constitution will ignite increased conflict, increasing the likelihood that the US would have to return – Only the Constitution can maintain Iraqi stability and prevent overstretch

O’Leary 2009 [Brendan, “Departing Responsibly”, Dissent, Volume 56, Number 2, Spring 2009, pp. 30-35, Lauder Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Penn Program on Ethnic Conflict, Pg. 33, Project Muse]

After the United States exits, an Arab civil war may re-ignite, as well as Kurdish-Arab conflict. The Baathists’ and the jihadists’ response to the U.S. intervention was to promote deliber- ate societal collapse. They fomented a sectarian Arab civil war rather than accept a Shia-led democratic Iraq. Americans and Kurds did not loot Arab cities, organize suicide bombings against Shiite pilgrims, or provoke sectarian expulsions. It was militants from among Sunni Arabs, Baathists, and Islamists—encouraged by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s blindly repressive military strategy—who precipitated the bloodletting. The resulting violence has only just calmed down. It could be rekindled. The calmer environment exists because the jihadists and the Baathists lost. Sunni Arab leaders realized that they could not win the restoration they sought, no matter how extreme their tactics. Some decided it was better to make an alliance with the United States, through the Awakening Councils/Sons of Iraq, rather than go down to comprehensive defeat. General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, was able to take advantage of this opportunity. The surge stopped the Sunni Arabs from being utterly “cleansed” from Baghdad. A key question for the Obama administration is how to facilitate the re-incorporation of Sunni Arabs into the new Iraq, but without doing so at the expense of either our Kurdish allies or the Shiites in federal and provincial governments. The answer lies only in the Constitution: encouraging Sunni Arabs to take control of the provinces in which they are now formal electoral majorities and of their own security, through the development of provincial policing. That is the right message to take from recent elections. This policy need not be provocative so long as the Sunni Arabs’ boundary disputes with Kurdistan are resolved. If they are, then Sunni Arabs will be free to govern themselves without a significant Kurdish presence in their provinces. The answer to Sunni Arab disaffection does not lie in expanding federal military forces and trying to integrate large numbers of former insurgents—therein lies a recipe for a coup.

Only conditioning the Constitution for military pull-out solves Iran relations

O’Leary 2009 [Brendan, “Departing Responsibly”, Dissent, Volume 56, Number 2, Spring 2009, pp. 30-35, Lauder Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Penn Program on Ethnic Conflict, Pg. 34, Project Muse]

A responsible exit requires concentrated diplomacy to deter malign interventions. The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will reduce Iran’s interests in destabilizing the new Iraq, provided the United States does not engage in a new bout of hubris and directly aim at regime change in Tehran (what John Bolton and the last stranded platoons of the Bush administration want). Indeed, pursuing détente with Iran and a new policy with Turkey are both independently appropriate. They will be easier and more cost effective than the false project of rebuilding a strong Baghdad government.

Condition CP (3/3)

And, Maliki Will Accommodate US Interests to Get Troops Out

Max Boot, Senior Fellow @ CFR, ‘8 [“Explaining” Nouri al-Maliki’s “Flip-Flops” About Our “Boots” On The Ground, Ehttp://patdollard.com/2008/07/explaining-nouri-al-malikis-flip-flops-about-our-boots-on-the-ground/]

President Bush wisely ignored Maliki. Instead of withdrawing U.S. troops, he sent more. The prime minister wasn’t happy. On Dec. 15, 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported, “Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has flatly told Gen. George Casey, the top American military commander in Iraq, that he doesn’t want more U.S. personnel deployed to the country, according to U.S. military officials.” When the surge went ahead anyway, Maliki gave it an endorsement described in news accounts as “lukewarm.” 2 In January 2007, with the surge just starting, Maliki predicted “that within three to six months our need for the American troops will dramatically go down.” In April 2007, when most of Baghdad was still out of control, the prime minister said that Iraqi forces would assume control of security in every province by the end of the year. Even now, when the success of the surge is undeniable, Maliki won’t give U.S. troops their due. In the famous interview with Der Spiegel last weekend, he was asked why Iraq has become more peaceful. He mentioned “many factors,” including “the political rapprochement we have managed to achieve,” “the progress being made by our security forces,” “the deep sense of abhorrence with which the population has reacted to the atrocities of al-Qaida and the militias,” and “the economic recovery.” No mention of the surge. To his credit, although he has postured as a fierce nationalist in public, Maliki has often accommodated American concerns in private. And, despite saying that Iraq doesn’t need many U.S. troops, he has acquiesced to their presence.

2NC Overview

All the advantages to the plan are solved back by the CP

Only adoption of the Constitution can maintain stability within Iraq – that’s our O’Leary evidence

The Constitution will prevent the US from having to come back and maintain peace – solves overstretch. The plan doesn’t provide a stable foundation for the military to leave. Only returning the power to Kurdistan can we ensure political stability and decrease in power centralization

Utilizing the Constitution allows Iran to rest easy - improves relations with the US

Condition CP extension

The Constitution is critical to prevent escalating regional conflict

O’Leary 2009 [Brendan, “Departing Responsibly”, Dissent, Volume 56, Number 2, Spring 2009, pp. 30-35, Lauder Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Penn Program on Ethnic Conflict, Pg. 34-35, Project Muse]

The re-engineering of U.S. policy toward Turkey is also necessary if we are to leave Iraq responsibly. Turkey fears an independent Kurdistan. But a secure KRG within a federal Iraq will not be an independent Kurdistan; rather, it will be a satisfied, prosperous secular region, a buffer between Turkey and hard-line Islamists. Turkey wants the KRG’s cooperation with respect to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its adjunct Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK). It will get this, but only if it pays the appropriate price: fully recognizing the KRG and Iraq’s Constitution, and avoiding provocations in Kirkuk. In the past, U.S. administrations have supported Turkey’s military—as self-defined guardians of the Enlightenment in former Ottoman lands. Turkish generals fear democracy because it means the election of soft Islamists and Kurds. Realists in the Obama administration will prefer Turkish generals. They will be at odds with those who want to support Turkey’s democratic promise and who want to encourage its journey into Europe. It is the largest sovereign Muslim majority state in the Middle East that allows genuine democratic electoral competition, although it is deeply flawed in its respect for Kurdish and Alawi freedom and in the constraints it puts on public debate. It would be utterly perverse for Obama to abandon a liberalizing and pro-democratic orientation toward Turkey. U.S. policy should be firm—seeking Turkey’s respect for the sovereignty of Iraq and of its Constitution, which recognizes the KRG. It should also be wise—supporting Turkey’s deepening democratization at the expense of its military and, if necessary, recognizing Turkey’s existing border through a treaty. If the Obama administration mismanages its exit from Iraq, it could be faced with new military dictators in both Ankara and Baghdad. Sacrificing Iraq’s Kurds is not the way to eliminate that scenario.

The Constitution of 2005 is most critical to a stable exit – it’s the only way to successfully transfer power

O’Leary 2009 [Brendan, “Departing Responsibly”, Dissent, Volume 56, Number 2, Spring 2009, pp. 30-35, Lauder Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Penn Program on Ethnic Conflict, Pg. 31, Project Muse]

The Constitution of 2005 and the successes of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) are the work of Arab and Kurdish politicians and voters. That the Bush administration let these institutions materialize does not mean that they are its creatures or are contaminated by its incompetence. To the contrary, the Constitution and the KRG are what must be protected in making the most honorable of the possible exits. The responsible transfer of power must be completed with the federal government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. These institutions are the expressions of Iraqis’ and Kurds’ democratic will. Prioritizing their protection provides the right guidelines for the Obama administration to leave Iraq with integrity. The difficulty is that the Arab leadership in Baghdad is at odds with that of the KRG. America will have to back Kurdistan on some key matters and reassure the federal government of their merits. That is the only way a successful transfer of power can be accomplished.

Condition CP extension

Kurdistan constitutionally should have all the power – before exiting, the United States should place the Kurds back in power

O’Leary 2009 [Brendan, “Departing Responsibly”, Dissent, Volume 56, Number 2, Spring 2009, pp. 30-35, Lauder Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Penn Program on Ethnic Conflict, Pg. 32, Project Muse]

The Constitution, in short, permits either a symmetrical federation, in which other regions are built with the same powers as Kurdistan, or an asymmetrical federation, in which the existing provinces of Arab-majority Iraq, by comparison with the KRG, choose to grant greater authority to the Baghdad government. The Constitution remains a coherent vision of how to remake Iraq as a feasible democracy. It is also Iraq’s fundamental law, even if it is often disrespected. The Constitution is, however, in danger—a danger that may be aggravated by misreading Iraq’s 2009 provincial elections. No elections were held in Kurdistan and Kirkuk—approximately a fifth of the country. A common and facile evaluation claims that the elections in the fourteen Arab-majority provinces were won by centralists. It is true that ISCI, the champion of a Shiite-dominated southern super-region, was defeated—for now. It lost ground, however, mostly because of its poor performance in the provincial governments and because it was tarred as the Persian party. The fragmented Sunni and Shiite centralists who made advances have utterly rival visions of who should hold power in Baghdad. Moreover, each provincial government will want to exercise its powers as violence subsides and as the incompetence of Baghdad’s administration becomes more evident. (The federal oil ministry, for example, has failed to spend more than a fraction of its investment budget for three years in a row.) In no province did any Arab party or list win 50 percent of the vote, and in only one did any list come close. This voting pattern will therefore lead to multiparty coalition governments in every Arab-majority province. Power sharing, both within provinces and within the federal government, is the unavoidable consequence of proportional representation and of political fragmentation among Arab Iraqis. It makes federalism viable and necessary; it is what Iraq needs, not a strongman backed by Washington. The Obama administration must not follow the Bush administration, the Baker-Hamilton Report, the Brookings Institution, and the Washington think tanks in the misguided project of aiding the recentralization of Iraq. Some claim that recentralization is the settled will of Arab Iraqis. That is misleading. What Arabs currently reject is aggregating provinces into regions, like Kurdistan. They do not reject empowering their own provinces. And even if they were all full-blooded centralists, they cannot constitutionally weaken Kurdistan’s powers. It has an entrenched veto over amendments that might weaken its powers. Breaking the Constitution would send Kurdistan toward secession. It will be far better for the Obama administration to organize an early exit before any Baghdad-based government becomes too strong. In the interim, it should render military and policing assistance to the provinces and to the Kurdistan region—which would be lawful— rather than to federal forces. The reason is simple: to consolidate a balance of power. The weaker a Baghdad government is, the more it must bargain with and accommodate Kurds, Sunni Arabs, and other minorities, and the more it must avoid naked partisanship on behalf of any community. The weaker it is, the greater the prospects for province-based federalism to strengthen itself in Arab Iraq.

