The term "exit strategy" has reappeared forcefully in the American political and journalistic lexicon. Last seen mainly during the bitter days of the Vietnam War and to an extent during the Bosnian intervention, the term now is applied to increasingly costly and bloody nation-building operations carried out in the face of resistance and insurgencies in places such as Iraq.[1] Planned exit strategies are something that former Secretary of State Colin Powell posited as a prerequisite before military interventions would be undertaken. However, in the implementation of the Bush administration "regime change" doctrine regarding Afghanistan and Iraq, military intervention, predicated on supposedly overwhelming American military superiority, evidently proceeded in confidence without much thought of a way out if the situation deteriorated or proved untenable.

Exit strategies are generally conceived as one response to ongoing military opposition or sustained insurgencies against the occupying forces. The term is also applied to the quandary of how to remove international peacekeeping forces from seemingly interminable commitments.[2] Implied in the term "exit" is a way to withdraw from such situations relatively gracefully with honor intact, i.e., face saving, and with some semblance of lasting political stability in the immediate area and the region. This outcome is not always feasible, as the helter-skelter helicopter evacuation from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon in 1975 demonstrated; indeed, the term itself is also inherently vague – the half facetious line from Vietnam that we should just "declare victory and leave" has been resurrected by some for Iraq as well. Thus, a "successful" exit strategy has dual criteria – impact on the withdrawing power and impact on the formerly occupied territory.

Exit might mean a complete military pull out, a withdrawal to nearby enclaves, a military pull back with the continued involvement of advisors and aid missions, or pull out with the proviso of return if the situation deteriorates. It can mean unilateral withdrawal, as Israel demonstrated in Lebanon and Gaza, or negotiated withdrawal in the context of a peace agreement,[3] or phased withdrawal of a "tit for tat" nature with each phase implemented either according to a timetable or contingent on "good behavior" by the opponents. One pundit[4] has observed that the only true exit from Iraq will come with an exit from the global oil-based economy, as there will be an inevitable attraction for US and Western interests in that otherwise quite barren part of the world as long as we depend on petroleum as a primary fuel. Nevertheless, despite the definitional and conceptual ambiguities, in this article we shall take exit strategy to mean full, partial, or delayed military withdrawal and we will proceed to determine which type of exit in what types of circumstances appears to foster the greatest subsequent stability.

In Iraq, of course, one widely discussed criterion for US withdrawal is the ability of indigenous security forces to maintain order and secure the newly installed government. Presumably, this depends on the success and speed of training such forces and on their integrity, firepower, logistics, and devotion to duty. In Vietnam it was clear that massive attempts to sustain friendly indigenous forces and substantiate a sovereign South Vietnamese government came to naught. Thus, there is no guarantee that the local substitution strategy, in Vietnam dubbed "Vietnamization," will work in terms of fostering a graceful exit, particularly because all counter-insurgency operations are complicated by political sympathies, and political and military realities. It proved impossible in South Vietnam to win the "hearts and minds" of the populace for the government, which was seen as at least to some extent a neo-colonial implant. Therefore, the indigenous ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) forces were notoriously subject to corruption and dereliction of duty, perhaps in some cases even involving sympathies with the insurgents. Hoped for democratic and nationalistic reforms under President Ngo Dinh Diem quickly gave way to a series of military dictatorships – even Diem's US-approved assassination – in the face of continued and growing resistance.

Vietnam was ethnically divided, with Buddhist, Catholic, and tribal elements and had strong ideological splits as well, but not nearly so potentially divided as Iraq, with its notorious Sunni-Shi'ite-Kurdish divisions, secular versus religious factions, and still smaller minorities and clans.[5] Therefore, it would appear that the greatest obstacle to Iraqi indigenous security is the challenge of putting together a functional common army and avoiding future civil wars among contending militia, a challenge seen as well in places such as Bosnia and Afghanistan. One other consequence of "Iraqization" could be the reemergence of a military class of strongmen who threaten and perhaps eventually topple the democratic structure being nurtured. This pattern has been endemic in Iraqi history, and has been seen in Afghanistan and Pakistan and throughout much of the region, ironically in many cases depending on outside support from major powers.

Given Iraq's continued chaotic security situation, significant civil war potential, and a long-term viable insurgency, complete with audacious acts of terror, initially centered in the Sunni community which so far has largely rejected the US "occupation" and the electoral process, it might become necessary to conceive of a US and British exit strategy more akin to Israel's Gaza policy or involving some form of negotiated withdrawal.[6] This scenario presumes that Washington and London decision makers ultimately conclude that whatever supposed advantages there are in the direct administration of Iraq pale in comparison to the costs. Should this calculus become clear, the question persists as to what form of exit might generate the "best" outcomes, with the least damage to the withdrawing powers' image and the least subsequent disruption in the disputed territory and surrounding region. This question is best investigated historically at this point, in situations at least roughly comparable to the current Iraqi dilemma.

