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=T - Decrease= A. A reduction must be a quantifiable decrease of at least 25% from the President’s Funding baseline. DOD 5/12/  2003 , Department of Defense, //Department of Defense Instruction SUBJECT: Operation of the Defense Acquisition System//, N UMBER 5000.2 cp E9.4.3. __Additional Funding Considerations__. The DoD Components shall not terminate or substantially reduce participation in international cooperative ACAT ID programs under signed international agreements without USD(AT&L) approval; or in international cooperative ACAT IAM programs without ASD(C3I) approval. A DoD Component may not terminate or substantially reduce U.S. participation in an international cooperative program until after providing notification to the USD(AT&L) or the ASD(C3I). As a result of that notification, the USD(AT&L) or the ASD(C3I) may require the DoD Component to continue to provide some or all of the funding for that program in order to minimize the impact on the international cooperative program. Substantial reduction is defined as a funding or quantity decrease of 25 percent or more in the total funding or quantities in the latest President's Budget for that portion of the international cooperative program funded by the DoD Component seeking the termination or reduced participation.

B. Obama has already budgeted for a withdrawal by August 31 (Raed  Jarrar  , senior fellow on the Middle East at Peace Action, Erik Leaver, research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, 3/3/   10   , “Sliding Backwards on Iraq”, Middle East at Peace Action & Institute for Policy Studies, @http://www.counterpunch.org/jarrar03032010.html )

__ Obama has consistently said he would comply with the August 31 deadline to remove combat forces from Iraq. __ He repeated this dozens of times on the campaign trail, stated it clearly at Camp Lejeune last year, and also repeated this policy in his Cairo speech. Vice President Biden affirmed this policy numerous times, saying in February, "You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer." And just last week, __the White House reaffirmed its intention to call an end to operation Iraqi Freedom by August 31__. Congress confirmed the president's policy by including clear language recognizing and __supporting the deadlines for the withdrawal of combat forces in both the FY10 defense appropriations and defense authorization bills__. Last month 28 members of Congress, including the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to Obama commending him on his plan to withdraw combat forces by August 31, regardless of the situation on the ground. C. The plan only guarantees that the status quo will continue – it does not produce a reduction from the funding baseline. D. This is best for debate – 1. Ground. No unique disads or links – even if there are reason’s the plans bad, they’re already occurring because the plan is already occurring so we can’t garner offense. 2. Education. Kills policymaking education – the point is to learn how to craft new policy changes to fix status quo problems, rather than just researching why existing governmental policies are good. 3. Mixes Burdens. The plan text dosen't add a decrease from a baseline –it's unfair to make us beat their inherency to prove they're not topical.  =Kurdish PIC= CP Text: The United States federal government should withdraw all its troops following the United States – Iraq Status Of Forces Agreement but leave troops in Kirkuk until the conflict has been resolved. U.S. withdrawal leads to an Arab-Kurdish power struggle over territory (James F Dobbins, July 16, 20  09  , diplomat and former [|United States Ambassador] to the [|European Union] (1991-93) and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (2001). He is a member of the [|American Academy of Diplomacy] Copyright Middle East Policy Council Fall 2009, U.S. WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ: WHAT ARE THE REGIONAL IMPLICATIONS? )

Finally, there are the special groups that were originally part of al-Sadr 's Jaish alMahdi, but have achieved a certain degree of autonomy and were supported by - and, some people speculated, directed by - Iran, and were among the most destructive of the forces back in 2006, 2007. They were largely defeated and have drawn back, and the Iranians are providing less support and encouragement for these groups. There is the danger that the government dominated by the Shia will not adequately integrate the Sunni minority politically and also to some degree militarily - that is, accept the Sons of Iraq, put them into a certain proportion of military-security positions and ensure the others have some form of livelihood. And there is the danger that the Shia groups could potentially begin fighting among themselves. But probably the greatest danger is the danger inherent in the Arab-Kurdish disputes over disputed territories along the border between the Kurdish region and the Arab majority provinces. Kirkuk and other di sputed areas are still flashpoints. So, if you are looking at where civil war in Iraq might resume, that could be the most dangerous and the most difficult to manage. In terms of external actors, all of Iraq's neighbors are going to interfere in one way or another. They would be foolish not to. After all, they are the ones who are going to get the refugees, the commercial disruption, the terrorism, endemic disease and the criminality that flows from having a failed state on their doorsteps. So they are going to interfere. Leaving troops is key (James F Dobbins , July 16, 20  09  , diplomat and former [|United States Ambassador] to the [|European Union] (1991-93) and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (2001). He is a member of the [|American Academy of Diplomacy] Copyright Middle East Policy Council Fall 2009, U.S. WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ: WHAT ARE THE REGIONAL IMPLICATIONS? ) In terms of strategies to reduce the risk, there are a number, most of which I think the administration cognizant of and is following. First, it is important that American combat forces leave the most volatile areas last , and the most volatile area between the Kurdish and Arab parts of the country in the disputed territories in that region. The United States is currently playing an important role in maintaining dialogue between the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi security forces,  containing disputes that could rise to the level of conflict if there were no mediator  with embedded personnel capable of speaking to both sides. They are playing an important role in keeping that area quiet, so leaving last from those kinds of regions is one way to reduce the risk. Second, following the withdrawal of combat forces, which is scheduled to be completed by next August, make sure that there are enough American forces in the country to continue to train and partner with Iraqi security forces, and to provide adequate force protection for the American troops that remain. Turns case - Kurdish war causes civil war (Patrick Cockburn , [|Middle East] [|correspondent] since 1979 for the [|Financial Times] and, presently, [|The Independent] . Among the most experienced [|commentators] on [|Iraq] , he has written four books on the country's recent history. He won the [|Orwell Prize] for Journalism in 2009. 8/10/  09  “Kurdish faultline threatens to spark new war” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/kurdish-faultline-threatens-to-spark-new-war-1769954.html) It is called the "trigger line", a 300-m ile long swathe of disputed territory in northern Iraq   where Arab and Kurdish soldiers confront each other, and  which risks turning into a battlefield. As the world has focused on the US __troop__ withdrawal from Iraq, and the intensifying war in Afghanistan, Arabs and Kurds in Iraq have been getting closer to an all out war over control of the oil-rich lands  stretching from the borders of Syria in the west to Iran in the east. The risk of armed conflict is acute because the zone in dispute is a mosaic of well-armed communities backed by regular forces. Kurdish and Arab soldiers here watch each other's movements with deepest suspicion in case the other side might attempt to establish new facts on the ground. It is to avert a new armed conflict breaking out between the powerful military forces on both sides that Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, travelled to Kurdistan for crisis talks last week with Kurdish leaders, Iraq's (Kurdish) President, Jalal Talabani, and the President of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Massoud Barzani. Mr Maliki and Mr Barzani had not met for a year during which their exchanges have been barbed and aggressive. The 26th Brigade of the 7th Division of the Iraqi army, an Arab unit, recently tried to move from Diyala province northeast of Baghdad through Makhmur, where there is a Kurdish majority, to reach the mainly Sunni Arab city of Mosul. Fearful this might be a Baghdad government land-grab for Makhmour, Kurdish civilians blocked the road. Khasro Goran, a senior member of the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), says the army advance would have been resisted if it had gone on. "Our forces had taken up positions on higher ground and if the Iraqi army brigade had come on, they were under orders to open fire." Ominously for the future unity of Iraq, the Kurdish unit preparing to shoot was itself part of the Iraqi army. American mediation and Arab-Kurdish negotiations in Baghdad ultimately prevented a clash and the 26th Brigade withdrew without fighting. But according to Mohammed Ihsan, the KRG's Minister for Extra Regional Affairs, who has responsibility for the disputed territories, any outbreak of hostilities could be the start of a major conflict: "If fighting does start at one point I am sure it will quickly spread along the whole line from Sinjar [near Syria] to Khanaqin [near Iran]." __President Barack Obama's__ administration is alarmed by the prospect of Iraq splitting apart just as the US pulls its troops out. But Washington can also see the danger of becoming more deeply enmeshed in the Arab-Kurdish conflict, which kept northern Iraq ablaze for much of the last century. US withdrawal also frightens the Kurds, the one Iraqi community that supported the US-led invasion. They can see the political and military balance is swinging against them just as they are faced by Mr Maliki's rejuvenated Iraqi government commanding the increasingly confident 600,000-strong Iraqi security forces. A report by the International Crisis Group concluded recently that "without the glue that US troops have provided, Iraq's political actors are otherwise likely to fight all along the trigger line following a withdrawal, emboldened by a sense that they can prevail, if necessary, with outside help. " Arab leaders, both Shia and Sunni, claim that the Kurds have overplayed their hand since 2003. As Saddam Hussein's regime was