Condition CP extension

Al Maliki is obsessed with power centralization, which is dangerous – the only successful way to pull out would be to have Iraq adopt a pro-Constitution policy

O’Leary 2009 [Brendan, “Departing Responsibly”, Dissent, Volume 56, Number 2, Spring 2009, pp. 30-35, Lauder Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Penn Program on Ethnic Conflict, Pg. 33, Project Muse]

Maliki has acted unconstitutionally, and with deliberate provocation, in blocking the implementation of constitutional mandates on natural resources, resolving the problem of Kirkuk and the disputed territories, and in trying to raise his own unauthorized militia among former Baathists and former Kurdish jash (levies from Kurdish tribes who co-operated with Saddam). He has nearly provoked fighting between the federal army and Kurdistan’s army in Khanaqin and seemed to want to do the same in Kirkuk. Maliki’s goals are transparent: he wants to create a strong central government, led by him. For the United States to invest wholly in Maliki would be as foolhardy as investing with Bernard Madoff after the warning signals were evident. Obama should support Iraq’s Constitution and its federal, multiparty coalition government but not over-invest in a particular and uncertain person, especially one showing signs of dictatorial enthusiasm. His administration should encourage power sharing, not power centralization, within the workings of the federal executive: Maliki heads a multiparty parliamentary coalition; he is not an executive president. Iraq has sufficient order to make federalism work. It does not need another dictatorship, Sunni or Shiite. Once the Obama administration questions the idée fixe that Iraq must be recentralized, as Biden did in his capacity as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, it will realize that it is much wiser to adopt a pro-Constitution policy, not just because it is legally and democratically better, but because it will enable a more judicious and just U.S. exit. There is no point in building up a strong Baghdad military if that leads to a renewed war with Kurdistan. It would repeat the pattern of Iraqi history since 1920. Each successive Iraqi regime that has sought to consolidate its power has broken its previous commitments to Kurdistan’s autonomy and sought to conquer it. Ensuing Arab-Kurdish wars have then encouraged interventions by the neighboring powers. It is time to end this cycle. Washington must therefore seek to resolve major Kurdish-Arab tensions before it leaves. That way Iraq’s internal territorial boundaries will be clarified, and the prospects of subsequent Turkish and Iranian interventions reduced. The means are clear—supporting the implementation of the Constitution’s Article 140, which, executed fairly, will facilitate Kirkuk’s and other disputed territories’ unifying with the KRG, in line with local majority opinion. As a quid pro quo, Washington should promote power-sharing provisions in the KRG’s Constitution for the Turkomen, Arabs, and Christians of Kirkuk city and offer to monitor minority rights protections that the Kurds have already promoted in good faith. Such a policy would also require supporting the formal transfer into the KRG of the Kurdish majority districts and sub-districts currently below its southern boundary. Such a policy is just: Saddam drew the existing borders, not elected Kurds or Arabs. It is required: the Kurdistan region’s boundary does not coincide with existing provincial boundaries, creating an administrative mess. The policy is constitutional. And it is democratic at the relevant level—the local one: Kurdistan’s lists appear to have triumphed throughout nearly all the disputed territories in the recent provincial elections. The policy will be stabilizing— provided the Turkomen are appropriately accommodated. A satisfied Kurdistan will be a champion of a federal Iraq. By contrast, a U.S. withdrawal before the just implementation of Article 140 will lead to war between factions in Baghdad and Kurdistan.

Condition CP extension

Maliki is willing to compromise on the issue of Article 140, but because of the controversy of the Shi’ites and Sunnis, he hasn’t been able to – only using the military can he implement Article 140

AsiaTimes 12/22 [Sami Moubayed, staff writer for the AsiaTimes, Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria, “Maliki makes his move on Kirkuk issue”, 2009, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KL22Ak03.html]

Is the Maliki visit purely domestic, aimed at diverting attention from the recent bombings in Baghdad and creating allies for the prime minister ahead of the March 2010 elections? Or is it a result of a recent US declaration supporting implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, which calls for a referendum in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, to see whether its inhabitants want to remain part of Iraq or join the district of Iraqi Kurdistan? Kurdistan already has 10-15% of Iraq’s oil reserves, while Kirkuk alone holds as much as 25%, meaning that if the Kurds get to incorporate it, they will control no less than 40% of oil reserves in Iraq. That referendum should have been held two years ago, but has been continually delayed by the central government, which fears Iraq's Arab Shi'ites and Sunnis would never tolerate it, and nor would regional players Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Maliki cuddled up to the Kurds in 2007, after losing some of his principal Sunni and Shi'ite allies, promising to uphold Article 140, to remain on the good side of Iraqi Kurds. He also indirectly sponsored the transfer of Arabs from within Kirkuk (there are 12,000 Arab families in the city) to other parts of Iraq ahead of the proposed referendum, claiming that they had been brought there illegally by Saddam Hussein to outnumber Kurds in the city.

AT: Maliki will say no

Maliki Says Yes – Removing Troops is a Top Concern

Linda Wertheimer, @ NPR, 7/12/8 [Al-Maliki Demands Timetable For Iraq Withdrawal, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92489073]

Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki demanded this week that the U.S. set a timetable for withdrawing military forces. Kenneth Katzman, a senior analyst on Iraq policy for the Congressional Research Service, talks with Linda Wertheimer about the possibility of such an agreement. LINDA WERTHEIMER, host: This week, Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, demanded that the U.S. set a timetable for withdrawing military forces. Political pressures within Iraq are widely seen as the reason for al-Maliki's demand which comes as the U.S. and Iraq are negotiating what the future U.S. presence in Iraq will be. That's after the U.N. mandate runs out at the end of the year. Kenneth Katzman is senior analyst on Iraq policy for the Congressional Research Service. He joins us from his office. Mr. Katzman, welcome.

Maliki Says Yes – Removing Troops is a Top Concern

Dean Yates and Ahmed Rasheed, @ Reuters, ‘8 [July 7, Iraq says may agree timetable for U.S. withdrawal, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL0353522920080707]

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki raised the prospect on Monday of setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops as part of negotiations over a new security agreement with Washington. It was the first time the U.S.-backed Shi'ite-led government has floated the idea of a timetable for the removal of American forces from Iraq. The Bush administration has always opposed such a move, saying it would give militant groups an advantage. The security deal under negotiation will replace a U.N. mandate for the presence of U.S. troops that expires on December 31. "Today, we are looking at the necessity of terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty," Maliki told Arab ambassadors in blunt remarks during an official visit to Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates. "One of the two basic topics is either to have a memorandum of understanding for the departure of forces or a memorandum of understanding to set a timetable for the presence of the forces, so that we know (their presence) will end in a specific time." Maliki was responding to questions from the ambassadors about the security negotiations with the United States. The exchange was shown on Iraqiya state television. U.S. officials in Baghdad had no immediate comment. Last month Maliki caught Washington off guard when he said talks on the security deal were at a "dead end" after he complained Iraq's sovereignty was being infringed by U.S. demands. Both sides later said progress was being made. Maliki said the Iraqi and U.S. positions had gotten closer, but added "we cannot talk about reaching an agreement yet". He said foreign forces would need Iraqi permission for many of their activities once the U.N. mandate ended. "This means the phenomena of unilateral detention will be over, as well as unilateral operations and immunity," he said.

AT: Pressure isn’t key

Pressure is Necessary for Maliki Reforms

Robert Dreyfuss, Former Middle East Intelligence director of the Executive Intelligence Review, ‘6 [October 6, Coup In Iraq?, http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/10/06/coup_in_iraq.php]

Bush himself, while repeating his mantra about staying the course, hinted too that U.S. support for Iraq’s government might be conditional on Maliki making real progress. In one instance, Bush declared in blunt terms that Maliki had better take action, and soon. “America's a patient nation, and Iraq can count on our partnership as long as the new government continues to make the hard decisions necessary to advance a unified, democratic and peaceful Iraq,” said Bush. From that statement alone, it seems pretty clear that Maliki, whose tenure is supposed to be four years, ain’t gonna last that long. To make sure he got the message, U.S. military officials and even Khalilzad are making the same point. Khalilzad put it this way on Sunday: “In the course of the next two months [Maliki] has to make progress in terms of containing sectarian violence.” A few days earlier, on September 28, the Washington Post carried an article headlined, not so subtly, “American Commanders Question Political Will Of Iraqi Prime Minister.” In it, U.S. military officers, speaking anonymously, were quoted as follows: “We are now at a time when we have a little bit of influence there," said the senior U.S. military official. "There is going to come a time when I would argue we are going to have to force this issue. . . . We have to, wherever we can, use what pressure, what influence we have, to get them as quickly as possible to clear these places out the time is short for them to deal with that over time because this can't go on like that."

AT: Perm – Do Both

Impossible – you can’t unconditionally withdraw troops and condition their withdrawal on a referendum over Kirkuk. It’s either one or the other.

Conditional withdrawal severs out of the unconditional passage of the plan. Severance perms are illegitimate:

Ground – it prevents negs from generating stable links to the 1AC.

Time and Strategy Skew – it moots our 1NC strategy and restarts the debate at the block.

The perm fails – only leveraging the plan can pressure Iraqi political leaders; otherwise, they won’t reciprocate

Montgomery, 2008 (Julie, “The Future of the U.S. Military Presence in Iraq,” Panel: Kimberley Kagan, President of the Institute for the Study of War, Colin Kahl, Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Society, Charles Knight, Co-Director of the Project on Defense Alternatives at the Commonwealth Institute, and Rend al-Rahim, United States Institute of Peace Iraq Fellow, USIPeace Briefing, September, http://www.usip.org/files/resources/USIP_0908.PDF)

The question of U.S. leverage on Iraqi leaders was one of the areas of greatest divergence in the panel. Knight’s proposal relies principally on non-military leverage gained through strong support of international agency, regional diplomatic engagement, support to refugees and displaced persons and employment of Iraqis. Kahl and Rahim both argued that the U.S. should condition its military, economic and political support for the government of Iraq (GOI) to resolve critical political issues. Military support—both troop presence and critical enablers like logistics and air support—obviously provides the greatest amount of leverage and is the area in which Iraq is most dependent on the U.S. However, Iraq also relies heavily on U.S. governance and economic support, as well as political support in Iraq’s relations with other states and in international institutions. Only through a U.S. threat to end this essential support are Iraqis likely to make the tough compromises necessary for the establishment of a stable, secure Iraq. Kagan agreed with Kahl and Rahim about conditional support and leverage, but only to a point. The U.S. must lean on Iraqi leaders to make certain political compromises, and even withhold support to pressure these leaders. However, she made a critical distinction that others did not: the U.S. should only condition support for Iraq in ways that are “non-fatal.” By this line of reasoning, no failure of leaders in the GOI to achieve political progress is so grave that the U.S. should be willing to “let Iraq fail.” Kahl and Rahim agreed that some necessary compromises are unlikely to occur unless Iraqi leaders’ political future is at risk. Kagan’s approach was, therefore, too lenient to be effective.

Iran Relations Frontline (1/5)

Peace Talks will Happen - Iran ready to talk

Edward Yeranian Reporter 28 June 2010 http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Iran-to-Delay-Nuclear-Talks-Until-August-97303654.html

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran is willing to resume nuclear talks, but not until August, so as to "punish" the West. His comments were included in a flurry of anti-Western rhetoric to mark the anniversary of a 1981 explosion that killed key figures and dozens of supporters of Iran's revolution. Mr. Ahmadinejad says Iran is postponing nuclear talks because the West issued a Security Council resolution against it, supposedly to give them the upper hand in negotiations. He says Iran considers it immoral, and for this reason Tehran is delaying negotiations until late August, to "punish the West so they learn how to speak properly with other nations." Mr. Ahmadinejad told a press conference the United States, along with Israel and Great Britain, is Iran's chief "enemy." He says hopes that President Barack Obama would "change" the nature of relations between Iran and the United States have been dashed. He says other U.N. Security Council members may have voted for sanctions against Iran, but that they still are not considered to be enemies of his country. The Iranian president says he still considers Russia and China to be "friendly" states. He claims they supported the recent, new sanctions resolution against his country because of the importance of their ties with the United States. Mr. Ahmadinejad also stressed that he wants Brazil and Turkey to negotiate alongside his country in fuel-swap negotiations, against the United States, France and Russia, which he says have played an adversarial role in past talks. He said the talks should be based on a fuel-swap deal mediated last month by Brazil and Turkey. Responding to a question about whether Iran is ready to suspend production of highly enriched uranium if a deal is eventually reached, Mr. Ahmadinejad avoided a direct response, answering vaguely that Iran would only enrich quantities of uranium it needs. Mr. Ahmadinejad says that some nations want Iran to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent because they say Tehran wants to build a bomb. He says they should first disarm their own bombs if they are afraid of bombs, because bombs are dangerous wherever they are. Iran has repeatedly insisted its nuclear program is intended for peaceful, civilian purposes. The United States and other nations suspect Tehran of working to build nuclear weapons. CIA Director Leon Panetta told ABC's "This Week" Sunday that Iran has enough enriched uranium to produce two atomic bombs, but that it could take Tehran up to two years to physically build those bombs, if it decided to do so.