Despite great fanfare for democratic liberation, in many respects the Iraqi intervention resembles a colonial or neo-colonial policy. This approach involves forced entry by external great powers bent on reshaping the political system and taking command of the economic resources and their use. Iraqis of all political stripes appear to agree in public opinion polls that the basic interest of American and British forces in Iraq is oil. Hence, there is a strong undercurrent of distrust regarding the outside powers, which generally are characterized as "occupiers" rather than "liberators," even as the populace turns out to vote and the newly emergent political elites depend on the interveners for immediate security needs. American, British, and "coalition" forces also inherited responsibilities typical of colonial administrations, from re-establishing water and electricity (still very problematic in light of the insurgency and disorganized implementation), to rebuilding previously bombed infrastructure, reinstituting the bureaucracy, and providing viable employment prospects for the populace. These circumstances have added an anti-colonial factor to the insurgent and political calculus. Iraqis, like the Vietnamese, historically have been among the world's most anti-colonial people, having experienced and ultimately resisted centuries of foreign domina-tion.[7] No outside intervention, however well intentioned, can escape the stigma of being viewed by Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurd alike as a foreign occupation. The occupier role further fuels Islamist contentions that the West continues to crusade in the holy lands and further complicates the "Iraqization" strategy noted above.

Thus, if we search historically for basically analogous cases from which to evaluate and categorize successful and unsuccessful exit strategies, it appears advisable to look first at the end game of colonial wars.[8] Exiting from colonial occupation has proved a complicated and in many cases prolonged process, even when the basic path toward independence was long assumed or accepted. Political realities at home for the colonial powers, economic interests, and political and violence patterns inside the colony tended to delay the process and weigh heavily on the minds of hesitant decision makers. The "sunken costs" and "entrapment" effects familiar to conflict theorists,[9] whereby commitments are sustained long after any rational calculus would have justified them because of the prior investment of blood, treasure, honor, and effort, would seem to be especially pertinent in ending colonial or neo-colonial occupations. It is accepted wisdom that one does not "cut and run" from unpleasant situations, that one must "bear the burden" even of prior unwise decisions, that one must "stay the course" and "keep faith" with clients and dependents in the country. Careful consideration of whether a continued presence makes the overall situation better or worse tends to give way to such nostrums, which themselves may provide cover for continued economic or political domination. In the case of many colonial exits these latter motives have been pursued indirectly in subsequent years through political and military interventions in the former dependencies and long-term base installations in or near the former colonies.

Despite such inertial tendencies, exit patterns of one sort or another have emerged in colonial or proto-colonial interventions gone sour, patterns that can be studied and inform those wishing to achieve face-saving peace in anti-insurgency situations. These appear to involve such facilitative factors as international mediation or underwriting of the pull out, and in some cases negotiated terms of accommodation; substitution of local, international, or peacekeeping forces for the occupying power; population movements and security guarantees; prior negotiation among competing factions inside the occupied territory to participate in the political process once the occupier leaves – of course the obverse can also pertain, as the internal factions facilitate the exit of the exhausted occupier so that they can contend militarily against each other; transition authorities; and arrangements to sustain the former colony while it recovers.

Stephen John Stedman, et al., have examined the end game of insurgencies and civil wars from 1980 to 1997 where the parties reached agreement and outside guarantors entered in. They determined that two types of variables apparently led to successful settlements: those related to the conflict environment and those related to commitment by the international community.[10] On the other hand, failed settlements featured prominent roles for "spoilers," i.e., rejectionist forces and extremists, as well as the presence of neighboring states opposed to the settlement, and the presence of valuable commodities or "spoils." All of these negative factors would appear to be challenges for Iraq, but it is important to determine whether similar positive or negative factors prevailed in exits from colonial as well as civil wars, since colonial disputes by nature involve outside interveners as occupiers. We shall look, therefore, at cases of internal warfare in the midst of outside occupation, situations resembling the circumstances of Iraq as much as possible. While Iraq certainly has the potential for civil war among sectarian communities or between these and the central government, provisions in the newly approved constitution, such as the provincial veto rules, seem designed to preclude that outcome, at least in the short run. Yet, they do not preclude insurgent resistance by those who feel alienated from the process. Thus, at this point Iraq remains an insurgent war situation in an occupation context, a pattern most resembling neo-colonial cases. Violence is directed either at the occupation forces or collaborators, as well as at the emerging national forces, in order to deter their recruitment and disrupt their operations.

Clearly, the criteria of successful exit can vary from sustaining the colony's post-exit stability and development to allowing the former occupying power to save face. Some would evaluate a good exit by the orderly nature of the interven-er's withdrawal, as for example in the analysis of the UN-sanctioned American peacekeeping involvement in Haiti to overthrow the junta in 1995. The mission technically was accomplished with relatively little bloodshed, and the forces withdrew in an orderly fashion, certainly a more orderly and honorable exit than the scene of the American withdrawal from its UN peacekeeping participation in Somalia a few years earlier.[11] Yet, Haiti's political stability and economic viability remained tenuous and problematic. Was this technically a successful exit? One could say so, but it entailed elements of failure in not having fostered an atmosphere of peace and recovery. We tend here to concentrate on evaluating such longer-term consequences, though the two criteria of effects on the departing occupier and on the occupied country are necessarily intertwined.

