GOP and Dems Debate Iraq

Five years ago President Bush invaded Iraq, one thing that representatives from the Harvard College Democrats and the Harvard Republican Club can agree on—anything else is up for debate.

In a debate last night on the direction of the Iraq War, democratic representatives, Sahand Moarefy ’10 and Kyle A. Krahel ’08, advocated for the withdrawal of American troops, while Republican representatives, Tian Feng ’11 and Prateek Kumar ’11, called for continued military intervention.

The first point of disagreement arose as the students debated on the effectiveness of President Bush’s troop surge last year.

“The simplest answer ought to be that is just hasn’t worked,” Krahel said. “No matter how many facts show that the surge is successful on a basic statistical sense, Iraqis are still fine with the killing of American troops, and if this is true, the surge just isn’t working.”

But the Republicans said they saw things differently, describing the military success of the surge as a necessary step to achieving political stability in Iraq.

“Most certainly the surge has worked in cutting sectarian violence down,” Feng said, calling the Democrats’ suggestion for multinational diplomacy to stabilize Iraq a “peachy keen solution that doesn’t work in the long run or the real world.”

“I ask you: if we were not to have troops there, what would happen?” Feng added.

Democrats and Republicans also butted heads on what they believed should be the United States’ policy towards Iran in the context of the Iraq War.

Both parties agreed that Iran shares with the U.S. the desire for a stable Iraq, but the Democratic debaters argued that the U.S. needs to treat Iran like a partner rather than a threat.

“The Iranians understand that if they were to intervene in Iraq, they would be in a worse quagmire than we are now,” Moarefy said. “We have the same interests. If we keep saying they will be a threat, then they will be.”

Kumar called the Democrats’ plan for diplomatic talks with Iran “goody-goody” and mentioned North Korea’s nuclearization as an example of the inefficacy of “just talking.” He also argued that withdrawal of American troops from Iraq would reduce U.S. leverage in its talks with Iran.

“We should not be talking to the Iranians from a position of weakness,” Kumar, who is also a Crimson news writer, said.

The debate, hosted by the Harvard Political Union and attended by about 65 people, ended in a question-and-answer session, giving all participants the chance to respond.

For the partisans in the room, the result was clear.

“The Democrats got slaughtered on all points across the board,” proud Republican Rachel L. Wagley ’11 said.