Iran Relations Frontline (2/5)

Iran Poised to take over Iraq after US withdrawal

Mark Tran and agenciesguardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 August 2007 16.57 BST http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/aug/28/usa.iraq

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, today said Tehran was ready to fill an imminent power vacuum in Iraq in remarks that can be seen as a direct challenge to the US.
"The political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly," Mr Ahmadinejad said at a press conference in Tehran. "Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbours and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation." His remarks will do little to dispel US fears that Iran is seeking to increase its regional influence, taking advantage of Iraq's weakened state. Mr Ahmadinejad also accused the US of interfering in Iraq's internal affairs after Washington said efforts by the country's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, to reconcile the country's divided Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds were not enough. "They rudely say (the Iraqi) prime minister and the constitution must change," Mr Ahmadinejad said. "Who are you? Who has given you the right?" Mr Ahamadinejad was speaking amid a debate on the US on whether to continue the military "surge" that began in February. Some senior Republicans such as senator John Warner are calling for troop withdrawals. Others argue that the injection of 30,000 troops has produced more progress than anticipated and that the surge should continue. A report by the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, expected next month, is expected to recommend the continued deployment of large numbers of US forces in the country. But the picture for the US has been complicated by Britain's decision to reduce its number of troops in the south. Jack Keane, a retired US general, said last week that the security situation was deteriorating in Basra and that the US might have to redeploy to the south if the British withdrew, a contention that the foreign secretary David Miliband today rejected. The US has consistently accused Iran of providing help to Shia extremists in Iraq who have taken a deadly toll of American forces through sophisticated roadside bombs. The US is considering declaring Iran's Revolutionary Guards a terrorist force for its support of Shia militants in order to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, already under UN sanctions because of its nuclear programme. Mr Ahmadinejad said Iran would respond to such a step. "They know that any action against the Iranian nation would be faced with a proper response," Mr Ahmadinejad, himself a former Guards commander, told reporters. But he also said he believed it was "highly unlikely that the American government will take such an illogical approach ... it would be a joke I guess." In his press conference, the Iranian leader reiterated that Tehran has achieved full proficiency in the nuclear fuel cycle and warned the west that dialogue and friendship - not threats - were the right way to deal with Iran. "Today, Iran is a nuclear Iran," Mr Ahmadinejad said. "That means, it fully possesses the whole nuclear fuel cycle." He added, however, that Iran was committed to a "peaceful path" in pursuing its nuclear programme. His comments followed an announcement yesterday by the International Atomic Energy Agency which said that Tehran was offering some cooperation in the agency's investigation of an alleged secret uranium processing project linked by US intelligence to a nuclear arms programme.

Iran Relations Frontline (3/5)

Iran looks to fill regional power vacuum after U.S withdrawal - As the U.S. Retreats, Iran Fills the Void

By AMIR TAHERI MAY 5, 2009 (author "The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution,")

Convinced that the Obama administration is preparing to retreat from the Middle East, Iran's Khomeinist regime is intensifying its goal of regional domination. It has targeted six close allies of the U.S.: Egypt, Lebanon, Bahrain, Morocco, Kuwait and Jordan, all of which are experiencing economic and/or political crises.
Iranian strategists believe that Egypt is heading for a major crisis once President Hosni Mubarak, 81, departs from the political scene. He has failed to impose his eldest son Gamal as successor, while the military-security establishment, which traditionally chooses the president, is divided. Iran's official Islamic News Agency has been conducting a campaign on that theme for months. This has triggered a counter-campaign against Iran by the Egyptian media. Last month, Egypt announced it had crushed a major Iranian plot and arrested 68 people. According to Egyptian media, four are members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Tehran's principal vehicle for exporting its revolution. Seven were Palestinians linked to the radical Islamist movement Hamas; one was a Lebanese identified as "a political agent from Hezbollah" by the Egyptian Interior Ministry. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, claimed these men were shipping arms to Hamas in Gaza.
The arrests reportedly took place last December, during a crackdown against groups trying to convert Egyptians to Shiism. The Egyptian Interior Ministry claims this proselytizing has been going on for years. Thirty years ago, Egyptian Shiites numbered a few hundred. Various estimates put the number now at close to a million, but they are said to practice taqiyah (dissimulation), to hide their new faith.
But in its campaign for regional hegemony, Tehran expects Lebanon as its first prize. Iran is spending massive amounts of cash on June's general election. It supports a coalition led by Hezbollah, and including the Christian ex-general Michel Aoun. Lebanon, now in the column of pro-U.S. countries, would shift to the pro-Iran column.
In Bahrain, Tehran hopes to see its allies sweep to power through mass demonstrations and terrorist operations. Bahrain's ruling clan has arrested scores of pro-Iran militants but appears more vulnerable than ever. King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has contacted Arab heads of states to appeal for "urgent support in the face of naked threats," according to the Bahraini media.
The threats became sensationally public in March. In a speech at Masshad, Iran's principal "holy city," Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, a senior aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, described Bahrain as "part of Iran." Morocco used the ensuing uproar as an excuse to severe diplomatic relations with Tehran. The rupture came after months of tension during which Moroccan security dismantled a network of pro-Iran militants allegedly plotting violent operations.
Iran-controlled groups have also been uncovered in Kuwait and Jordan. According to Kuwaiti media, more than 1,000 alleged Iranian agents were arrested and shipped back home last winter. According to the Tehran media, Kuwait is believed vulnerable because of chronic parliamentary disputes that have led to governmental paralysis.
As for Jordan, Iranian strategists believe the kingdom, where Palestinians are two-thirds of the population, is a colonial creation and should disappear from the map -- opening the way for a single state covering the whole of Palestine. Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have both described the division of Palestine as "a crime and a tragedy."
Arab states are especially concerned because Tehran has succeeded in transcending sectarian and ideological divides to create a coalition that includes Sunni movements such as Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, sections of the Muslim Brotherhood, and even Marxist-Leninist and other leftist outfits that share Iran's anti-Americanism. Information published by Egyptian and other Arab intelligence services, and reported in the Egyptian and other Arab media, reveal a sophisticated Iranian strategy operating at various levels. The outer circle consists of a number of commercial companies, banks and businesses active in various fields and employing thousands of locals in each targeted country. In Egypt, for example, police have uncovered more than 30 such Iranian "front" companies, according to the pan-Arab daily newspaper Asharq Alawsat. In Syria and Lebanon, the numbers reportedly run into hundreds.
In the next circle, Iranian-financed charities offer a range of social and medical services and scholarships that governments often fail to provide. Another circle consists of "cultural" centers often called Ahl e Beit (People of the House) supervised by the offices of the supreme leader. These centers offer language classes in Persian, English and Arabic, Islamic theology, Koranic commentaries, and traditional philosophy -- alongside courses in information technology, media studies, photography and filmmaking.
Wherever possible, the fourth circle is represented by branches of Hezbollah operating openly. Where that's not possible, clandestine organizations do the job, either alone or in conjunction with Sunni radical groups. The Khomeinist public diplomacy network includes a half-dozen satellite television and radio networks in several languages, more than 100 newspapers and magazines, a dozen publishing houses, and thousands of Web sites and blogs controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The network controls thousands of mosques throughout the region where preachers from Iran, or trained by Iranians, disseminate the Khomeinist revolutionary message.
Tehran has also created a vast network of non-Shiite fellow travelers within the region's political and cultural elites. These politicians and intellectuals may be hostile to Khomeinism on ideological grounds -- but they regard it as a powerful ally in a common struggle against the American "Great Satan."
Khomeinist propaganda is trying to portray Iran as a rising "superpower" in the making while the United States is presented as the "sunset" power. The message is simple: The Americans are going, and we are coming. Tehran plays a patient game. Wherever possible, it is determined to pursue its goals through open political means, including elections. With pro-American and other democratic groups disheartened by the perceived weakness of the Obama administration, Tehran hopes its allies will win all the elections planned for this year in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
"There is this perception that the new U.S. administration is not interested in the democratization strategy," a senior Lebanese political leader told me. That perception only grows as President Obama calls for an "exit strategy" from Afghanistan and Iraq. Power abhors a vacuum, which the Islamic Republic of Iran is only too happy to fill.

Iran Relations Frontline (4/5)

Allowing Iran to take over as the regional hegemon leads to nuclear proliferation and nuclear conflict

By Alethia H. Cook, Assistant Professor of Political Science and the Assistant Director of the Security Studies Program at East Carolina University. She holds a PhD in Public Policy and Jalīl Rawshandil Associate Professor and Director of Security Studies program at Political Science Department, East Carolina University. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science , The United States and Iran: policy challenges and opportunities pages 4-5 2009

However, there are so many potential negative outcomes from a nuclear-weapons capable Iran that have been identified in the [item( tire that the United States cannot afford to back down on the issue. Among the possible impacts that would be counter to U.S. interests are as follows: Iran attacking Israel or another U.S. ally in the region with their new nuclear weapon; Iran attacking U.S. troops in the Middle East with its new weapon; I Outs acquisition of ,1 nuclear capacity resulting in a Middle East nuclear arms race; an increasingly conventionally confrontational Iran backed with a nuclear threat; nuclear proliferation from Iran to other states; general destabilization or the Middle East; or Iran providing a nuclear weapon to a terrorist organization.'s Recently, three major points of contention have been challenging the relations between the StaCCS. First, the United States has accused Iran of being a state sponsor of terrorism. Given the U.S. Global War on Terror (GWOT), this accusation is clearly problematic. Its particular, the United States has accused I Fall of providing support to Hezbollah, llamas, and al Qaeda. Iran was first designated a state supporter of terrorism in 1984 and has remained on the list ever since.3 The United States State Department has declared Iran the most active state supporter of terrorism for 2006;1 Iran, however, argues that the groups it supports are not terrorists. Instead, these groups have been deemed by Iran to be fighting against foreign occu-pation of their homeland and therefore in the right. Second, the United States is concerned about the role that Iran has beets playing its Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Most significantly, the United States believes that Iran has beets supporting insurgency activities in Iraq to undermine the U.S. action its that state. It has been accused of providing weapons (some of them advanced). Improvised Explosive Devices (I ED), training, financing, bornb-making materials, and in some cases even fighters to facilitate the insurgency and influence the future of the Iraqi state Its November of 2007, Vice President Dick Cheney went so far as to argue that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq could allow "competing factions" (in which he specifically included Iran) to -unloose an all-out war, with violence unlikely to be contained within the borders of Iraq ... (resulting ml carnage Him wouldl further destabilize die Middle East."' Iran denies that it has played this role.' 'Else United States has also expressed concerts that Iran is expanding its tics with Iraqi Shi'ite factions and is attempting to influence the new Shia controlled Iraqi Government.

