Iraq Exit Strategy: a Simple Solution

A problem of the most serious nature plagues the United States at this moment in time, and many are losing their lives because of it. Young men and women travel to foreign lands to fight nobly for their country, only to be shot by those who they were supposed to protect. Enemies surround these young men and women and wait eagerly to attack the country that some have labeled “The Great Satan.” Protests even within the United States grow, reflecting an earlier era when a similar US incursion was made into Vietnam. The problem that I speak of is, of course, the US occupation of Iraq.

While combat has been over for several years in Iraq, American troops continue to occupy the nation, and Iraqi resentment for the United States grows every day that the troops remain. Worst of all, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can suggest an effective exit strategy for our remaining troops, and every day the body count increases. To simply do nothing will not help our troops nor our suffering reputation for overly aggressive foreign policy, but no one can answer the question, “What can we do?”

It is to answer this question that I propose a most wonderful and useful idea. Although I am certain that many within my home country will disagree with my idea, I have been assured by a former Soviet policy expert that my plan has been carried out before. The heart of the problem seems to be that some American citizens do not want to commit their troops to a foreign combat zone, while others do not want to leave a foreign country without a successful government in place because they fear it will show weakness. To resolve both of these issues at the same time, I propose that we annex Iraq as the fifty-first state in the United States of America.

As the fifty-first state in the Union, Iraq would no longer be a foreign country, resolving the issue of committing troops to a foreign combat zone. Instead, our troops would now be used to quell civil unrest within our own country, a use for the military that I am sure many opponents of the Iraq occupation will agree is much better. The issue of leaving a foreign country without a successful government in place will also disappear: Iraq would take the United States government as its own, and the troops would not leave the area unsuccessful.
By simply annexing Iraq, the country also gains several other benefits; among them are the oil reserves of Iraq, the increased size of the workforce, and the advantage of having a military base in the Middle East. It is no secret that the United States is suffering from a spike in oil prices, but by occupying Iraq, the United States would have access to new oil reserves. With this new oil supply, prices in the United States would certainly drop to their previous lows, and the United States would even be able to export its extra oil to other countries.

With the population of Iraq as part of the American population, the country would also benefit from a decrease in the need to send jobs overseas. The major reason that jobs are sent overseas is because labor there is cheaper, but with the influx of unskilled Iraqi workers, who are used to salaries much lower than even that of a minimum wage worker, inexpensive labor will once again be readily available in the United States and jobs will not have to be shipped overseas. Not all Iraqi workers are uneducated or unskilled, but the educated and skilled Iraqi workers will benefit themselves and the American economy as well by offering more goods and services to the American populace.

Finally, the benefits of having a permanent military base in the Middle East are huge. With Iraq as a state of the Union, the country would be able to keep its troops there to watch over not only Iraq, but the countries that border it as well. In particular, it would be very beneficial to watch over Iran from just over the border in Iraq. Opponents of my plan might point out that having a state in the Middle East would make terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists on the United States much simpler to carry out, but this claim is not entirely true. While one of the states would be easily within striking range of terrorists, the United States could now fight back even more quickly than it would have been able to previously: there would already be American troops in the area, and at the slightest hint of a terrorist attack they could launch a counteroffensive.

The idea of annexing a sovereign nation is not foreign to United States history, nor is the idea of holding land that is not part on the continent of North America: the list of foreign lands that we have annexed as states or held as territories include Texas as the Lone Star Republic, California as the Bear Flag Republic, Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Given our history of annexing other countries into our Union, annexing Iraq would not be a precedent or even a large step; however by annexing Iraq, we solve several problems very easily. The country would have plentiful oil reserves, a new pool of inexpensive labor to draw workers from, and a permanent military base in the Middle East. The country would no longer need to be concerned with our troops being entangled in a foreign combat zone or our troops leaving a failed government in their wake. Instead, we would not even need an exit strategy because Iraq would now be part of the United States. All that needs to be done to complete my plan is to get Congress to agree to my plan, and the country will be free of the need to find an exit strategy from Iraq.