disintegrating, Kurdish forces swept into the cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, seizing territories where there was or had been a Kurdish majority before Saddam Hussein's ethnic cleansing. The sole sign of one of the 3,500 Kurdish villages destroyed by Saddam is often a pathetic pile of stones in a field where people once lived before they were killed or forced to flee, their herds of cows and flocks of sheep slaughtered, and concrete poured down the village well. Kurdish vociferousness over the danger of renewed war with the Arabs stems partly from wanting to panic the US into staying involved in the dispute. Yet the danger of war is quite real as the Kurds genuinely fear being evicted from the disputed territories and driven back into the KRG, behind the Green Line established after the Kurdish uprising of 1991.The Kurds nervously watch Iraqi troops reoccupy positions once held by Saddam Hussein's army. Last year, the Iraqi army sent north its 12th Division, a 9,500-strong force that is at least 75 per cent Shia Arab, into the Kirkuk oil province. " These troops are trying to encircle Kirkuk just as Saddam used to do  ," says Safeen Dizayee, the spokesman for the KDP. "They are trying to push out our forces, both peshmerga [Kurdish fighters] and Kurdish units in the regular Iraqi army. " Anti-Kurdish feeling is running high in the rest of Iraq, as is fear of Iraqi Arab revanchism in Kurdistan. Ethnic and sectarian hatred is strongest in the disputed territories where different communities live side-by-side. Nineveh province is like an Iraqi Lebanon in its diversity with its complicated mix of Kurds, Kurdish speaking Yazidis, Shabak, Sunni Arabs, Shia and Sunni Turkomans as well as Chaldean and Assyrian Christians. Asked about the prospect of an Arab-Kurdish civil war, people from Mosul say that for them it started six years ago. Some 2,000 Kurds from the city have been killed and another 100,000 have fle  d. Until January this year, the minority Kurds ruled the local council because the Sunni Arabs boycotted the election of 2005. But in the latest election, the anti-Kurdish al-Hadba party won and their leader, Atheel al-Najafi, is the new provincial governor, though this does not mean he can enter Kurdish areas. When he tried, on 8 May, to enter Bashiqa, a Yazidi-Chaldean town on the main road from Mosul to Arbil, at the head of a convoy of 40 police cars Kurdish peshmerga said they would shot to kill if he tried to go on. Moderation is not in fashion along the "trigger line". One Iraqi army battalion commander has been dismissed and investigated for cowardice over a confrontation with Kurdish security in January. It took place at Altun-Kupri, a Kurdish-Turkoman town which occupies an important position on the road between Arbil and Kirkuk. An Iraqi army patrol had suddenly appeared in town and local Kurds and Kurdish police immediately took to the streets to protest. Violence was only averted because the battalion commander, now sacked for his moderation, ignored orders from his high command to open fire. In the disputed areas, people say they will fight for dilapidated villages and infertile stretches of semi-desert which hardly seem worth dying for. But the land here is more valuable than it looks. One of the reasons for sensitivity about the exact position of the border separating Arabs from Kurds is that the disputed territories lie on top of Iraq's northern oil and gas fields centred on Kirkuk. The forays by the Iraqi army towards Makhmur and Altun Kupri had extra significance for the Kurds because both towns are so close to these oilfields. Kurds and Arabs in Iraq have the strength to thwart each other. The KRG has awarded contracts for oil development to foreign companies which have found oil, but the oil can only be exported using Baghdad government oil pipelines. "Otherwise, they will have to carry it away in buckets," says the Iraqi Oil Minister, Hussein al-Shahristani. The Kurds counter that at least one vital Iraqi oil pumping station is on their territory. War between Arabs and Kurds in Iraq woul d doom the country as an independent state. Such a conflict is not winnable by either side and each would seek foreign allies. For all their brutality, Saddam Hussein and his predecessors failed to crush the Kurds over 40 years. Differences over Kirkuk, the disputed territories and control of oil run too deep to resolve quickly, but after his long-delayed meeting with Kurdish leaders, Mr Maliki needs at least to stop a further escalation of the Arab-Kurdish conflict. =Security K= A. The 1ac is grounded in an orientalist discourse of middle eastern security defined according to U.S. imperial interests. Pinar **__Bilgin__**, @ Bilkent Univ, **__‘4__** [//International Relations// 18.1, “Whose ‘Middle East’? Geopolitical Inventions and Practices of Security,” p. 28] What I call the ‘Middle East’ perspective  is usually __associated with the U __nited __ S __tates and its regional allies. It derives from a ‘western’ conception of security  which could be summed up __as the__ __unhindered flow of oil at reasonable prices__, the __cessation of the Arab–Israeli conflict, the prevention of the emergence of any regional hegemon__ while __holding Islamism in check__, __and the maintenance of ‘friendly’ regimes__ that are sensitive to these concerns. __This__ was (and still is__) a top- down conception of security that privileged the security of states and military stability   .__ It is top-down because __threats to security have been defined largely from the perspective of external powers__ rather than regional states or peoples. In the eyes of British and US defence planners, Communist infiltration and Soviet intervention constituted the greatest threat to security in the ‘Middle East’ during the Cold War. The way to enhance regional security, they argued, was for regional states to enter into alliances with the West. Two security umbrella schemes, the ill-born Middle East Defence Organisation (1951) and the Baghdad Pact (1955), were designed for this purpose. Although there were regional states such as Iraq (until the 1958 coup), Iran (until the 1978–9 revolution) and Turkey that shared this perception of security to a certain extent, many Arab policy-makers begged to differ.22 Traces of this top-down thinking were prevalent in the US approach to security in the ‘Middle East’ during the 1990s. In following a policy of dual containment,23 US policy-makers presented Iran and Iraq as the main threats to regional security largely due to their military capabilities and the revisionist character of their regimes that are not subservient to US interests. However, __these__ top-down __perspectives, while revealing__ certain __aspects of regional insecurity__, at the same time __hinder others__. For example the lives of women in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are made insecure not only by the threat caused by their Gulf neighbours’ military capabilities, but also because of the conservative character of their own regimes that restrict __women’s rights__ under the cloak of religious tradition.24 For it is women who suffer disproportionately as a result of militarism and the channelling of valuable resources into defence budgets instead of education and health. Their concerns __rarely make it into security analyses__. This top-down  approach  __to__ regional __security in the ‘Middle East’__ was  com- pounded  by  a conception of security  that was __directed outwards__ – that is __threats to security were assumed to stem from outside the state whereas inside is viewed as a realm of peace__. Although it could be argued – following R.B.J. Walker – that __what makes it possible for ‘inside’ to remain peaceful is the presentation of ‘outside’ as a realm of danger__,25the practices of Middle Eastern states indicate that this does not always work as prescribed in theory. For many regional policy-makers justify certain domestic security measures by way of presenting the international arena as anarchical and stressing the need to strengthen the state to cope with external threats. While doing this, however, __they at the same time cause insecurity for__ some __individuals__ and social groups at home – __the very peoples whose security they purport to maintain.__ The practices of regional actors that do not match up to the theoretical prescriptions include the Baath regime in Iraq that infringed their own citizens’ rights often for the purposes of state security. Those who dare to chal lenge their states’ security  practices  may be  marginalized at best, and  accused of treachery and imprisoned  at worst. B. Representing the “Middle East” as a problem region entrenches Orientalist racial hierarchies. Pinar Bilgin , Associate Professor of International Relations, March  04  , International Relations 18 (1), “Whose ‘Middle East’? Geopolitical Interventions and Practices of Security,” http://ire.sagepub.com/content/18/1/25.full.pdf+html The ‘Middle East’1 has long been viewed as a region that ‘best fits the realist view of international politics’.2 Although there has begun to emerge, in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks against New York and Washington, DC, some awareness of the need to adopt a fresh approach to security in the Middle East,3 it remains a commonplace to argue that, whereas critical approaches to security4 may have some relevance within the Western European context, in other parts of the world – such as the ‘Middle East’ – traditional approaches retain their validity.5 The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the stalling in the Arab–Israeli peacemaking amid escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians, the US-led war on Iraq and the seeming lack of enthusiasm for addressing the problem of regional insecurity, especially when viewed against the backdrop of increasing regionalization of security relations in other parts of the world,6 do indeed suggest that the ‘Middle East’ is a place where traditional conceptions and practices of security are still having a field day. Contesting such approaches that present the ‘Middle East’ as an exception, this article will submit that critical approaches are indeed relevant in the ‘Middle East’, while accepting that some of the items of the old security agenda also retain their pertinence (as in Western Europe). Instead of taking the seemingly little evidence of enthusiasm for addressing the problem of regional insecurity in the ‘Middle East’ for granted, a critical place for such approaches to begin is a recognition of the presence of a multitud e of contending perspectives on regional security each one of which derives from different conceptions of security that have their roots in alternative worldviews   .7 When rethinking regional security from a Critical Security Studies perspective, both the concepts ‘region’ and ‘security’ need to be opened up to reveal the mutually constitutive relationship between (inventing) regions and (conceptions and practices