Iran Relations Frontline (5/5)

US withdrawal will lead to dire consequences for Iraq

Ayhan, Jun 11, 2010 http://www.theiraqidinar.com/expert-warns-us-withdrawal-may-have-dire-consequences-for-war-torn-iraq Assistant Professor Veysel Ayhan from Abant İzzet Baysal University, known for his expertise on Middle East affairs and politics

The US withdrawal from Iraq may lead to a devastating civil war in the country and even cause a regional state of warfare. Ayhan, who is researching developments in the aftermath of a probable US withdrawal from Iraq, bases his studies on field research. Ayhan has done field research in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Syria and is regarded as a leading expert on Middle Eastern affairs in Turkey. Ayhan spoke to Sunday’s Zaman shortly after meetings and research carried out in Iran and Iraq. Ayhan draws a pretty pessimistic sketch of the impact in 2012 of a probable withdrawal of the US from Iraq; he holds that such a withdrawal would lead to a bloody internal war and even regional warfare that will affect the entire region. “The SOFA [Status of Forces Agreement] signed on Nov. 17, 2008 envisages a gradual withdrawal of American forces from Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011. Therefore, if no unexpected developments take place, the American military presence in Iraq will be over by January 2012. It is obvious that the US failed to maintain security in this country; it is also obvious that the US failed to have a political, economic or military influence in Iraq. The state of instability and chaos in Iraq may result in the emergence of the need for further American protectionism. At this point, the increase of the American military presence in Gulf countries may be taken into consideration.” Noting that the country is becoming more instable as the time for the withdrawal approaches, Ayhan asserts that the violent groups are preparing for warfare in the aftermath of the withdrawal. “The year 2012 points to serious uncertainties and dangers; the most visible threat and danger is that the country may be dragged into a state of internal warfare in a post-US period. The primary factor that will prevent the eruption of a bloody internal war is the American military presence in the country. … Therefore, 2012 may be the start of a bloody civil war that will lead to the partition of Iraq.” Arguing that a wholesale withdrawal would not be proper, Ayhan asserts that Iraq would not be the same after such a withdrawal and adds that a UN intervention may be considered in such a case. Asked how Iraq would look if this scenario was realized , Ayhan speaks of two options: “Iraq may be divided into three, four or more parts. Or, other countries in the region may expand to conquer Iraqi territory. Obviously, this would not happen peacefully.” Noting that both scenarios will closely affect a number of countries including Turkey, Ayhan stresses that the greatest danger will be witnessed when other countries in the region seek to influence Iraq in the fulfillment of their own interests and goals. “The fact that Iraq accused Syria after a deadly wave of attacks carried out in the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iran’s influence over the Shiite groups in the country and Turkey’s attempt to open a consulate in the Kurdish region should be viewed as attempts by regional countries to maintain control and expand their sphere of influence in the country.” Noting that the countries in the region do not have a common policy on Iraq, Ayhan stresses that the decisions taken at meetings of countries neighboring Iraq did not reflect the presence of a common resolution. Arguing that the countries in the region have conflicting interests with respect to Iraq, Ayhan further says: “For regional countries, it is hard to find a any common ground with respect to the future of Iraq. These countries have differing views and ambitions over the territorial integrity of Iraq, its constitutional, administrative and political order as well as the representation of religious sects in the political power.” Noting that Turkey has stated its position most visibly with respect to Iraq’s future, Ayhan argues that some countries, including Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Oman, favor the territorial integrity of the country. Asked about the stance of other actors regarding this issue, Ayhan says: “The views of Kuwait, Iran and Syria on the territorial integrity of the country are ambiguous for different reasons. The Kuwaiti regime is skeptical that a strong Iraqi government may have the intention to again take control over part of its land. Iran and Syria have some doubts on the repercussions of the creation of a separate Kurdish state, whereas they are also considering the security risks involved in the foundation of a separate Shia or Sunni state. Yemen may prefer a partitioned Iraq instead of an Iraq under Shia control. Saudi Arabia may oppose the emergence of a Shiite state in Iraq because of its Shiite minority. Iran wants a controllable and manageable Iraq. It may seek to create a weak and federal Iraq to make sure that Baghdad does not become a strong player. Saddam Hussein not only declared war against Iran and Kuwait but also threatened Syria and Turkey. Therefore, the countries in the region would not like to see Iraq as a threat again.” Speaking on the role that Turkey would assume in this process considering that it will be affected most by the developments taking place, Ayhan says the cooperation agreement signed with the Iraqi government on July 10, 2008 and the 48 additional protocols adopted are significant for the preservation of Turkish interests. “Iran sees Turkey’s eagerness to maintain dialogue with Syria and Iraq as its ambition to expand its sphere of influence. This causes tension. Iran has viewed Iraq as a rival and a threat throughout history. Therefore, it will seek to use the opportunity it got in the aftermath of the invasion in 2003.” Noting that a number of countries including Turkey would strongly oppose the emergence of another Shiite state in the region, Ayhan argues: “It is certain that Iraq will become a venue of sectarian clashes and ethnic conflicts in the aftermath of 2012. Despite that the American administration won the war against the Saddam regime, it failed to prevent Iraq from turning into a chaotic state. US interests in this country are not over. But obviously, it will not be able to achieve its goals by relying on coercion and military power. The stabilization of Iraq will be a duty that falls to the states in the region. However, a clash of interests of those states may lead to further tension in the region.”

Iran Relations Extensions

United States is willing to negotiate with Iran

AFP 6/2/2010 http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jIY05_pOmvZCZauC6lILoffQC2GQ

World powers negotiating on Iran's nuclear program have renewed their offer for talks despite imposing new sanctions against the Islamic republic, the United States said Friday.
Senior US diplomat William Burns travelled to Brussels for talks with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union on the next steps on Iran, the State Department said.
"They restated the offer to meet with Iran for discussions on the nuclear issue and stressed the door remains open to Iran," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.
He said the powers endorsed an offer by EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, who wrote to Iran last month inviting him for talks. The so-called P5-plus-One -- the five veto-wielding powers on the Security Council plus Germany -- were instrumental in pushing forward a UN resolution last month that imposed a fourth set of sanctions on Iran. The Brussels meeting agreed on the "importance of swift enforcement" of the resolution, Toner said. The United States and European Union are worried that Iran's clerical regime, which is staunchly anti-Western and anti-Israel, is developing nuclear weapons. But US President Barack Obama has also offered to engage in dialogue with Iran to find a way to end decades of hostility.

Iran insists that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.

Haaretz 5/28/10 http://www.haaretz.com/news/u-s-six-world-powers-accept-iran-s-offer-to-hold-talks-1.8047

The United States and five partner countries have decided to accept Iran's new offer to hold talks, even though Iran insists it will not negotiate over its disputed nuclear program, the State Department said Friday. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters that although Iran's proposal for international talks - presented to the six powers on Wednesday - was disappointing for sidestepping the nuclear issue, it represented a chance to begin a direct dialogue. "We are seeking a meeting now based on the Iranian paper to see what Iran is prepared to do," Crowley said. "And then, as the president has said, you know, if Iran responds to our interest in a meeting, we'll see when that can occur. We hope that will occur as soon as possible." In its proposal, Iran ignored a demand by the six world powers - the U.S., Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany - for a freeze of its uranium enrichment, which is suspected of leading to production of a nuclear weapon. Iran insists that its nuclear work is strictly for peaceful non-military purposes. Iran pronounced itself ready to embark on comprehensive, all-encompassing and constructive negotiations.

Iran Relations Extensions

Iran attempts to gain influence in Iraq by killing opponents

Sami Moubayed Reporter 4/26/2010 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LE27Ak02.html

Iraq's post-election impasse took a tragic twist this week when the assassination of a lawmaker from ex-prime minister Iyad Allawi's al-Iraqiya bloc reduced its slim winning majority to just one seat. The shooting came just days after al-Iraqiya had defeated a recount and the attempted disqualification of some of its candidates.
When someone gunned down Bashar Hamid al-Lagaidi on Monday in the northern city of Mosul, al-Iraqiya bloc's share of the 325-seat parliament was brought down to 90, just one more than the 89 won by incumbent Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law Coalition in the March parliamentary elections.
It was no doubt a blow to al-Iraqiya after it last week won a manual recount of 2.5 million votes in Baghdad and saw several winning candidates reinstated after a government agency disqualified them for links to the outlawed Ba'athist party. Many analysts believed it was an end to the 11-week long impasse ushered in by the elections. l-Iraqiya spokesman Haidar Al Mulla told Iraqi media on Tuesday that the assassination had only made the coalition more determined to form the new government. However, observers now fear that the poor security which enabled gunmen to so easily target Lagaidi, 33, on his doorstep means that there is nothing to prevent the same culprits from doing the same again. At Lagaidi's funeral on Tuesday, many of his friends blamed Maliki for failing to protect the slain lawmaker, while an official al-Iraqiya statement pinned the killing on al-Qaeda. Lagaidi did not have official bodyguards because they were to be allocated when the new parliament was sworn in. As if Lagaidi's murder was not enough, masked gunmen with rocket-propelled grenades invaded a jewelry market in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 15 people before escaping with a large quality of gold. Government authorities, who have trumpeted Maliki's "better security for all Iraqis" campaign, blamed the robbery and murders on al-Qaeda. When all else fails in Iraq, it seems it is always easy to blame al-Qaeda, but not all people blame the terrorist group for Lagaidi's death. The National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political arm of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq anti-regime terrorist organization, said his murder was orchestrated by Tehran to stop Allawi's Sunni-backed bloc from taking over from Maliki's Shi'ite-dominated government. "This heinous crime is part of the Iranian regime's efforts and meddling in Iraq aimed at recovering from a disgraceful defeat it had suffered in the Iraqi parliamentary elections last March and forestalling the formation of a nationalist and non-sectarian government in Iraq," said the group.
It added that Lagaidi was a staunch opponent of Iran meddling in Iraq and that he considered Tehran "the main source of problems in that country, including killings, bombings and election fraud and the main obstacle to the formation of a government based on the result of the elections".

Soft Power Frontline (1/2)

U.S. credibility will take a plunge if Iraq is not secure before withdrawing.

Byman, Daniel, 5 bad options for iraq < http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/856993_731197592_713925918.pdf>

US credibility would also suffer, particularly with the jihadists but also with the world in general. Jihadists would correctly tout this as a great victory, comparable to or even greater than the successful ousting of the Soviets from Afghanistan. Already, Bin Laden has taunted the United States, declaring that it is ‘embroiled in the swamps of Iraq’.48 Bin Laden’s success would ‘prove’ that the United States would withdraw if it faces considerable resistance, encouraging jihadists to foment unrest against other governments they oppose and against US intervention elsewhere, such as Afghanistan and the Balkans. US prestige also would suffer a devastating blow outside of jihadist circles. Given the lack of weapons of mass destruction or evidence of the Ba’ath regime’s ties to al-Qaeda, the remaining shreds of legitimacy of the internationally unpopular war with Iraq hinge upon ensuring good government there. Allowing Iraq to collapse into strife or tyranny would make future US efforts to intervene far less convincing. World opinion would shift from its current criticism of the US occupation to criticising the United States for leaving a mess behind. Withdrawal shows spineless U.S., consistency key to credibility. Rubin, Michael, Richmond Times – Dispatch < http://www.aei.org/article/28459> 8-12-08 Both Bush and Obama sacrifice consistency and credibility for affirmation. The cost of establishing a legacy and political sloganeering can be high. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate suggested that Iran ceased nuclear warhead work in 2003 because Saddam's downfall showed Bush was serious about enforcing his policy. After last month's policy reversal, the Iranian assessment was different. A prominent Revolutionary Guard general called America "beaten and humiliated." Consistency is a virtue even when politically unpopular. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, endorsed the surge long before Bush not because 30,000 troops would enable the United States to do in Iraq what it had not before, but rather because it would demonstrate resolve to militias and terrorists who--like bin Laden before 9/11--preached that the United States had become a paper tiger, unable to back its words with actions. It is doubtful Russian forces would invade a U.S. ally if they believed U.S. resolve strong. Both Bush and Obama pander for adulation. Change may be a good slogan, but restoring U.S. credibility requires not flip-flops but consistency.

