Iraq Aff Wave 1

Withdrawal => Heg Collapse

Iraq withdrawal makes Asian nuclear lash out inevitable and risks decline of US hegemony.

Ryan Mauro (national security advisor to the Christian Action Network, and an intelligence analyst with the Asymmetrical Warfare and Intelligence Center (AWIC)). “The Consequences of Withdrawal from Iraq.” 5/7/2007 http://www.globalpolitician.com/22760-foreign-iraq

American forces would be less able to block the shipment of drugs, banned goods, and WMD technology from North Korea to the Middle East. This increased revenue would help shore up North Korea’s oppressive regime, and allow them to arm our enemies. China’s rise in power would become inevitable and accelerated, as our Asian allies doubted our commitments, and would decide on appeasement and entering China’s sphere of influence, rather than relying upon America. The new dynamics in Asia, with allies of America questioning our strength, would result in a nuclear arms race. Japan would have no option but to develop nuclear weapons (although she may do so regardless). Two scenarios would arise: China would dominate the Pacific and America’s status as a superpower would quickly recede, or there would be a region wide nuclear stalemate involving Burma, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and possibly Taiwan and Australia. The consequences of a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq are not limited to Iraqi territory, or even to the region. They are felt worldwide, in every conflicted nation and every oppressed people.

A2 Gradual/Phased Withdrawal

Even this small reduction makes victory in Iraq impossible

Kimberly Kagan (affiliate of Harvard's John M. Olin Institute of Strategic Studies and the president of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington) 1/26/2008 “Don't Short-Circuit the Surge”, Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120130782203818269.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

There is considerable risk in this assumption. Coalition and Iraqi forces have not finished clearing Ninevah province, Salah ad-Din and parts of Babil. Major operations continue against al Qaeda remnants in Ninevah, Salah-ad-Din, Diyala, Kirkuk and Wasit provinces. Fighting between Iraqi Security Forces (aided by coalition special forces and our Georgian, Polish and British allies) and Mahdi Army militias continues in the south. The withdrawal to 15 brigades already assumes that these operations will be successful. It provides no cushion for unexpected developments or unforeseen enemy responses. There is thus no military basis at all at the present time to recommend additional reductions in 2008. One year ago, Gen. Petraeus testified before Congress: "I was assured . . . by the secretary of Defense . . . that if we need additional assets, my job is to ask for them. If they're not provided in some case, my job is to tell my boss the risk involved in accomplishing the mission without the assets that are required. And at some point, of course, you may have to go back and say that you cannot accomplish the mission because of the assets that have not been provided." By the best estimates now available, 15 brigades is the absolute minimum force required to accomplish the mission that has brought us success in 2007. Any further reductions -- even by a single brigade -- may make that mission impossible.

Even a gradual withdraw will collapse iraq stability

Kagan and Kristol 2006 Robert Kagan & William Kristol, WEEKLY STANDARD, November 20, 2006

There is no getting around the fact that under present conditions, an American military withdrawal, even if undertaken gradually, will bring about the rapid collapse of Iraq. These days one gets the impression that many Americans are sanguine about this possibility. Some seem to believe that things are already as bad as they can get in Iraq. This is willful self-deception. Were the United States to withdraw from Iraq prematurely, the sectarian violence we are seeing today would seem minor compared to the bloodshed of a genuine civil war. There would be no decent interval, no moment when the Iraqi people peacefully separated themselves into their respective sectarian quarters. They would battle for control of cities and towns and resources across most of the country. The result would be real, bloody ethnic cleansing--of the kind that the United States twice intervened in the Balkans to prevent, of the kind we failed to prevent in Rwanda, and of the kind we are now shamefully failing to prevent in Sudan. The difference in Iraq would be that this time the United States would be more directly responsible for bringing about this humanitarian nightmare.

Instability turns Human Rights

Turns case: Iraqi human rights violations are empirically worse at times of war.

Heidi Altman, Human Rights First. “Human Rights & Post-war Iraq.” March 14, 2003. http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/iraq/war_in_iraq.htm 

The most vulnerable people at times of armed conflict are civilian non-combatants who are forced to flee their homes. The majority of these people are women, children and the elderly. Most seek refuge elsewhere within their own countries – these refugees are called internally displaced people – while a significant number of others will need to cross borders to ensure their own safety. Urgent measures must be taken to protect those who are forced to flee. Human Rights First is calling for maximum international protection for Iraqi refugees and internally displaced people. At this stage, we urge countries bordering on Iraq to keep borders open to the most desperate refugees who are fleeing for their lives. Our call echoes a demand by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Rudd Lubbers, who has appealed to all governments neighboring Iraq to keep their borders open to those in need of temporary protection and assistance. The international community must share this responsibility and the financial burdens associated with it with these neighboring states. The Government of Iraq has been engaged in widespread, gross violations of human rights for more than 25 years, including political killings, torture, arbitrary detentions, and genocide. During this period the Iraqi Government also has committed serious war crimes, including grave breaches of international humanitarian law. Among these violations were the violent attacks against the Kurds in the late 1980s, including use of chemical weapons, and the violent attacks against Shi’a in the South of Iraq in 1991, where villages were burned and thousands of civilians were forcibly displaced.