of) security. Regions as geopolitical inventions The burgeoning literature on regions and regionalism has emphasized the ‘invented’ character of regions as opposed to some earlier conceptions that viewed regions as ‘eternal’,8 the point being that there is nothing ‘natural’ or ‘neutral’ about geographical assumptions and language. Throughout history, the driving purpose behind the identification and naming of geographic sites has almost always been military strategic interests. Indeed as Kären Wigen and Martin Lewis note, ‘some of the most basic and taken-for-granted “regions” of the world [such as Southeast Asia and Latin America] were first framed by military thinkers’.9 In other words, the origins of regions have had their roots in the security conceptions and practices of their inventors. In the case of the ‘Middle East’ the invention of the region is usually ascribed to Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, US naval officer and author of key works on naval strategy.10 In an article published in The National Review in 1902 Mahan suggested that Britain should take up the responsibility of maintaining security in the (Persian) Gulf and its coasts – the ‘Middle East’ – so that the route to India would be secured and Russia kept in check .11 The term ‘Middle East’ took-off from then onwards but as time progressed, the area so designated shifted westwards. In the interwar period the discovery of considerable quantities of oil in the Arabian peninsula and the increasing pace of Jewish migration into Palestine linked these chunks of territory to Mahan’s ‘Middle East’. During the Second World War British policy-makers began to use the term with reference to all Asian and North African lands to the west of India. No definite boundaries were set to the region during this period. In line with changes in British wartime policies, ‘Iran was added in 1942; Eritrea was dropped in September 1941 and welcomed back again five months later’.12 Towards the end of the Second World War the United States got involved in the ‘Middle East’, adopting the British wartime definition. These switches from one definition to another took place so swiftly that it prompted a well-known historian of the region, Roderic Davison, to ask in the pages of the Foreign Affairs: ‘Where is the Middle East?’.13 The argument so far should not be taken to mean that it was solely the military strategic interest s of western powers that have been the driving force behind the invention and reproduction of such representations. Throughout history all societies have produced their own representations of the world. The term ‘Maghreb’ (‘the West’ in Arabic) has its origins in the geopolitics of an earlier epoch, that of the first waves of Arab invaders who came to North Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries. However, not all societies have been able to impose their maps on to others. This is where relative endowment of material resources comes into play in deciding whose discourse emerges as the dominant one. To put it another way, the reason why the lands to the southwest of Asia and north of Africa have been lumped together in the mind’s eye and labelled as the ‘Middle East’ has its roots not merely in the military strategic interests of Great Britain of the late 19th century, but also in Britain’s material and representational prowess. It is not only the relative endowment of the material resources of rival powers but also the changes in communications and transportation technologies that have an impact on the way geographical categories are invented and adjusted. As the military strategic interests and capabilities of the major geopolitical actors of the time changed, th e ‘Middle East’ shifted in tandem with these changes. The point here is that technological and economic, as well as political changes, alter the way one ‘sees’ the world, thereby helping shape one’s practices. For example, after the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, some proposed a new region, that of the ‘Greater Middle East’.14 This new region includes the former Soviet republics of Central Asia which is in itself indicative of the security conceptions and practices of its inventors that include securing the route to Central Asian oil resources (in which there is now much interest) while holding Islamism in check (which has become a persistent anxiety in the United States and Western Europe in the aftermath of 11 September 2001).  C. Rejecting their demand for immediate yes/no policy response is the only way to raise critical ethical questions about the discourse and practice of ir in the middle east. Shampa **__ BISWAS __** Politics @ Whitman **__‘7__** “Empire and Global Public Intellectuals: Reading Edward Said as an International Relations Theorist” //Millennium// 36 (1) p. 117-125

The recent resuscitation of the project of Empire should give International Relations scholars particular pause.1 For a discipline long premised on a triumphant Westphalian sovereignty, there should be something remarkable about the ease with which the case for brute force, regime change and empire-building is being formulated in widespread commentary spanning the political spectrum. Writing after the 1991 Gulf War, Edward Said notes the US hesitance to use the word ‘empire’ despite its long imperial history.2 This hesitance too is increasingly under attack as even self-designated liberal commentators such as Michael Ignatieff urge the US to overcome its unease with the ‘e-word’ and selfconsciously don the mantle of imperial power, contravening the limits of sovereign authority and remaking the world in its universalist image of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’.3 Rashid Khalidi has argued that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq does indeed mark a new stage in American world hegemony, replacing the indirect and proxy forms of Cold War domination with a regime much more reminiscent of European colonial empires in the Middle East.4 The ease  __with which a defence of empire has been mounted__ and a colonial project so unabashedly resurrected  makes this a  particularly opportune, if not __necessary,  moment  __, as scholars of ‘the global’,  to take stock of our disciplinary complicities with power, to account for colonialist imaginaries tha t are lodged at the heart of a discipline   ostensibly interested in power but perhaps far __too deluded by__ the formal equality of state __sovereignty and__ overly concerned with __security__ and order. Perhaps more than any other scholar, Edward Said’s groundbreaking work in //Orientalism// has argued and demonstrated the long and deep complicity of academic scholarship with colonial domination.5 In addition to spawning whole new areas of scholarship such as postcolonial studies, Said’s writings have had considerable influence in his own discipline of comparative literature but also in such varied disciplines as anthropology, geography and history, all of which have taken serious and sustained stock of their own participation in imperial projects and in fact regrouped around that consciousness in a way that has simply not happened with International Relations.6 It has been 30 years since Stanley __Hoffman accused IR of being an ‘American social science’ and noted its too close connections to US foreign policy elites__ and US preoccupations of the Cold War to be able to make any universal claims,7 yet __there seems to be__ a curious __amnesia__ and lack of curiosity __about the__ political history of the __discipline__, __and__ in particular __its__ own __complicities in the production of empire__.8 __Through what discourses the imperial gets reproduced__, resurrected and re-energised is a question that __should be very much at the heart of a discipline whose task it is to examine__ the contours of __global power.__ Thinking this failure of IR through some of Edward Said’s critical scholarly work from his long distinguished career as an intellectual and activist, this  article  is an attempt to politicise and hence render questionable the disciplinary traps that have , ironically,  circumscribed the ability of scholars  whose very business it is to think about global politics __to actually think //globally// and //politically//__. What Edward Said has to offer IR scholars, I believe, is a certain kind of global sensibility, a critical but sympathetic and felt awareness of an inhabited and cohabited world. Furthermore, it is a profoundly political sensibility whose globalism is predicated on a cognisance of the imperial and a firm non-imperial ethic in its formulation. I make this argument by travelling through a couple of Said’s thematic foci in his enormous corpus of writing. Using a lot of Said’s reflections on the role of public intellectuals, I argue in this article that IR scholars need to develop what I call a ‘global intellectual posture’. In the 1993 Reith Lectures delivered on BBC channels, Said outlines three positions for public intellectuals to assume – as an outsider/exile/marginal, as an ‘amateur’, and as __a disturber of the status quo__ speaking ‘truth to power’ and __self-consciously siding with those who are underrepresented__ and disadvantaged.9 Beginning with a discussion of Said’s critique of ‘professionalism’ and the ‘cult of expertise’ as it applies to International Relations, I first argue the importance, for scholars of global politics, of taking //politics// seriously. Second, I turn to Said’s comments on the posture of exile and his critique of identity politics, particularly in its nationalist formulations, to ask what it means for students of global politics to take the //global// seriously. Finally, I attend to some of Said’s comments on humanism and contrapuntality to examine what IR scholars can learn from Said about //feeling and thinking globally// concretely, thoroughly and carefully. IR Professionals in an Age of Empire: From ‘International Experts’ to ‘Global Public Intellectuals’ One of the profound effects of the war on terror initiated by the Bush administration has been __a significant constriction of a democratic public sphere__, which __has included the active and aggressive curtailment of intellectual and political dissent__ and a sharp delineation of national boundaries along with concentration of state power. __The academy__ in this context __has become a particularly embattled site with__ some highly disturbing onslaughts on academic freedom. At the most obvious level, this has involved fairly well-calibrated neoconservative attacks on US higher education that have invoked __the mantra of ‘liberal bias’__ and demanded legislative regulation and reform10, an onslaught supported by a well-funded network of conservative think tanks, centres, institutes and ‘concerned citizen groups’ within and outside the higher education establishment11 and with considerable reach among sitting legislators, jurists and policy-makers as well as the media. But __what has__ in part __made possible the encroachment of such__ nationalist and __statist agendas has been a larger history of__ the corporatisation of the university and the accompanying ‘__professionalisation’__ that goes with it. Expressing concern with ‘academic acquiescence in the decline of public discourse in the United States’, Herbert __Reid has__ examined the ways in which the university is beginning to operate as another transnational corporation12, and __critiqued the consolidation of a ‘culture of professionalism’ where academic bureaucrats engage in bureaucratic rol e-playing, minor academic turf battles mask the larger managerial power play   __ on campuses __and the increasing influence of a relatively autonomous administrative elite and the rise of insular ‘expert cultures’__ have led to academics relinquishing their claims to public space and authority.13 While it is no surprise that the US academy should find itself too at that uneasy confluence of neoliberal globalising dynamics and exclusivist nationalist agendas that is the predicament of many contemporary institutions around the world, there is much reason for concern and an urgent need to rethink the role and place of intellectual labour in the democratic process. This is especially true for scholars of the global writing in this age of globalisation and empire. Edward Said has written extensively on the place of the academy as one of the few and increasingly precarious spaces for democratic deliberation and argued the necessity for public intellectuals immured from the seductions of power.14 Defending the US academy as one of the last remaining utopian spaces, ‘the one public space available to real alternative intellectual practices: no other institution like it on such a scale exists anywhere else in the world today’15, and lauding the remarkable critical theoretical and historical work of many academic intellectuals in a lot of his work, Said also complains that ‘the American University, with its munificence, utopian sanctuary, and remarkable diversity, has defanged (intellectuals)’16. The most serious threat to the ‘ intellectual vocation’ , he argues,  is  ‘professionalism’ and mounts a pointed attack on the proliferation of ‘specializations’ and  the ‘cult of expertise’ with their  __focus on ‘relatively narrow areas of knowledge’, ‘technical formalism’, ‘impersonal theories and methodologies’, and__ most worrisome of all, their ability and  willingness to be seduced by power  .17 Said mentions in this context the funding of academic programmes and research which came out of the exigencies of the Cold War18, an area in which there was considerable traffic of political scientists (largely trained as IR and comparative politics scholars) with institutions of policy-making. Looking at various influential US academics as ‘organic intellectuals’ involved in a dialectical relationship with foreign policy-makers and examining the institutional relationships at and among numerous think tanks and universities that create convergent perspectives and interests, Christopher Clement has studied US intervention in the Third World both during and after the Cold War made possible and justified through various forms of ‘intellectual articulation’.19 __This is not simply a matter of scholars working for the state, but__ indeed __a larger question of **intellectual orientation**__. __It is not uncommon for IR scholars to feel the need to formulate their__ scholarly __conclusions__ in terms of its relevance for global politics, where ‘relevance’ is measured __entirely in terms of policy wisdom__. Edward __Said’s searing indictment of US intellectuals – policy-experts and Middle East experts__ - in the context of the first Gulf War20 __is__ certainly even more __resonant in the contemporary context__ preceding and following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The space for a __critical appraisal__ of the motivations and conduct of this war has been considerably diminished by the expertise-framed national debate __wherein__ certain kinds **of** ethical questions irreducible to formulaic ‘for or against’ and ‘costs and benefits’ analysis can simply not be raised. In effect, what Said argues for, and __IR scholars need to pay particular heed to, is__ an __understanding__ of ‘__intellectual relevance’ that is larger and more worthwhile__, __that is about the posing of critical, historical, ethical__ and perhaps unanswerable __questions rather than the offering of recipes and solutions, that is about //politics// (rather than techno-expertise__) in the most fundamental and important senses of the vocation.21 = = =Redeployment DA= COIN drawdown is inevitable, reinforcing troops now creates worse conditions Friedman 10 (THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, American journalist, columnist and multi Pulitzer Prize winning author. He is an op-ed contributor to The New York Times, whose column appears twice weekly. He has written extensively on foreign affairs including global trade, the Middle East and environmental issues. He has won the Pulitzer Prize three times, twice for International Reporting (1983, 1988) and once for Commentary (2002), June 22, 2010, “What’s Second Prize?”, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/opinion/23friedman.html | JC) It is not about the way. It is about the will. I have said this before, and I will say it again: The Middle East only puts a smile on your face when it starts with them. The Camp David peace treaty started with Israelis and Egyptians meeting in secret — without us. The Oslo peace process started with Israelis and Palestinians meeting in secret — without us. The Sunni tribal  awakening  in Iraq against pro-Al Qaeda forces  started  with them —  without us. When it starts with them, when they assume ownership, our military and diplomatic support can be a huge multiplier, as we’ve seen in Iraq and at Camp David. Ownership is everything in business, war and diplomacy. People will fight with sticks and stones and no training at all for a government they feel ownership of. When they — Israelis, Palestinians, Afghans, Iraqis — assume ownership over a policy choice, everything is possible, particularly the most important thing of all: that what gets built becomes self-sustaining without us. But when we want it more than they do, nothing is self-sustaining, and they milk us for all we’re worth. I simply don’t see an Afghan “awakening” in areas under Taliban control. And without that, at scale, nothing we build will be self-sustaining. That leads to the second question: If our strategy is to use U.S. forces to clear the Taliban and help the Afghans put in place a decent government so they can hold what is cleared, how can that be done when President Hamid Karzai, our principal ally, openly stole the election and we looked the other way? Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others in the administration told us not to worry: Karzai would have won anyway; he’s the best we’ve got; she knew how to deal with him and he would come around. Well, I hope that happens. But my gut tells me that when you don’t call things by their real name, you get in trouble. Karzai stole the election, and we said: No problem, we’re going to build good governance on the back of the Kabul mafia. Which brings up the third simple question, the one that made me most opposed to this surge: What do we win if we win? At least in Iraq, if we eventually produce a decent democratizing government, we will, at enormous cost, have changed the politics in a great Arab capital in the heart of the Arab Muslim world. That can have wide resonance. Change Afghanistan at enormous cost and you’ve changed Afghanistan — period. Afghanistan does not resonate. Moreover, Al Qaeda is in Pakistan today — or, worse, in the soul of thousands of Muslim youth from Bridgeport, Conn., to London, connected by “The Virtual Afghanistan”: the Internet. If Al Qaeda cells returned to Afghanistan, they could be dealt with by drones, or special forces aligned with local tribes. It would not be perfect, but perfect is not on the menu in Afghanistan. My bottom line: The president can bring Ulysses S. Grant back from the dead to run the Afghan war. But when you can’t answer the simplest questions, it is a sign that you’re somewhere you don’t want to be and your only real choices are lose early, lose late, lose big or lose small. Redeployment from Iraq would directly increase COIN missions Henry 9 – Senior White House correspondent (Ed, October 19, “Behind the scenes in Obama's war council debate”, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/19/afghan.iraq.surge/ |JC), There's an air of mystery hanging over President Obama's war council, which meets in secrecy yet again this week to discuss a new strategy for Afghanistan in the highly secure White House Situation Room. Troops prepare to board helicopters at Forward Operating Base Dwyer, Afghanistan. Troops prepare to board helicopters at Forward Operating Base Dwyer, Afghanistan. But senior officials closely involved in the decision-making process reveal that the president and his team are grappling with one particularly urgent question: Will Gen. Stanley McChrystal's push for 40,000 more U.S. troops really secure Afghanistan? McChrystal, who has been joining the president's war council by secure videophone, framed this debate weeks ago by writing in his now-famous memo that failing to send that many troops could result in the mission failing. But some of Obama's other top advisers are privately expressing heavy skepticism that sending 40,000 troops will result in a successful Iraq-style surge. " Afghanistan is not Iraq ," one senior administration official said. " To say that we can take what we did in Iraq and Xerox it and send it to Afghanistan is obtuse ." A second administration official confirmed this viewpoint has real currency inside Obama's war council. " With 40,000 more troops, you cannot do an Iraq-style surge   ," this official said. " It's totally different than Iraq. The strategy is not easily transferable -- there are unique challenges in Afghanistan ." These officials stressed that the president still has not made up his mind about troop levels, which will be a primary topic of discussion at this week's sixth meeting, and they said it is still possible that Obama will follow McChrystal's advice. But the senior officials seem intent on puncturing the notion that McChrystal's proposal would be a panacea if fully implemented. "The expectations need to be more realistic," the second senior administration official said. " We have to be realistic about what's possible." These advisers to the president believe the public perception has become too focused on the idea that sending 40,000 more troops to the battlefield will result in a full counterinsurgency effort, known as "COIN  " within the military, a doctrine made famous by Gen. David Petraeus. Earlier this month, on CNN's "State of the Union with John King," Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, suggested this: "The strategy