Soft Power Frontline (2/2)

Withdrawal proves terrorists victory

Ali, Ayaan Hirsi, The Autralian < http://www.aei.org/article/28883>

At the same time, the original impetus of Obama's campaign was his pledge to withdraw from Iraq in 16 months. There is little doubt that if Obama were to implement this pledge, jihadis in Iraq and across the world, who see history in the millennial terms of a long fight against the crusaders, would feel victorious. As the Obama campaign has developed, he has emphasized that he would withdraw responsibly. This term is open to interpretation. I don't think it is responsible to pull out of Iraq in 16 months, unless you want the jihadis dancing in jubilation. The message such a precipitous withdrawal would send to the jihadis is the same message Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero sent when he rapidly withdrew forces from the coalition in Iraq after the Spanish election in March 2004: if you hang on long enough, you can scare the West away. Terrorists will feel their way is affective, this leads to violence Kagan, Fredrick W. The Daily Standard. 4-26-07 <http://www.aei.org/article/26043> The immediate drop in violence after the Bush's speech resulted from the belief by many Iraqis that this operation would be different, that American forces would stay to finish the job, and that both the Iraqi government and people could rely on us to help them stop the violence. Setting timelines for withdrawal before we can possibly have solidified security in Baghdad tells the Iraqi people that we will abandon them once again and soon. Those who bet on the success of the current plan will try to hedge and adopt good fighting positions for the full-scale civil war to come. Successes in Iraq have occurred because Iraqis believe that we will help lay the foundation for them by establishing security, knowing that they cannot do so on their own. They will prove ephemeral if we declare our unwillingness to do so. And our most dangerous enemy will conclude once again that committing horrific atrocities and killing innocent people is an effective way to defeat the United States.

Soft Power Extensions

Withdrawal cripples American credibility

Powell, Bill; Calabresi, Massimo, Cooper, Mather and Thompson, Mark/Washington; J.F.O, Mcallister/London; and Lee, Andrew Butters/Baghdad Time Magazine: Iraq: No Easy Options 4-19-04

The TIME/CNN poll last week showed only 24% of Americans now view the military campaign in Iraq to be "unsuccessful"; on the other hand, more than half say the U.S. should maintain or increase the number of troops in Iraq. The relative public equanimity gives the Bush Administration precious time to try to get things right. Foreign policy luminaries from both parties say a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would cripple American credibility, doom reform in the Arab world and turn Iraq into a playground for terrorists and the armies of neighboring states like Iran and Syria. "We can't afford to have a failed state there," says Nancy Stetson, a foreign policy adviser to Kerry. "If we walk away, the place could implode."

Soft Power Extensions

Withdrawal will encourage our enemies

Kagan, Fredrick W. The Daily Standard. 4-26-07 <http://www.aei.org/article/26043>

The current discussion is confused by a misunderstanding of the rise in violence that has occurred recently. The spate of car-bombs and suicide bombs, which the New York Times describes as "sectarian violence" and which many point to as evidence of the current strategy's failure, are very different from the sectarian strife we saw raging at the start of this year. Suicide bombs and car bombs are the

copyright of al Qaeda and associated militant Islamist groups--Shiite militias prefer more precisely targeted killings when they kill and do not use such methods. Al Qaeda, a Sunni group, has conducted many of the recent attacks against fellow Sunnis in Anbar and elsewhere who have started to fight the terrorists. These attacks are not sectarian violence, but al Qaeda's attempts to regain its footing in its former strongholds or to establish bases in new areas. The current wave of violence is a surge by the one force fighting in Iraq that has declared its intention to destroy the United States. It is a surge in terrorist killing by the organization that almost every leading congressman believes America should be fighting. It is not evidence that sectarian violence is uncontrollable or that the Maliki government won't make concessions. It is evidence that our implacable foe is not ready to lose yet. Timelines for withdrawal can only encourage this enemy, which has always believed that killing enough people will drive the Americans away.

Soft Power Extensions

Victory for al-Qaeda increases recruits which will foster terrorism

Bakier, Abdul Hameed Al-Qaeda Adapts its Methods in Iraq as Part of a Global Strategy Volume 5, Issue 24 <http://freedomsadvocate.com/files/ref/JF%20Al-QaedaAdaptsItsMethodsIn%20IraqAsPartOfAGlobalStrategy-2007.pdf> 12-20-07

Any victory achieved by al-Qaeda opens the door for more recruits to work with al-Qaeda in many different domains. Those who cannot join directly will establish their own centers based on similar radical Islamist theory and ideology. Al-Qaeda believes there is a direct proportion between multiple victories and repelling U.S. and Jewish aggressions. Jihadis typically corroborate this scenario by citing verses from the Quran for every phase of the plan and believe that God will facilitate the victory of the Muslim nation. Although the success of the United States and its partners in exterminating notable numbers of al-Qaeda leaders has significantly reduced its ability to perpetrate terror operations, it has not ended the al-Qaeda phenomenon. Rather, it has led to the creation of unpredictable, incoherent and scattered groups adhering to the Salafi-jihadi ideology. These decentralized formations will attempt to attack soft targets and wait patiently for any slackening of security on the hard targets. A complete defeat of al-Qaeda is unlikely to come about in the near future. Iraq—like other countries in the region—will suffer from al-Qaeda terrorism long after the withdrawal of the coalition forces.

Overstretch Frontline (1/2)

Overstretch is key to hard power needed for Middle East

Donnelly, Thomas The Top Ten Questions for the Post-9/11 World AEI online < http://www.aei.org/outlook/20965> Aug. 05

The need to fight on multiple fronts has been a basic tenet of American military strategy since the United States became a world power at the beginning of the twentieth century, and this remains a core premise today. Fortunately, recent experience has clarified the nature of potential conflict in the greater Middle East and in East Asia. The upcoming 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review can now be crafted to solve a more specific geopolitical puzzle, rather than having to base its assessments on generic “capabilities.” It is also reasonably clear that U.S. strategies in the Middle East and East Asia are distinct, and thus require distinct forces. The military containment of China is fundamentally a job for firepower, naval, and air forces. The transformation of the political order in the Middle East is principally a task of manpower, specifically land forces. While this is a radical simplification—of course, the superior accuracy, firepower, and mobility of U.S. forces are themselves transforming traditional calculations of military balances, and essential elements of American military power, like space forces, are applicable globally— it does lend a necessary clarity to force planning. Hard power is key to U.S. leadership. Global Security, (no author given) 4-27-05, < http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/1/ch2.htm> America is a strong Nation. It has abundant resources and a dynamic and productive population. It wields enormous political power and has the world’s strongest economy. But without a strong military to protect its enduring interests, America’s strength would soon wither. Since the end of the Cold War, the world has been in a state of significant transition. This transition is marked by increased uncertainty and potential vulnerability. The strategic environment is less stable than in the past, and threats to American interests are less predictable. National power remains relative and dynamic, and as such, the military must provide the National Command Authorities with flexible forces that can operate across the range of military operations and spectrum of conflict to achieve national security objectives. The Army operates as part of the joint force, and The Army constitutes the preponderance of the land component of that force. Acting as part of joint and multinational teams, The Army provides sustained land power capabilities to combatant commanders for engagement, crisis response, and warfighting in support of our national interests.

Overstretch Frontline (2/2)

America is best option for as world leader, decline of power leads to end of human life.

FERGUSON 2004 (Niall, Prof of History at NYU, Foreign Policy, July/August)

So what is left? Waning empires. Religious revivals. Incipient anarchy. A coming retreat into fortified cities. These are the Dark Age experiences that a world without a hyperpower might quickly find itself reliving. The trouble is, of course, that this Dark Age would be an altogether more dangerous one than the Dark Age of the ninth century. For the world is much more populous-roughly 20 times more-so friction between the world's disparate "tribes" is bound to be more frequent. Technology has transformed production; now human societies depend not merely on freshwater and the harvest but also on supplies of fossil fuels that are known to be finite. Technology has upgraded destruction, too, so it is now possible not just to sack a city but to obliterate it. For more than two decades, globalization-the integration of world markets for commodities, labor, and capital-has raised living standards throughout the world, except where countries have shut themselves off from the process through tyranny or civil war. The reversal of globalization-which a new Dark Age would produce-would certainly lead to economic stagnation and even depression. As the United States sought to protect itself after a second September 11 devastates, say, Houston or Chicago, it would inevitably become a less open society, less hospitable for foreigners seeking to work, visit, or do business. Meanwhile, as Europe's Muslim enclaves grew, Islamist extremists' Infiltration of the EU would become irreversible, increasing trans-Atlantic tensions over the Middle East to the breaking point. An economic meltdown in China would plunge the Communist system into crisis, unleashing the centrifugal forces that undermined previous Chinese empires. Western investors would lose out and conclude that lower returns at home are preferable to the risks of default abroad. The worst effects of the new Dark Age would be felt on the edges of the waning great powers. The wealthiest ports of the global economy-from New York to Rotterdam to Shanghai-would become the targets of plunderers and pirates. With ease, terrorists could disrupt the freedom of the seas, targeting oil tankers, aircraft carriers, and cruise liners, while Western nations frantically concentrated on making their airports secure. Meanwhile, limited nuclear wars could devastate numerous regions, beginning in the Korean peninsula and Kashmir, perhaps ending catastrophically in the Middle East. In Latin America, wretchedly poor citizens would seek solace in Evangelical Christianity imported by U.S. religious orders. In Africa, the great plagues of AIDS and malaria would continue their deadly work. The few remaining solvent airlines would simply suspend services to many cities in these continents; who would wish to leave their privately guarded safe havens to go there? For all these reasons, the prospect of an apolar world should frighten us today a great deal more than it frightened the heirs of Charlemagne. If the United States retreats from global hegemony-its fragile self-image dented by minor setbacks on the imperial frontier-its critics at home and abroad must not pretend that they are ushering in a new era of multipolar harmony, or even a return to the good old balance of power. Be careful what you wish for. The alternative to unipolarity would not be multipolarity at all. It would be apolarity-a global vacuum of power. And far more dangerous forces than rival great powers would benefit from such a not-so-new world disorder.

Overstretch Extension

Oversea bases in Middle East are must haves

Donnelly, Thomas, The Weekly Standard < http://www.aei.org/article/21591> 11-29-04

Much to its credit, the Bush administration has tackled the problem of the anachronistic U.S. global force posture inherited from the Cold War. Rather than a ring of static defenses in Western Europe and Northeast Asia to guard against Soviet aggression, the global war on terror requires the realignment of America's overseas bases into a network of expeditionary "frontier forts," geared toward projecting power into terrorist redoubts across the greater Middle East.

Overstretch is a must for power in order to protect weaker states.

Kreps, Sara Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2007-2008 [Current Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Dept. of Government, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York American Grand Strategy After Iraq<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W5V-4X3DS6P 7&_user=4257664&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2009&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1392153837&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000022698&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=4257664&md5=55abb55aa0f788faed140a6cc14bfaa6#fn17> 8-27-09]

As political scientist Barry Posen recently reminded us, “Any grand strategy must address the global distribution of military power.” Whether a state can pursue a strategy of primacy, whether it should pursue a strategy of selective engagement, collective security, or neo-isolationism hinges in part on the power at its disposal. A strategy of primacy, for example, requires preponderant power; liberal internationalism and selective engagement are power-conserving strategies that may be better suited to a state whose power is on the wane; and collective security, which relies on international organizations for the provision of security, or neo-isolationism may be best for less powerful states that cannot independently balance power or threats or for a state whose domestic audience eschews international engagement.

Overstretch Extension

Overstretch is key to globalization and a necessity to global community.

Posen, Barr is Ford International Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is Director of the Security Studies Program. He is the author of Inadvertent Escalation: Conventional War and Nuclear Risks (Cornell University Press, 1992) and The Sources of Military Doctrine (Cornell University Press, 1984). Stability and Change in US Strategy Fall 07

Any grand strategy must address the global distribution of military power. Typically this is measured in terms of gross domestic product, defense spending, military manpower, and major items of military equipment. By most indicators, the United States is by far the greatest military power in the system and arguably has the longest global reach of any power in history. This situation, a result of the Soviet Union’s collapse, quickly came to be seen as natural by many in the U.S. political elite, so much so that reﬂection on the remaining limits to U.S. military power was rarely seen.2 A qualitative assessment of U.S. military power relative to others is also necessary. Broadly speaking, the United States enjoys what I have called ‘‘command of the commons.’’3 The United States commands the sea, the air at altitudes above 10,000 feet, and space. If it wishes, it can drive others from these media. There is little that others can do about it. Competition in this realm depends on areas of great U.S. superiority—military research and development, extensive economic resources, highly skilled military professionals. It is plausible that U.S. command of the commons has been an important enabler of globalization. That said, the military advantages of the United States and other western powers diminish in the ‘‘contested zones’’—the littorals; the skies below 10,000 feet, where cheap antiaircraft weapons are effective; and on land—wherever the use of infantry is more appropriate than armored vehicles. Though the United States certainly can ﬁght effectively in these zones, the engagements undoubtedly, will be more demanding, and many more nation-states are likely to challenge U.S. forces. The contested zones remain contested because in these areas, the quantity of foot soldiers matters as much—or more—than their quality; background noise reduces the effectiveness of U.S. intelligence-gathering technologies; and the weapons necessary to do damage are cheap and plentiful.

Overstretch Solvency Take-outs

The troops have shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan – their overstretch claims are inevitable

Shane 07/06 [Leo III, staff writer for Stars and Stripes, “Biden: Mission Accomplished in Iraq”, Stripes, http://www.stripes.com/blogs/stripes-central/stripes-central-1.8040/biden-mission-accomplished-in-iraq-1.110077]

"I said last August of this year that we will have achieved two goals," he told troops at a naturalization ceremony on Sunday. "We will have helped Iraq’s leaders set the conditions for a sovereign, stable and self-reliant nation for future generations of Iraqis within a year, and we will have ended our combat mission here after more than seven years. And I’m proud to report that because of you, and tens of thousands of our sons and daughters, including our son, we’ve made good on that promise." U.S. forces are scheduled to end the combat mission in Iraq by Aug. 31, and the total U.S. force will have dropped from 140,000 to under 50,000 in President Barack Obama's first 19 months in office. Of course, the number of troops in Afghanistan has risen by 70,000 over that same time frame, muting the impact the Iraq drawdowns can have on the overall operational tempo.

Even given military pull out – those troops will only be shifted to Afghanistan

Gearan 5/24 [Anne, staff writer for the Associated Press, “More U.S. troops in Afghanistan than Iraq:The higher troop levels in Afghanistan are a first since 2003 Iraq invasion”, MSNBC, 2010, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37324981/ns/us_news-life/38056264]

More U.S. forces are serving in Afghanistan than in Iraq, the Pentagon said Monday, a first since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and a reflection of the new primacy of the nine-year Afghan war. Using figures collected Saturday, the Pentagon says 94,000 U.S. forces are in Afghanistan and 92,000 in Iraq. The numbers are expected to rise in Afghanistan and fall in Iraq as the Obama administration shifts focus to what it has called the more important conflict. President Barack Obama celebrated what he called the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq during a commencement address Saturday to U.S. Military Academy cadets. At the same time, he predicted tough fighting in Afghanistan. Obama had campaigned on a quick end to the Iraq war, which he opposed, and an expansion of the conflict in Afghanistan, which he said mattered more. "As we end the war in Iraq ... we are pressing forward in Afghanistan," Obama said Saturday. "There will be difficult days ahead. We will adapt, we will persist, and I have no doubt that together with our Afghan and international partners, we will succeed in Afghanistan." U.S. forces in Afghanistan will reach roughly 98,000 later this year — a record — on Obama's orders.

Iraq Stability (1/1)

Fragile progress being made in Iraq - must rely on external power.

Kenneth M. Pollack and Irena L. Sargsyan, Director of Saban Center for middle eastern policy, April 2010. The Other Side of the COIN: Perils of Premature Evacuation from Iraq http://www.twq.com/10april/index.cfm? id=385

Iraq has made remarkable progress since the worst days of its civil war in 2006. Security has improved enormously, democratization has gained a foothold, and democratic pressures have forced Iraqi politicians to change their methods, if not necessarily their goals. Iraq’s micro economies have begun to revive and foreign investment is beginning to pick up. But as countless policymakers and commentators have pointed out, these gains are fragile and reversible. All of the tensions that propelled the country into the maelstrom of civil war during the initial years of bungled reconstruction remain, as do the memories of the many horrific acts committed. As numerous scholars of civil war have noted, these lingering fears typically make the resumption of civil war uncomfortably likely in cases like Iraq, unless an external great power is willing to serve as peacekeeper and mediator during the critical early years when the new, fragile state must build institutions capable of providing effective governance and public safety.

US troops prevent military coup and civil war.

Kenneth M. Pollack and Irena L. Sargsyan, Director of Saban Center for middle eastern policy, April 2010. The Other Side of the COIN: Perils of Premature Evacuation from Iraq http://www.twq.com/10april/index.cfm?id=385

Today, the surest guarantee that the Iraqi military will not move against the civilian leadership, and that the civilian leadership will be limited in its ability to emasculate the military either of which could trigger a new civil war is the presence of almost 100,000 U.S. troops. When that presence is removed in December 2011, that guarantee will depart with them. Since history in similar circumstances elsewhere warns of the risk of catastrophically bad civil-military relations, unless large numbers of the departing great power’s combat troops remain behind for years or decades, the United States may be committing de´ja`vu all over again in Iraq.

Iraq will be destabilized; weak government, religious militants, and oil dependence cause disaster.

Nizar Latif, Foreign Correspondent, 2009, Iraqis worry over US pull-out. http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090316/FOREIGN/711491286/1040

Yet while a majority have wanted to see an end to the occupation almost from the moment it began, there remain real concerns about the withdrawal; that the government may not be strong enough to survive without US support, for example, or that religious militants will resume their currently stalled campaigns of violence. These worries are not being helped by a brewing economic crisis. “Iraq is in a dangerous situation,” said Abdul Wahid Rahman, a political analyst from Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown. “Iraq is too dependent on oil and with the fall in oil prices, it means that in economic terms the situation is dire. That is likely to have a real effect on security. “If the economy were to collapse any further, the security we have could collapse as well. This is all very fragile. It may get bad enough that the Americans decide they cannot withdraw. I think that’s a real possibility. There could be a real collapse, a return to chaos.”

Iraq Stability Extensions

Premature withdraw leads to civil war

Porter, BComm/LLB Candidate at the University of Queensland (Australia), 2010 (Jennifer, “Pre-Requisites for the Safe Return of Iraqi Refugees,” Queensland Law Student Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, http://www.law.uq.edu.au/articles/qlsr/Porter-QLSR.pdf)

In what can only be described as a balancing act, the Coalition forces must ensure that Iraq takes control of its destiny as soon as possible, but acknowledge that if too great a responsibility is taken too soon, it may result in failure. The Iraq Study Group Report identifies various scenarios which could occur should the Coalition depart prematurely. These include a collapse of government, a sectarian split among security forces, ethnic cleansing and an increase in the number of refugees.43 Leaders of neighbouring countries fear that instability in Iraq could spark Sunni‐Shia clashes across the Islamic world.44 Critics argue that a withdrawal of US troops will almost inevitably thrust the nation into a bitter civil war.45 The Coalition forces must be certain that there is sufficient reconciliation between sectarian leaders and that adequate security is inplace to ensure that civil war does not break out, threatening the security of the entire region.46

Iraqi stability is fragile now, but a premature US withdrawal would unravel these gains

Pollack, Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, and Sargsyan, Research Analyst at the Saban Center and Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Government at Georgetown University, 2010 (Kenneth M. and Irena L., “The Other Side of the COIN: Perils of Premature Evacuation from Iraq,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2, pg. 17-32)

The United States is leaving Iraq. Both the U.S. administration and the Iraqi government have made that clear. In 2008, the United States and Iraq signed a security agreement allowing U.S. troops to stay only until the end of 2011, and in February 2009, President Barack Obama announced that he intended to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq to just 50,000 and to end their combat mission by August 2010.1 But how the United States leaves is of tremendous importance for the region, the international community, and above all, for the future vital U.S. interests. Iraq has made remarkable progress since the worst days of its civil war in 2006. Security has improved enormously, democratization has gained a foothold, and democratic pressures have forced Iraqi politicians to change their methods, if not necessarily their goals. Iraq’s micro economies have begun to revive and foreign investment is beginning to pick up. But as countless policymakers and commentators have pointed out, these gains are fragile and reversible. All of the tensions that propelled the country into the maelstrom of civil war during the initial years of bungled reconstruction remain, as do the memories of the many horrific acts committed. As numerous scholars of civil war have noted, these lingering fears typically make the resumption of civil war uncomfortably likely in cases like Iraq, unless an external great power is willing to serve as peacekeeper and mediator during the critical early years when the new, fragile state must build institutions capable of providing effective governance and public safety.2 Indeed, candidate Obama correctly argued that when the United States prematurely turned away from Afghanistan to focus on Iraq in 2002—2003, the result was the near collapse of the new Afghan government and the resumption of widespread civil strife.3 Even if it is to focus on Afghanistan, if the United States turns away from Iraq prematurely, it would have dire consequences for Iraq, whose fragile government will be more likely to fail, and for the United States, because success in Iraq is vital to U.S. interests.

Iraq Stability Extensions

Withdraw leads to collapse of CMR and civil war – history proves

Pollack, Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, and Sargsyan, Research Analyst at the Saban Center and Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Government at Georgetown University, 2010 (Kenneth M. and Irena L., “The Other Side of the COIN: Perils of Premature Evacuation from Iraq,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2, pg. 17-32)

One of the least acknowledged problems with the ongoing transition of the U.S. mission in Iraq is the potential for problems to arise between the Iraqi military and the civilian government. The increase in the size, capabilities, and political reliability of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) were important elements in the turnaround in Iraq in 2007—2008. Today, the ISF are so large (roughly 650,000 in early 2010) and relatively capable that many Iraqis and Americans believe that the U.S. military presence has become superfluous. In Baghdad and Washington, there is a growing consensus that the Iraqis can handle their internal security and the residual insurgency threat by themselves, and as a result, the United States can pull out its troops quickly. This notion is dangerously mistaken. There are many things that could still tear Iraq apart, and the future of the Iraqi security forces themselves are among those at the top of the list. Today, the ISF sees itself as a strong, modern, progressive institution, fully capable of fulfilling its national mission. More critically, most Iraqi generals see few, if any, other institutions in Iraq that can make the same claim. They view Iraqi politicians as venal and incompetent, squandering all of the gains won at such a high price by their soldiers. In and of itself, this has been the textbook recipe for a military coup throughout modern history, especially in the Middle East. Moreover, Iraq’s civilian leadership is well aware of both the army’s sentiments and the historical pattern they seem to fit, and has been working hard to ensure the political loyalty of the armed forces. To do so, the government has been employing equally typical patterns of what noted RAND analyst James Quinlivan has called ‘‘coup-proofing’’: replacing military professionals with officers personally loyal to the leader; creating multiple chains of command, some of which skirt established lines of authority to report directly to the leader or his trusted aides; establishing multiple intelligence services that can watch each other as well as the military; and creating elite military formations directly under the control of the leader.4 Naturally, the fact that the civilian leadership is showing such growing distrust of the military further antagonizes many generals, which someday may incline some (perhaps all) to act against the civilian leadership. As if that isn’t bad enough, there is yet another problem: it is the nature of counterinsurgency (COIN) operations to politicize the militaries conducting them. The nature of COIN warfare is that the indigenous military fights an internal enemy. The history of militaries of developing countries conducting COIN campaigns is that in the absence of a large, foreign military presence with large numbers of combat troops, indigenous political—military relations often go sour as a result of the counterinsurgency effort, regardless of its effectiveness. Iraq’s current civil—military relations are fragile and fraught with distrust on both sides. This is a major problem that must be addressed before the United States implements the drawdown of U.S. combat forces and shifts the U.S. mission from combat operations to advising and training. Today, the surest guarantee that the Iraqi military will not move against the civilian leadership, and that the civilian leadership will be limited in its ability to emasculate the military—either of which could trigger a new civil war—is the presence of almost 100,000 U.S. troops. When that presence is removed in December 2011, that guarantee will depart with them. Since history in similar circumstances elsewhere warns of the risk of catastrophically bad civil-military relations, unless large numbers of the departing great power’s combat troops remain behind for years or decades, the United States may be committing déjà vu all over again in Iraq.