that was developed by Gen. Petraeus in particular, but also with Gen. McChrystal as his strong right arm, did succeed there [in Iraq]," McCain said. "Should we risk going against the advice and counsel of our best and strongest advisers, those we've given the responsibility? But McChrystal's plan aims only to implement a COIN program in problem areas, not across the country. Senior officials said that in order to fully force a COIN strategy of 20 to 25 troops per 1,000 residents in Afghanistan, there would have to be 600,000 U.S., NATO and Afghan troops and police -- which is basically impossible. It would require either a major infusion of U.S. troops that is just not available right now because of a taxed military, or a massive training of new Afghan soldiers that is too ambitious to reach in a short time. Petraeus' field manual suggests that for a counterinsurgency effort to work in a population center, there needs to be a force density ratio of 20 to 25 troops or security personnel for 1,000 residents. At the height of the Iraq surge, according to the senior officials, there were approximately 29 troops for each 1,000 residents. Right now in Afghanistan, there are about 260,000 U.S., NATO and Afghan troops on the ground, or only about 11 troops per 1,000 residents. If Obama accepted McChrystal's request and sent 40,000 U.S. troops in the coming weeks, that would bring the force density rate up to only 12.5 troops for every 1,000 residents. " The notion of a fully resourced COIN strategy is not in the offing  ," one senior administration official said of the current deliberations. "We're unable to pick up exactly what we did in Iraq. It cannot be moved to Afghanistan." James Danly, managing director at the Institute for the Study of War, acknowledged that sending 40,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan would not fully cover the type of counterinsurgency effort envisioned by Petraeus on paper. Danly was a U.S. Army officer in Iraq from 2006 to 2008, which was the height of Petraeus' counterinsurgency effort. "You are right that there will be a shortfall," Danly said after being read the numbers that administration officials are using to weigh the strategy shift. But he added that "marginal increases" in troops "can have a dramatic effect " on security if the troops are used properly. "If we were to take our soldiers and apply them wisely, we will be much closer to parity," Danly said, suggesting that a leaner force can work if it is focused on urban centers instead of the most remote areas of Afghanistan. "There are enough forces to do COIN properly." Senior administration officials are skeptical that it will work. They add that even if 40,000 troops could secure Afghanistan in the short term, they're deeply concerned that such gains would not hold in a nation that -- unlike Iraq -- does not have a relatively stable central government. "So who do you hand it off to?" said one senior administration official. "It's like handing it to sand. There is no 'there' there. US global leadership is on the brink – extension of COIN operations collapses hegemony Kretkowski 10  (Paul D. Kretkowski, Frequently assists think tank in conferences and other work products that aid DoD's long-term thinking about threats that may not be addressable via weapons platforms. Spent six months in Afghanistan working with Army public affairs. Further experience overseas as rapporteur for university-sponsored "track two" diplomacy programs that provide enemies a forum for later cooperation and back-channel communication. Highly irregular reporting via blog on developments in soft power, public diplomacy and smart power, January 07, 2010, “Against COIN, for CT in Afghanistan and Elsewhere”, http://softpowerbeacon.blogspot.com/2010/01/against-coin-for-ct-in-afghanistan-and.html | JC) Over the winter break I had an epiphany about the interrelation of U.S. hard and soft power:  I now oppose a counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy in Afghanistan  and advocate a purely counterterror (CT) strategy (PDF link) there instead. Blame history—or histories—that I've read recently, starting with Livy's works on early Rome (books I-V) last spring and Donald Kagan's The Peloponnesian War at the end of 2009. I've taken occasional dips back into Robert Kaplan's Warrior Politics and his source materials (Churchill, the Federalists, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and several others). What I've taken from that reading is that the U.S. must pull back from its current efforts to remake Iraq and Afghanistan in the image of a Western democracy, or risk long-term political and economic exhaustion. What follows is not an argument about morality, and readers may find much of it amoral. It is about making cold-blooded political and economic calculations about where U.S. national interests will lie in the next decade. They do not lie in an open-ended COIN mission. The history of the Peloponnesian War is particularly relevant here. Athens began fighting Sparta with the resources of an empire and thousands of talents of silver in the bank—enough to fight expensive, far-flung naval and land campaigns for three years without lasting financial consequences. Athens was rich, and if peace with Sparta had come by the end of the third year, Athens would have continued to prosper and rule over much of the Mediterranean. (Athens had a "hard"—conquered or cowed—empire as opposed to the "soft" empire of alliances and treaties the U.S. currently has.) But the war with Sparta dragged on for decades, despite occasional peace overtures by both sides. By war's end—despite the spoils of battle and increased taxes and tribute extracted from its shrinking dominion—Athens was broke, depopulated by fighting and plague, bereft of its empire, and could no longer project power into the Mediterranean. Where its former interests ranged from Black Sea Turkey to southern Italy, it spent decades as a small-bore power and never regained its former strength or influence. I worry that the U.S. is similarly locked into an open-ended commitment to democratize a nation that is of regional rather than global importance—a parallel to Athens convincing itself that it had to conquer distant, militarily insignificant Sicily. "Winning" in Afghanistan The U.S. could "win" in Afghanistan where victory is defined as a stabl e, legitimate central government that can project power within its own borders. I don't doubt that the U.S. and its allies could accomplish this given enough time and resources. But I think—as many COIN experts also do—that it will take at least another decade or more of blood and treasure to produce such a result, if ever. Of course I'd like to see the results of a successful COIN campaign : a stable democracy, women's rights, and general prosperity for Afghans, who among all Asia's peoples surely deserve those things. I certainly want to end al-Qa'ida's ability to operate freely in South Asia and elsewhere. The U.S. is the only country that would both conceive of these missions and attempt to carry them out. But goals beyond keeping al-Qa'ida on the run don't serve the long-term interests of the U.S., and I am more interested in regaining and preserving U.S. hard power than I am in the rewards that would come from "winning" a lengthy COIN war. I fear the U.S. people and government becoming exhausted from the costs of a lengthy COIN effort, just as they are already exhausted from (and have largely forgotten about) the Iraq war. I worry that if this fatigue sits in, the U.S. will abandon foreign-policy leadership as it has done periodically throughout history. This outcome would be worse than a resurgent Taliban, worse than Afghan women and men being further oppressed, and worse than al-Qa'ida having plentiful additional caves to plot in. Here are some signs of an exhaustion of U.S. power: The U.S. is already overextended, with commitments in Iraq (shrinking for now), Afghanistan (expanding), Yemen (pending) and Iran (TBD). At home, the U.S. economy remains feeble and in the long term is increasingly hostage to other nations for goods and services  it no longer produces (and increasingly, no longer can produce). Even more worrisome is the U.S. credit situation. The wars, and much other U.S. government spending, are now heavily underwritten by other countries' purchases of debt the U.S. issues. It has borrowed trillions from foreign countries and especially China, which continues its steady, highly rational policy of promoting exports while freeriding under the American security umbrella (just as the U.S. once rode for free beneath Britain's). Over time, those countries accrue enough debt to have a say in U.S. policies that may threaten the dollar's value, which is why you now see high U.S. officials flying to Beijing to soothe PR At home, there are few resources to apply following a major disaster, such as a Katrina-style hurricane or a major earthquake. The U.S. needs to start rebuilding its reserves —of capital, of credit, of political goodwill abroad, of military __ force—to be ready for these and more serious crises, for which we currently have few resources to spare. Such challenges may involve humanitarian crises __ (think Darfur, a Rwanda-style genocide, Indian Ocean tsunamis); Latin American instability (Mexico, Venezuela, post-Castro Cuba); rogue-state nuclear development (Iran, North Korea); or complex challenges from a rising power (China, a reinvigorated Russia). US leadership prevents multiple scenarios for nuclear conflict – prefer it to all other alternatives Kagan 7 (Robert 7, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace “End of Dreams, Return of History”, Policy Review, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/8552512.html#n10) Finally, there is the United States itself. As a matter of national policy stretching back across numerous administrations, Democratic and Republican, liberal and conservative, Americans have insisted on preserving regional predominance in East Asia; the Middle East; the Western Hemisphere ; until recently, Europe; and now, increasingly, Central Asia. This was its goal after the Second World War, and since the end of the Cold War, beginning with the first Bush administration and continuing through the Clinton years, the United States did not retract but expanded its influence eastward across Europe and into the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Even as it maintains its position as the predominant global power, it is also engaged in hegemonic competitions in these regions with China in East and Central Asia, with Iran in the Middle East and Central Asia, and with Russia in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. The United States, too, is more of a traditional than a postmodern power, and though Americans are loath to acknowledge it, they generally prefer their global place as “No. 1” and are equally loath to relinquish it. Once having entered a region, whether for practical or idealistic reasons, they are remarkably slow to withdraw from it until they believe they have substantially transformed it in their own image. They profess indifference to the world and claim they just want to be left alone even as they seek daily to shape the behavior of billions of people around the globe. The jostling for status and influence among these ambitious nations and would-be nations is a second defining feature of the new post-Cold War international system. Na tionalism in all its forms is back , if it ever went away, and so is international competition for power, influence, honor, and status. American predominance prevents these rivalries from intensifying — its regional as well as its global predominance. Were the United States to diminish its influence in the regions where it is currently the strongest power, the other nations would settle disputes as great and lesser powers have done in the past: sometimes through diplomacy and accommodation but often through confrontation and wars of varying scope, intensity, and destructiveness. One novel aspect of such a multipolar world is that most of these powers would possess nuclear weapons. That could make wars between them less likely, or it could simply make them more catastrophic. It is easy but also dangerous to underestimate the role the United States plays in providing a measure of stability in the world even as it also disrupts stability. For instance, the United States is the dominant naval power everywhere, suc h that other nations cannot compete with it even in their home waters. They either happily or grudgingly allow the United States Navy to be the guarantor of international waterways  and trade routes, of international access to markets and raw materials such as oil. Even when the United States engages in a war, it is able to play its role as guardian of the waterways. In a more genuinely multipolar world, however, it would not. Nations would compete for naval dominance at least in their own regions and possibly beyond. Conflict between nations would involve struggles on the oceans as well as on land. Armed embargos, of the kind used in World War I and other major conflicts, would disrupt trade flows in a way that is now impossible. Such order as exists in the world rests not only on the goodwill of peoples but also on American power. Such order as exists in the world rests not merely on the goodwill of peoples but on a foundation provided by American power. Even the European Union, that great geopolitical miracle, owes its founding to American power , for without it the European nations after World War II would never have felt secure enough to reintegrate Germany. Most Europeans recoil at the thought, but even today Europe’s stability depends on the guarantee , however distant and one hopes unnecessary,  that the United States could step in  to check any dangerous development on the continent. In a genuinely multipolar world, that would not be possible without renewing the danger of world war. People who believe greater equality among nations would be preferable to the present American predominance often succumb to a basic logical fallacy. They believe the order the world enjoys today exists independently of American power. They imagine that in a world where American power was diminished, the aspects of international order that they like would remain in place. But that’s not the way it works. International order does not rest on ideas and institutions. It is shaped by configurations of power. The international order we know today reflects the distribution of power in the world since World War II, and especially since the end of the Cold War. A different configuration of power, a multipolar world in which the poles were Russia, China, the United States, India, and Europe, would produce its own kind of order, with different rules   and norms reflecting the interests of the powerful states that would have a hand in shaping it. Would that international order be an improvement? Perhaps for Beijing and Moscow it would. But it is doubtful that it would suit the tastes of enlightenment liberals in the United States and Europe. The current order, of course, is not only far from perfect but also offers no guarantee against major conflict among the world’s great powers. Even under the umbrella of unipolarity, regional conflicts involving the large powers may erupt. War could erupt between China and Taiwan and draw in both the United States and Japan. War could erupt between Russia and Georgia, forcing the United States and its European allies to decide whether to intervene or suffer the consequences of a Russian victory. Conflict between India and Pakistan  remains possible, as does conflict between  Iran and Israel  or other Middle Eastern states. These, too, could draw in other great powers, including the United States. Such conflicts may be unavoidable no matter what policies the United States pursues. But they are more likely to erupt if the United States weakens or withdraws from its positions of regional dominance. This is especially true in East Asia, where most nations agree that a reliable American power has a stabilizing and pacific effect on the region. That is certainly the view of most of China’s neighbors. But even China, which seeks gradually to supplant the United States as the dominant power in the region, faces the dilemma that an American withdrawal could unleash an ambitious, independent, nationalist Japan. In Europe, too, the departure of the United States from the scene — even if it remained the world’s most powerful nation — could be destabilizing. It could tempt Russia to an even more overbearing and potentially forceful approach to unruly nations on its periphery. Although some realist theorists seem to imagine that the disappearance of the Soviet Union put an end to the possibility of confrontation between Russia and the West, and therefore to the need for a permanent American role in Europe, history suggests that conflicts in Europe involving Russia are possible even without Soviet communism. If the United States withdrew from Europe — if it  adopted  what some call a strategy of “  offshore balancing” — this could in time increase the likelihood of conflict involving Russia  and its near neighbors, which could in turn draw the United States back in under unfavorable circumstances. It is also optimistic to imagine that a retrenchment of the American position in the Middle East and the assumption of a more passive, “offshore” role would lead to greater stability there. The vital interest the United States has in access to oil and the role it plays in keeping access open to other nations in Europe and Asia make it unlikely that American leaders could or would stand back and hope for the best while the powers in the region battle it out. Nor would a more “even-handed” policy toward Israel, which some see as the magic key to unlocking peace, stability, and comity in the Middle East, obviate the need to come to Israel ’s aid if its security became threatened. That commitment, paired with the American commitment to protect strategic oil supplies for most of the world, practically ensures a heavy American military presence in the region, both on the seas and on the ground. The subtraction of American power from any region would not end conflict but would simply change the equation. In the Middle East, competition for influence among powers both inside and outside the region has raged for at least two centuries. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism doesn’t change this. It only adds a new and more threatening dimension to the competition, which neither a sudden end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians nor an immediate American withdrawal from Iraq would change. The alternative to American predominance in the region is not balance and peace. It is further competition. The region and the states within it remain relatively weak. A diminution of American influence would not be followed by a diminution of other external influences. One could expect deeper involvement by both China and Russia, if only to secure their interests. 18 And one could also expect the more powerful states of the region, particularly Iran, to expand and fill the vacuum. It is doubtful that any American administration would voluntarily take actions that could shift the balance of power in the Middle East further toward Russia, China, or Iran. The world hasn’t changed that much. An American withdrawal from Iraq will not return things to “normal” or to a new kind of stability in the region. It will produce a new instability, one likely to draw the United States back in again. The alternative to American regional predominance in the Middle East and elsewhere is not a new regional stability. In an era of burgeoning nationalism, the future is likely to be one of intensified competition among nations and nationalist movements. Difficult as it may be to extend American predominance into the future, no one should imagine that a reduction of American power or a retraction of American influence and global involvement will provide an easier path. =Case – Overstretch= 1. No solvency – their Pape ev talks about economic hegemony, which is never mentioned by Kagan who advocates forward deployment 2. Kagan is non unique – Russia already invaded Georgia and the US didn’t get involved and create a nuclear war. 3. Double bind – either they don’t advocate forward deployment and don’t get an impact to heg, or they increase forward deployment and don’t solve their aff. ==4. Hegemony causes war – imperial aspirations produce geopolitical backlash == Christopher Layne , Associate Professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and Research Fellow with the Center on Peace and Liberty at The Independent Institute,  03   – (The American Conservative "The Cost of Empire" October 3rd, http://www.amconmag.com/article/2003/oct/06/00007/)

Perhaps the proponents of America’s imperial ambitions are right and the U.S. will not suffer the same fate as previous hegemonic powers. Don’t bet on it. The very fact of America’s overwhelming power is bound to produce a g eopolitical backlash—which is why it’s only a short step from the celebration of imperial glory to the recessional of imperial power  . Indeed, on its present course, the United States seems fated to succumb to the “hegemon’s temptation .” Hegemons have lots of power and because there is no countervailing force to stop them, they are tempted to use it repeatedly, and thereby overreach themselves.  Over time, this hegemonic muscle-flexing has a price. The cumulative costs of fighting  —or preparing to fight—guerilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asymmetric conflicts against terrorists (in the Philippines, possibly in a failed Pakistan, and elsewhere), regional powers (Iran, North Korea),   and rising great powers like China could erode America’s relative power—espec ially if the U.S. suffers setbacks in future conflicts   , for example in a war with China over Taiwan.