Iraq Stability Extensions

The mission in Iraq is shifting from counterinsurgency to peacekeeping – this requires large troop presence to prevent civil war

Pollack, Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, and Sargsyan, Research Analyst at the Saban Center and Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Government at Georgetown University, 2010 (Kenneth M. and Irena L., “The Other Side of the COIN: Perils of Premature Evacuation from Iraq,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2, pg. 17-32)

South Vietnam was also something of a failed or failing state, which dragged U.S. troops into nation-building activities there, but South Vietnam never experienced the same kind of power vacuum or intense communal violence that has traumatized Iraqi society. Consequently, the role presently played by U.S. combat forces in Iraq is in many ways distinct from that played by U.S. combat forces in Vietnam. More fundamentally, as Steven Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations presciently observed in 2008, the critical function of U.S. troops in Iraq is increasingly shifting from counterinsurgency to peacekeeping.17 The insurgency is not extinguished, but without large-scale popular support, it has become more of a lethal irritant, manifested in discrete terrorist acts, rather than an organized, collective movement that could threaten the state. Hence, it is very difficult to envision a revival of the insurgency without the prior resumption of the civil war. The real danger in Iraq, therefore, is not the revival of the Sunni insurgency per se, but the recurrence of the civil war—and that is the principal danger which U.S. military forces are seeking to prevent. For that reason, Iraq may not conform to the hopeful pattern suggested by Abrams’s experience in Vietnam. For peacekeepers to succeed, they need to be present in sufficient strength to prevent a recurrence of conflict and to reassure the populace that they can physically intercede between groups on the verge of using violence, including whichever group happens to control the government. That is why peacekeeping missions invariably demand much larger numbers of military personnel than do counterinsurgency advisory missions.

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Condition CP

Pressure will be ineffective – Iraq knows its responsibilities, having conditions will anger Iraqis

Reuters, 2009 [Waleed Ibrahim, staff writer for Reuters, “Iraq's Maliki says Biden criticism "out of date"”, Feb. 10th, http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LA518641.htm]

"I think our administration is going to have to be very deeply involved. We are going to have to get in there and be much more aggressive in forcing them to deal with these issues," Biden said. Asked about Biden's remarks on Tuesday, Maliki, an increasingly assertive leader whose followers won surprise victories in provincial elections last month, fired back. "I believe talk about applying pressure on the Iraqi government or taking hard measures against it no longer works," he said at a news conference in Baghdad with visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "Such speech is out of date, because the government of Iraq knows its responsibilities and acts accordingly in a strong way." Obama and Biden both campaigned on pledges to withdraw U.S. troops rapidly from Iraq and frequently accused the administration of former President George W. Bush of failing to press Iraqi leaders to make political compromises. But Maliki has bristled at suggestions that Baghdad needed further prodding to enact laws aimed at reconciling the sects which waged years of warfare against each other, killing tens of thousands of Iraqis after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. "It was we who launched national reconciliation," he said.

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Condition CP

Article 140 cannot be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations

Alrafidayn 06/69 [no author, Iraq, 2010, “Kurds: Article 140 is not negotiable and non-recognition of the political scene held” http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&langpair=ar|en&u=http://www.alrafidayn.com/2009-05-26-22-07-53/17873----140---------.html&prev=/language_tools&rurl=translate.google.com]

Bayazid Hassan MP for the Kurdistan list of change: "Article 140 cannot be a bargaining chip in negotiations and discussions the political blocs." He said: "that any government formed in the future, to respect this constitutional provision, implementation and that all parties not to engage in bidding policy on them." He continued that: "There will be flexibility over the Kurdish demands with regard to article 140 on the disputed areas in the negotiations between political blocs, as it demands guaranteed by the Constitution. "and called on concerned parties to:" to make concessions on a candidate as prime minister and speed up the formation of the government because it is the interest of all Iraqis. "He said:" All political scenarios before possible in the distribution of positions of presidential and sovereign. " For his part, leader of the Kurdistan Alliance MP Mohsen al-Sadoun said the voices we hear from some politicians in the masses of winning the elections on the non-recognition rule of constitutional 140 further complicate the political scene in Iraq. Sadoun said that which does not recognize the Article 140 does not recognize the Constitution voted by the people Iraqi and a guarantee of their rights. He added: that some politicians, instead of heading to find a quick solution to form a government at this difficult time talking about the substance had been resolved by the Constitution. called Sadoun politicians to stay away from political pressure and the tendency to solve the problem of forming a government which is now serious concerns on the Iraqi arena. Meanwhile, MP for the Iraqi National Coalition Qasim al-Araji, said on Monday that the meeting will bring together the leader of Iraq, Iyad Allawi, leader of coalition rule of law, Nuri al-Maliki and a pressure directed against the coalition. "They said," It should not be a coalition of law held side events away from the National Alliance must be the existence of joint meetings, "noting that" It is my view that the meeting between al-Maliki, Allawi is a pressure point on the National Coalition to accept Maliki's candidates for the National Alliance for prime minister. "The spokesman for a coalition of law Hassani revealed talks official will be conducted by the National Alliance with the Iraqi List soon to discuss the issue of forming a government. Araji said that the National Coalition to "Antkhov of the meeting, which will not yield any result because Maliki, Allawi insist on the post of prime minister, but I think it's leverage against the national coalition."

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Iran relations

Withdrawal of troops key to Iran – Iraq relations

Schwartz, Lowell is a Political Scientist at RAND Ph.D., Department of War Studies, King's College London; M.A. in international affairs, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; B.S. in economics and history, University of Wisconsin Iraq is stable enough for U.S. troops to leave <http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20090311a3.html> 3-11-09

Iran's role in Iraq also changed. The Iranian government had been a major backer of Shiite militia groups, including the Mahdi Army, led by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. But the Iranians also had close ties from the beginning with elements of the Shiite-led coalition government. In 2008, following al-Maliki's military operation to clean out militia groups in Basra, Iran's leaders seem to have decided that this two-faced strategy had run its course.

Iran then helped broker a ceasefire that was highly favorable to al-Maliki, and cemented his commanding position inside the Iraqi coalition government. No doubt al-Maliki's hardline stance on the need for a firm timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops was critical to Iran's decision to throw its weight behind him.

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Soft Power Adv.

Alternative causalities - no need to worry about al-Qaeda

Preble, Christiphor is director of foreign policy studies, he taught history at St. Cloud State University and Temple University. Preble was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy and is a veteran of the Gulf War, having served onboard USS Ticonderoga (CG-47) from 1990 to 1993. Preble holds a Ph.D. in history from Temple University. and Justin Logan is a foreign policy analyst, both at the Cato Institute. They are also members of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, If U.S. Leaves, Al-Qaeda Will Not Inherit Iraq, Lebanon Daily Star, 12-19-05

There is ample reason to doubt these claims. In a recent essay in The Boston Review, MIT's Barry Posen explained that the U.S. could not even be certain that a civil war, if one were to occur, would be a strategic boon for Al-Qaeda. More to the point, the U.S. does not need 150,000 troops in Iraq to pursue Al-Qaeda. The Zarqawi network is not going to be defeated by civil policing and neighborhood patrols.

The vast majority of Iraqis do not support Al-Qaeda's methods or objectives, and they would be even less likely to do so after the U.S. military left Iraq. As the president explained in his Naval Academy speech, Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists comprise the smallest of the three groups that make up the current insurgency. There is strong evidence that the other larger insurgent groups - Sunni Arab rejectionists, and pro-Saddam loyalists - would turn against the small number of foreign fighters currently waging the most deadly terrorist attacks. An Iraqi insurgent leader, Abu Qaqa al-Tamimi, recently told Time magazine: "One day, when the Americans have gone, we will need to fight another war, against these jihadis."

U.S. presence is not reason for al-Qaeda decrease in Iraq.

Bakier, Abdul Hameed Al-Qaeda Adapts its Methods in Iraq as Part of a Global Strategy

Volume 5, Issue 24 <http://freedomsadvocate.com/files/ref/JF%20Al-QaedaAdaptsItsMethodsIn%20IraqAsPartOfAGlobalStrategy-2007.pdf> 12-20-07

The discourse concerning al-Qaeda’s possible defeat in Iraq comes as a result of the relative drop in violent operations in the so-called “Sunni triangle.” The decrease in al- Qaeda activity is attributed to many different factors, the most important of which is the mistake it made by targeting other Sunni jihadi groups such as the Islamic Army of Iraq, Iraqi Hamas and al-Rashideen Army. In August 2007, Iraqi Hamas was accused of helping Coalition forces in Diyala province against al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda did not understand the Iraqi mentality and tried to lead the community by establishing the Islamic State of Iraq, instead of coexisting with the different Iraqi groups. The targeting of Shiites and their shrines aggravated the Sunnis Iraqis as much as it did the Shiites because it upset the precarious balance between the Sunnis and Shiites. These blunders were exploited by the Iraqi government and Coalition forces, leading to the establishment of the successful Sunni Majalis al-Sahwa, or “Awakening Councils”

(Emirate Centre for Strategic Studies and Research, December 9).

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Overstretch Good

Overstretch leads to global hegemons who will inevitably resort to war

Burbach, Roger is director of the Center for the Study of the Americas (Censa), based in Berkeley, California, USA. His next book, The Pinochet Affair: State Terrorism and Global Justice, will be co-released by Zed Books and the Transnational Institute in autumn 2003. Imperial Overstretch in Iraq 5-5-03 <http://www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/rburbach19.htm#anchor148639>

With the end of the US war in Iraq, the perspective of most commentators across the political spectrum is that the Bush administration is triumphant and can impose its will on the world. Saddam Hussein is banished from power, the United States occupies Iraq and is sitting on top of the world's second largest oil deposits. Referring to the failure of European as well as Arab countries to deter naked US aggression, Tariq Ali, in an editorial in the New Left Review of London, writes, "American global hegemony ... has never been so clearly displayed".

This is a flawed interpretation of the historic impact of the Iraqi intervention. Rather than the triumph of a new imperial order, the war may actually accelerate the decline of US hegemony. In late 2002, Charles Kupchan, a professor at Georgetown University and a member of the National Security Council in the Clinton administration, released a book titled The End of the American Era. Cast in mainstream political language, Kupchan argues that "Pax Americana" will end due to "the rise of alternative centres of power and a declining and unilateralist US internationalism". Even before France and Germany headed up the Western opposition to the US war in Iraqi, Kupchan asserted that the European Union would be in the forefront of an emergent "multipolar world" that will eclipse US ascendancy in the early part of the 21st century.