5. Offshore balancing prevents unnecessary wars, blowback, and instability (John J. Mearsheimer , December 31, 200  8  “Pull Those Boots Off The Ground,” [] ,” ) SM \ So what would it look like? As an offshore balancer, the United States would keep its mili tary forces—especially its ground and air forces—outside the Middle East  , not smack in the center of it. Hence the term "offshore." As for "balancing," that would mean relying on regional powers  like Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia  to check each other. Washington would remain diplomatically engaged,  and when necessary would assist the weaker side in a conflict. It would also use its air and naval power to signal a continued U.S. commitment to the region and would retain the capacity to respond quickly to unexpected threats, like Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. But—and this is the key point— the United States would put boots on the ground in the Middle East only if the local balance of power seriously broke down and one country threatened to dominate the others. Short of that, America would keep its soldiers and pilots "over the horizon"—namely at sea, in bases outside the region or back home in the United States.This approach might strike some as cynical after Bush's lofty rhetoric. It would do little to foster democracy or promote human rights. But Bush couldn't deliver on those promises anyway, and it is ultimately up to individual countries, not Washington, to determine their political systems. It is hardly cynical to base U.S. strategy on a realistic appraisal of American interests and a clear-eyed sense of what U.S. power cannot accomplish. Offshore balancing, moreover, is nothing new: the United States pursued such a strategy in the Middle East very successfully during much of the cold war. It never tried to garrison the region or transform it along democratic lines. Instead, Washington sought to maintain a regional balance of power by backing various local allies and by developing the capacity—in the form of the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF), which brought together five Army and Marine divisions, seven tactical fighter wings and three aircraft-carrier battle groups—to deter or intervene directly if the Soviet Union, Iraq or Iran threatened to upend the balance. The United States helped Iraq contain revolutionary Iran in the 1980s, but when Iraq's conquest of Kuwait in 1990 threatened to tilt things in Baghdad's favor, the United States assembled a multinational coalition centered on the RDF and smashed Saddam Hussein's military machine. Offshore balancing has three particular virtues that would be especially appealing today. First, it would significantly reduce (  though not eliminate  ) the chances that the United States would get involved in another bloody and costly war like Iraq. America doesn't need to control the Middle East with its own forces; it merely needs to ensure that no other country does. Toward that end, offshore balancing would reject the use of military force to reshape the politics of the region and would rely instead on local allies to contain their dangerous neighbors. As an offshore balancer, the United States would husband its own resources and intervene only as a last resort. And when it did, it would finish quickly and then move back offshore. The relative inexpensiveness of this approach is particularly attractive in the current climate. The U.S. financial bailout has been hugely expensive, and it's not clear when the economy will recover. In this environment, America simply cannot afford to be fighting endless wars across the Middle East, or anywhere else. Remember that Washington has already spent $600 billion on the Iraq War, and the tally is likely to hit more than $1 trillion before that conflict is over. Imagine the added economic consequences of a war with Iran. Offshore balancing would not be free—the United States would still have to maintain a sizable expeditionary force and the capacity to move it quickly—but would be a lot cheaper than the alternative.Second, offshore balancing would ameliorate America's terrorism problem. One of the key lessons of the past century is that nationalism and other forms of local identity remain intensely powerful, and foreign occupiers generate fierce local resentment. That resentment often manifests itself in terrorism or even large-scale insurgencies directed at the United States. When the Reagan administration put U.S. troops in Beirut following Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, local terrorists responded by suicide-bombing the U.S. Embassy in April 1983 and the U.S. Marine barracks in October, killing more than 300. Keeping U.S. military forces out of sight until they are needed would minimize the anger created by having them permanently stationed on Arab soil. Third, offshore balancing would reduce fears in Iran and Syria that the United States a ims to attack them and remove their regimes—a key reason these states are currently seeking weapons of mass destruction. Persuading Tehran to abandon its nuclear program will require Washington to address Iran's legitimate security concerns and to refrain from issuing overt threats. Removing U.S. troops from the neighborhood would be a good start. The United States can't afford to completely disengage from the Middle East, but offshore balancing would make U.S. involvement there less threatening. Instead of lumping potential foes together and encouraging them to join forces against America, this strategy would encourage contending regional powers to compete for the United States' favor, thereby facilitating a strategy of divide-and-conquer. A final, compelling reason to adopt this approach to the Middle East is that nothing else has worked. In the early 1990s, the Clinton administration pursued a "dual containment" strategy: instead of using Iraq and Iran to check each other, the United States began trying to contain both. This policy guaranteed only that each country came to view the United States as a bitter enemy. It also required the United States to deploy large numbers of troops in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The policy fueled local resentment, helped persuade Osama bin Laden to declare war on America and led to the bombing of the Khobar Towers in 1996, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 and, eventually, 9/11. Shortly after 9/11, the Bush administration jettisoned dual containment in favor of regional transformation. When Baghdad fell, it briefly seemed that Bush just might succeed. But the occupation soon faltered, and America's position in the region went from bad to worse.The new president's only hope for extricating America from the resultant mess is to return to the one Middle East strategy that's worked well in the past. In practical terms, an offshore-balancing strategy would mean ending the Iraq War as quickly as possible while working to minimize the bloodshed there and throughout the region. Instead of threatening Iran with preventive war—an approach that's only fueled Tehran's desire for nuclear weapons and increased the popularity of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—the new administration should try to cut a deal by offering Iran security guarantees in return for significant and veri-fiable limits on its nuclear-enrichment program. The United States should also take its sights off the Assad regime in Syria and push both it and Israel to reach a peace agreement.This strategy wouldn't eliminate all the problems the United States faces in the Middle East. But it would reduce the likelihood of future disasters like Iraq, significantly reduce America's terrorism problem and maximize Washington's prospects of thwarting nuclear proliferation. It would also be considerably less expensive in both human and financial terms. There are no foolproof strategies in international politics, but offshore balancing is probably as close as we can get. 6. U.S. Hegemony is unsustainable 4 reasons- 1. Debt and increased money supply will collapse dollar heg and defense spending 2. the debt to GDP ratio is unsustainable crippling the U.S. budget 3. Our allies will abandon us 4. There will be increased political pressure for cutting defense spending to boost entitlements Christopher Layne  (Professor in Intelligence and National Security, at Texas A&M) Summer 20** 09 ** “ The Waning of U.S. Hegemony—Myth or Reality? A Review Essay” International security Volume 34 No 1 Muse The warning signs with respect to U.S. decline are a looming fi scal crisis and doubts about the future of the dollar as the reserve currency   __, both of which are linked to the fear that after recovery, the U__nited __S__tates __will face a serious inflationary threat__.77 Optimists contend that once the United States recovers, [End Page 167] fears of a fiscal crisis will fade: the country faced a larger debt to GDP ratio after World War II, and yet embarked on a sustained era of growth. The postwar era, however, was a golden age of U.S. industrial and financial dominance, trade surpluses, and sustained high growth rates. The United States of 2009 is far different from the United States of 1945, however, which is why __many economists believe that even in the best case, it will emerge from the current crisis with serious macroeconomic handicaps__.78 __Chief among these handicaps are the increase in the money supply__ (caused by the massive amount of dollars the Federal Reserve and Treasury have pumped into circulation to rescue the economy), __and the $1 trillion plus budget deficits that the Brookings Institution and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) project the U__nited __S__tates __will incur for at least a decade__.79 When the projected deficits are bundled with the persistent U.S. current account deficit, __the entitlements overhang, and the cost of two ongoing wars, there is reason to worry about the U__nited __S__tates’ __long-term fiscal stability__.80 The CBO states, “ Even if the recovery occurs as projected and the stimulus bill is allowed to expire, the country will face the highest debt/GDP ratio in 5 0 years and an increasingly urgent and unsustainable fiscal problem   .”81 If the Congressional Budget Office is right , it spells trouble ahead for the dollar  **__.__** As Jonathan Kirshner noted on the eve of __the meltdown, the dollar’s vulnerability “presents potentially significant and underappreciated restraints upon contemporary American political and military predominance__.”82 __The dollar’s loss of reserve currency status would undermine U.S. dominance, and recent events have magnified concerns that predated the financial and economic crisis__.83 First, __the other big players in the international economy now are either__ [End Page 168] __military rivals__ (China) __or ambiguous “allies__” (Europe) __that have their own ambitions and no longer require U.S. protection from the Soviet threat. Second__, the dollar faces an uncertain future because of concerns that its value will diminish over time. Because of these two factors, as Eric Helleiner notes, __if the dollar experiences dramatic depreciation in the future, there is a “risk of defections generating a herd-like momentum” away from__ __it__.84 To defend the dollar, in coming years __the U__nited __St__ates __will be under increasing pressure to prevent runaway inflation through some combination of budget cuts, tax increases, and interest-rate hikes__.85 Given that the last two options could choke off renewed growth, __there is likely to be strong pressure to slash the federal budget. For several reasons, it will be almost impossible to make meaningful cuts in federal spending without deep reductions in defense expenditures__. First, discretionary nondefense spending accounts for only about 20 percent of annual federal outlays.86 Second, __there are obvious “guns or butter” choices__. As Kirshner points out, with U.S. defense spending at such high absolute levels, domestic political pressure to make steep cuts in defense spending is likely to increase greatly   .87 If this analysis is correct, __the U__nited __S__tates __may be compelled to retract its overseas military commitments__.88 7. Overstretch is no longer possible – the US has nukes, we will always have the ability to flatten any area of the world in seconds. =Case – Stability= 1. Kurds support Maliki now Asia Times Times,  12/   22   /09 “Maliki Makes his Move on the Kirkuk Issue”  [] , IA    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. 2. Kurds strongly support US presence – would blame Maliki for withdrawal Sam Dagher , New York Times staff writer,  7-14  -10, “Prospects Abound Among the Kurds” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/world/middleeast/15erbil.html?_r=1&src=me&pagewanted=print ERBIL, Iraq — Shortly after leaving his job last year as the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad started negotiations with Iraqi Kurdish leaders to become a paid adviser. His stint as adviser to the semiautonomous Kurdistan region’s board of investment lasted about seven months. In May Mr. Khalilzad, who also served as ambassador to Iraq, became a board member of RAK Petroleum, an oil and gas investment company based in the Persian Gulf Arab emirate of Ras al-Khaimah. RAK is a significant shareholder in Norway’s DNO, a major oil producer in the Kurdish region that has been mired in controversy for its involvement in a deal that granted an interest in its oil field to the former American diplomat Peter W. Galbraith for help in negotiating the contract with the Kurds. Last month DNO nominated Mr. Khalilzad to its board. As America winds down its war effort in Iraq, Mr. Khalilzad is among a growing list of former American diplomats and military officials now chasing business opportunities in the oil-rich Kurdish region or acting as advisers to its government. Some visit regularly, while others call the region and its booming capital, Erbil, home. Kurds treat them like dignitaries. The Kurdish region may b e the only place in Iraq where Americans are still embraced as liberators. The authorities boast that no Americans have ever been attacked in a place that has enjoyed relative security. Critics say these former officials are cashing in on a costly and contentious war they played a role in. The way they see it, though, they have every right to fulfill the American dream after having left their government posts. At any rate, business and politics are inseparable in a region dominated by two governing parties and families, who have been accused of autocratic rule and corruption. Many of the former American officials turned businessmen have also become staunch advocates of the Kurdish cause, including the right of statehood  ,  which clashes with America’s stated policy of preserving Iraq’s unity and being at equal distance from all groups. The Kurds in turn have leveraged their American connections, which in some cases go back decades, into an impressive lobbying and public relations machine in Washington. The Kurdish region ranks among the top 10 buyers of lobbying services in the United States, according to the Foreign Lobbyist Influence Tracker, a joint project of ProPublica and the Sunlight Foundation. “They love these consultants here,” said Denise Natali, an American academic and author based in the region’s other main city of Sulaimaniya. “It brings them attention, recognition and credibility.” Ms. Natali herself has advised corporations like America’s Hunt Oil, which was among dozens of foreign oil companies awarded concessions in the Kurdish region in defiance of the central government in Baghdad. Mr. Khalilzad’s firm, Khalilzad Associates, describes itself as serving “clients at the nexus of commerce and public policies,” and is advising businesses seeking opportunities in Afghanistan and Iraq. He said he ended his advisory contract with the Kurdish government after his company started advising “multinational corporations” investing in the Kurdish region and Iraq. “We felt it created a possible conflict of interest to represent both sides,” he said. He said he was trying to find a way to pay rent on an apartment in Erbil provided to him free by the Kurdish authorities as part of his contract. The region’s Oil Ministry owns the apartment. Mr. Khalilzad made several high-profile appearances last year while on contract for the Kurds. They included an election rally for the region’s powerful president. Massoud Barzani. Mr. Khalilzad, along with most of the region’s top leaders, sits on the board of regents of the American University of Iraq in Sulaimaniya. John Agresto, who served as a senior adviser for higher education under America’s post-invasion Coalition Provisional Authority, helped found the university with the strong backing of Barham Salih, the region’s current prime minister. Mr. Agresto said he had accomplished in the Kurdish region what he had failed to do in the rest of Iraq, namely introduce American-style liberal arts education. “The American brand is much more welcome here,” Mr. Agresto said. “This is probably the last place in the whole world where George Bush could still win an election.”  The majority of Kurds are grateful for the American-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein’s government   and America’s support of the no-flight zone in the 1990  s  that helped them establish their present autonomy. Thousands of foreigners, including many Americans, now live and work in the Kurdish region, enjoying comforts that are rare in the rest of the country. “We love them,” Haro Ahmed gushes about Americans. His family owns a real estate conglomerate, whose assets include a sprawling mall in Erbil that would not be out of place anywhere in suburban America. Mr. Ahmed has reserved space in the mall for several American fast-food chains and says he is in talks with Marriott to build a hotel and golf course nearby. Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general who briefly headed the reconstruction effort in Iraq after the invasion, says that it is precisely this pro-American attitude, coupled with the region’s oil wealth and strategic location between Iran, Syria and Turkey, that makes Kurds the perfect partner in Iraq. “Why we do not wrap our arms around them, I do not understand,” General Garner said. He said he did free consulting for the Kurds. But he also sits on the advisory board of Vast Exploration, a Calgary-based company prospecting for oil in an area of the region known as Qara Dagh, where drilling started in May. On the seventh anniversary of Mr. Hussein’s fall, in April, General Garner flew to the Kurdish region on a chartered plane accompanied by oil analysts and executives. The visit included meetings with Kurdish leaders and a camping trip to Qara Dagh. 3. And they’re key to government Bashdar Pusho **Ismaeel, 7/10**/10, Balancing the ethno-social political triangle, The Kurdish Globe http://www.kurdishglobe.net/displayArticle.jsp?id=25B3B41CBB5F352F78EB5662BF57B771 Government shaping has been further complicated with the lack of a clear winner at the polls. Although Ayad Allawi's al-Iraqiya group won the most seats, it was marginally ahead of incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law coalition, and debate continues to rage on the party that has the legal jurisdiction to attempt to form government. Although Maliki did not win, he strengthened his claim to form government with an alliance with the religious-based Shiite Iraqi National Alliance, meaning that his party was only seats away from attaining the majority needed to form a new government. The Kurds, who continue to hol d a key card in the formation of the new government, have taken their time over the selection of any alliance this time and aim to seek written guarantees on nationalistic issues before committing to bring another power in Baghdad. The natural and preferred alliance of the Kurds will be to work once more with their Shiite counterparts. However, persistent foot dragging on key Kurdish interests by Maliki put doubt in the minds of many a Kurd, especially as Maliki's dominance and political standing solidified. However, the predominantly Sunni umbrella of Allawi is hardly the tonic that weary Kurds seek either. Al-Iraqiya was direct in competition to the Kurds in the tense, oil-rich province of Kirkuk, and has often voiced its intent against Kurdish attempts to annex disputed territories. 4. That turns case – no government without Kurdish support.