Events in Iraq in the wake of the war suggest that the US occupation will be a bloody one that contributes to the sapping of US global power. No one, including the US anointed ruler, General Jay Garner, is in control. Iraqi schoolboys shake their shoes at US soldiers, chanting in English, "Down USA". Anti-American demonstrators in Shi'i and Sunni regions of the country rally against US troops, leading US soldiers to fire on angry mobs, killing and maiming scores. US military officers invariably claim their troops "were fired on first", while Iraqi witnesses state there was no hostile fire from the demonstrators. Even if the US assertions are true, these confrontations have all the markings of colonial wars past. Inevitably, the more militant Iraqi opponents of the United States of all political and religious stripes will move among the people, accentuating popular unrest and exacting a toll on the occupying army.

Back in the late 1980s Paul Kennedy, another fairly mainstream scholar at Yale University, asserted in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers that, in their waning years, empires engage in "overstretch". As they begin to decline, the dominant powers almost invariably resort to war and belligerency, thereby accelerating their demise as they waste their national treasuries on military spending to the detriment of their economies and their peoples.

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Overstretch Good

Overstretch makes the US the global power - this makes America overconfident and thus unafraid to utilize this power via military action

Johnson, Chalmer is an American author and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego, consultant for CIA, president and co-founder of Japan Policy Research Institute <http://www.alternet.org/story/47998?page=entire >12-19-07

With more than 2,500,000 U.S. personnel serving across the planet and military bases spread across each continent, it's time to face up to the fact that our American democracy has spawned a global empire.

Once upon a time, you could trace the spread of imperialism by counting up colonies. America's version of the colony is the military base; and by following the changing politics of global basing, one can learn much about our ever more all-encompassing imperial "footprint" and the militarism that grows with it.

It is not easy, however, to assess the size or exact value of our empire of bases. Official records available to the public on these subjects are misleading, although instructive. According to the Defense Department's annual inventories from 2002 to 2005 of real property it owns around the world, the Base Structure Report, there has been an immense churning in the numbers of installations. The total of America's military bases in other people's countries in 2005, according to official sources, was 737. Reflecting massive deployments to Iraq and the pursuit of President Bush's strategy of preemptive war, the trend line for numbers of overseas bases continues to go up. Interestingly enough, the thirty-eight large and medium-sized American facilities spread around the globe in 2005 -- mostly air and naval bases for our bombers and fleets -- almost exactly equals Britain's thirty-six naval bases and army garrisons at its imperial zenith in 1898. The Roman Empire at its height in 117 AD required thirty-seven major bases to police its realm from Britannia to Egypt, from Hispania to Armenia. Perhaps the optimum number of major citadels and fortresses for an imperialist aspiring to dominate the world is somewhere between thirty-five and forty. Using data from fiscal year 2005, the Pentagon bureaucrats calculated that its overseas bases were worth at least $127 billion -- surely far too low a figure but still larger than the gross domestic products of most countries -- and an estimated $658.1 billion for all of them, foreign and domestic (a base's "worth" is based on a Department of Defense estimate of what it would cost to replace it). During fiscal 2005, the military high command deployed to our overseas bases some 196,975 uniformed personnel as well as an equal number of dependents and Department of Defense civilian officials, and employed an additional 81,425 locally hired foreigners. The worldwide total of U.S. military personnel in 2005, including those based domestically, was 1,840,062 supported by an additional 473,306 Defense Department civil service employees and 203,328 local hires. Its overseas bases, according to the Pentagon, contained 32,327 barracks, hangars, hospitals, and other buildings, which it owns, and 16,527 more that it leased. The size of these holdings was recorded in the inventory as covering 687,347 acres overseas and 29,819,492 acres worldwide, making the Pentagon easily one of the world's largest landlords. These numbers, although staggeringly big, do not begin to cover all the actual bases we occupy globally. The 2005 Base Structure Report fails, for instance, to mention any garrisons in Kosovo (or Serbia, of which Kosovo is still officially a province) -- even though it is the site of the huge Camp Bondsteel built in 1999 and maintained ever since by the KBR corporation (formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root), a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation of Houston. The report similarly omits bases in Afghanistan, Iraq (106 garrisons as of May 2005), Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, and Uzbekistan, even though the U.S. military has established colossal base structures in the Persian Gulf and Central Asian areas since 9/11. By way of excuse, a note in the preface says that "facilities provided by other nations at foreign locations" are not included, although this is not strictly true. The report does include twenty sites in Turkey, all owned by the Turkish government and used jointly with the Americans. The Pentagon continues to omit from its accounts most of the $5 billion worth of military and espionage installations in Britain, which have long been conveniently disguised as Royal Air Force bases. If there were an honest count, the actual size of our military empire would probably top 1,000 different bases overseas, but no one -- possibly not even the Pentagon -- knows the exact number for sure. In some cases, foreign countries themselves have tried to keep their U.S. bases secret, fearing embarrassment if their collusion with American imperialism were revealed. In other instances, the Pentagon seems to want to play down the building of facilities aimed at dominating energy sources, or, in a related situation, retaining a network of bases that would keep Iraq under our hegemony regardless of the wishes of any future Iraqi government. The U.S. government tries not to divulge any information about the bases we use to eavesdrop on global communications, or our nuclear deployments, which, as William Arkin, an authority on the subject, writes, "[have] violated its treaty obligations. The U.S. was lying to many of its closest allies, even in NATO, about its nuclear designs. Tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, hundreds of bases, and dozens of ships and submarines existed in a special secret world of their own with no rational military or even 'deterrence' justification." In Jordan, to take but one example, we have secretly deployed up to five thousand troops in bases on the Iraqi and Syrian borders. (Jordan has also cooperated with the CIA in torturing prisoners we deliver to them for "interrogation.") Nonetheless, Jordan continues to stress that it has no special arrangements with the United States, no bases, and no American military presence. The country is formally sovereign but actually a satellite of the United States and has been so for at least the past ten years. Similarly, before our withdrawal from Saudi Arabia in 2003, we habitually denied that we maintained a fleet of enormous and easily observed B-52 bombers in Jeddah because that was what the Saudi government demanded. So long as military bureaucrats can continue to enforce a culture of secrecy to protect themselves, no one will know the true size of our baseworld, least of all the elected representatives of the American people. In 2005, deployments at home and abroad were in a state of considerable flux. This was said to be caused both by a long overdue change in the strategy for maintaining our global dominance and by the closing of surplus bases at home. In reality, many of the changes seemed to be determined largely by the Bush administration's urge to punish nations and domestic states that had not supported its efforts in Iraq and to reward those that had. Thus, within the United States, bases were being relocated to the South, to states with cultures, as the Christian Science Monitor put it, "more tied to martial traditions" than the Northeast, the northern Middle West, or the Pacific Coast. According to a North Carolina businessman gloating over his new customers, "The military is going where it is wanted and valued most." In part, the realignment revolved around the Pentagon's decision to bring home by 2007 or 2008 two army divisions from Germany -- the First Armored Division and the First Infantry Division -- and one brigade (3,500 men) of the Second Infantry Division from South Korea (which, in 2005, was officially rehoused at Fort Carson, Colorado). So long as the Iraq insurgency continues, the forces involved are mostly overseas and the facilities at home are not ready for them (nor is there enough money budgeted to get them ready). Nonetheless, sooner or later, up to 70,000 troops and 100,000 family members will have to be accommodated within the United States. The attendant 2005 "base closings" in the United States are actually a base consolidation and enlargement program with tremendous infusions of money and customers going to a few selected hub areas. At the same time, what sounds like a retrenchment in the empire abroad is really proving to be an exponential growth in new types of bases -- without dependents and the amenities they would require -- in very remote areas where the U.S. military has never been before. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was obvious to anyone who thought about it that the huge concentrations of American military might in Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea were no longer needed to meet possible military threats. There were not going to be future wars with the Soviet Union or any country connected to any of those places. In 1991, the first Bush administration should have begun decommissioning or redeploying redundant forces; and, in fact, the Clinton administration did close some bases in Germany, such as those protecting the Fulda Gap, once envisioned as the likeliest route for a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. But nothing was really done in those years to plan for the strategic repositioning of the American military outside the United States.

By the end of the 1990s, the neoconservatives were developing their grandiose theories to promote overt imperialism by the "lone superpower" -- including preventive and preemptive unilateral military action, spreading democracy abroad at the point of a gun, obstructing the rise of any "near-peer" country or bloc of countries that might challenge U.S. military supremacy, and a vision of a "democratic" Middle East that would supply us with all the oil we wanted. A component of their grand design was a redeployment and streamlining of the military. The initial rationale was for a program of transformation that would turn the armed forces into a lighter, more agile, more high-tech military, which, it was imagined, would free up funds that could be invested in imperial policing.

What came to be known as "defense transformation" first began to be publicly bandied about during the 2000 presidential election campaign. Then 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq intervened. In August 2002, when the whole neocon program began to be put into action, it centered above all on a quick, easy war to incorporate Iraq into the empire. By this time, civilian leaders in the Pentagon had become dangerously overconfident because of what they perceived as America's military brilliance and invincibility as demonstrated in its 2001 campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda -- a strategy that involved reigniting the Afghan civil war through huge payoffs to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance warlords and the massive use of American airpower to support their advance on Kabul.

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS – AT: Iraq Unstable

Iraq is stable enough for U.S. troops to leave.

Schwartz, Lowell is a Political Scientist at RAND Ph.D., Department of War Studies, King's College London; M.A. in international affairs, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; B.S. in economics and history, University of Wisconsin Iraq is stable enough for U.S. troops to leave <http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20090311a3.html> 3-11-09

The Obama administration's decision to withdraw the bulk of U.S. troops from Iraq over the next 19 months has sparked fears that Iraq will once again plunge into the wide-scale and debilitating violence that it endured from 2004 to 2007. Those fears are, for the most part, overblown. There are good reasons to believe that the level of stability achieved in Iraq can be maintained even without a large-scale U.S. presence.

To understand why, it is important to know what else was going on inside Iraq in 2007, when U.S. President George W. Bush ordered the "surge" of 20,000 additional troops and Gen. David Petraeus shifted U.S. forces to a more aggressive strategy. For, although the surge was important, two other factors played a critical role in bringing Iraq back from the brink.

First, Baghdad had been transformed into a Shiite-dominated city. Although exact statistics are hard to come by, in 2003 approximately 35 percent of Baghdad's population was Sunni. Today, based upon the results of the recently held regional election, Baghdad is only 10 percent to 15 percent Sunni. This means that between 1 million and 1.5 million Sunnis have fled the capital. Most now are refugees in Jordan and Syria, and they are unlikely to be welcomed home anytime soon by the new Shiite elite running the country.

The ethnic cleansing of many Baghdad neighborhoods in 2006 and 2007 was deplorable. But it made it difficult for Sunni insurgents to hide or blend in with the population, and deprived them of logistic and financial support. It also provided a degree of safety and security for the Shiite-led government, which was largely the purpose of the well-organized campaign in the first place.

Iraq will remain stable after troops leave.

Schwartz, Lowell is a Political Scientist at RAND Ph.D., Department of War Studies, King's College London; M.A. in international affairs, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; B.S. in economics and history, University of Wisconsin Iraq is stable enough for U.S. troops to leave <http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20090311a3.html> 3-11-09

Both the transformation of Baghdad into a Shiite city and the recognition and support of Iraq's neighbors for the country's new political order have been instrumental in stabilizing the country. These changes are likely to be permanent, and offer hope that the wide-scale violence that afflicted the country between 2003 and 2007 will not return after U.S. forces depart.