Among the factors noted above that might contribute to positive exits is the underpinning of agreements by the "international community," which can include either regional or global actors in concert and through inter-governmental organizations. In other words, successful exits can depend on third parties making the exit feasible, easier and orderly, and helping pick up the pieces to assist new governmental authorities in the former dependency. In the context of war or violence-torn societies, such involvement, though difficult, can be relatively straightforward, i.e., an international group or body agrees to undertake responsibility for the state in the war's aftermath. This was relatively successfully engineered in the cases of Cambodia, Eastern Slavonia, Bosnia, and East Timor. Termed the "new trusteeship," this approach falls naturally within the state-building and largely moribund Trusteeship Council traditions of the United Nations.[12]

Unfortunately, while such trusteeships were in the past implemented in the context of retiring colonial administrations (note the ups and downs of Southwest Africa, for example), the question of picking up the pieces can be complicated by the very involvement of major powers in neo-colonial disputes. In other words, the major power, which already has defined a certain territory as "strategic" or "integral," may be reluctant to turn the vital area over to a multilateral administration it cannot control. In addition the willingness of states to relieve a major occupying power can be affected by that power's regional and global standing; it has been argued that Arab states are reluctant to join any Iraqi peacekeeping arrangement, for example, because of Washington's perceived one-sided partiality toward Israel and a potential image as American puppets. Major powers are by nature keenly interested in, if not all that skilled at, regional politics and thus may be loathe to retire from the fray or to adopt ameliorative foreign policy positions to an extent necessary to clear the way for international or multilateral support. Finally, factions in the formerly occupied state may bridle at the involvement of certain regional neighbors or even international organizations if they fear being victimized in the process.

Other major factors thought to impinge on the settlement of internal wars and thereby potentially affect intervener exit, include "favorable objective condi-tions."[13] These involve experiences of a decisive or prominent nature that raise the prospects of withdrawal, such as a consequential military defeat. Certainly, the Dien Bien Phu and Tet experiences, no matter their ultimate or strictly military implications, psychologically hastened French and American conclusions that their respective Vietnam footholds were untenable. Similarly, defeats at the hands of Cuban forces appeared to clear the way for South Africa's withdrawal and acquiescence to the effective consolidation of a government in Angola (if not for the downfall of the South African apartheid regime itself), as did the psychological trauma of having American soldiers dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in Somalia. Turning points and trauma can also occur in the interven-er state's domestic politics and condition their exit from foreign entanglements. The fall of the authoritarian Portuguese government conditioned and hastened Portugal's exit from its African colonial entanglements in Angola and Mozambique.

Indeed, leadership changes are thought to be one factor frequently leading to strategic withdrawals in general. As to the "sunken cost" problem and parties' unwillingness to back off from causes for which great sacrifice has already been made, as well as wider domestic and international considerations such as a major power's future foreign policy credibility, Roy Licklider's results[14] seem to indicate that in addition to power balances, leadership change on one or both sides, or at least significant personnel or policy modification at the elite level, might be necessary to condition an exit decision. This could entail an election or replacement of old leaders, an existing leader's adoption of a new gambit promising political benefits (as in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to uproot from Gaza presumably in order to consolidate on the West Bank, or Prime Minister Ehud Barak's earlier withdrawal from southern Lebanon), or consolidation of leadership among factions in the hands of one dominant party (on either the inter-vener or rebel sides). Such factors might be reflected in or stem from the overall change of "favorable objective conditions," including key turning point events and international conferences and agreements to underpin the withdrawal and the political transition in the former colony, as outlined above.

Another crucial aspect of objective conditions is the stance of third party regional neighbors toward the impending neo-colonial outcome. "If these seek to exploit the internal turmoil for their own advantage, international efforts at state building process may be seriously undermined" or delayed.[15] Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, and ASEAN support for the UN-sponsored Cambodian regime was essential to its success. Conversely, continued fueling of insurgencies against occupying authorities through regional states' and foreign patrons' provision of arms, aid, and sanctuary to insurgent forces can either disrupt processes of orderly withdrawal or hasten the end by raising the cost for interveners to stay. Britain, which had technically resolved to withdraw from Rhodesia but which was saddled with responsibility for the peace process as colonial power, reportedly campaigned long and hard to win Mozambique's and Zambia's willingness to press the Zimbabwe rebels to settle by threatening to cut off assistance.[16] The overall impact of surrounding African "frontline states" on the Rhodesian settlement was prominent indeed, and indicates that sanctuaries can work either to facilitate or restrict insurgents' freedom of action.

North Vietnam could rely on Chinese and Soviet arms and assistance and thus appeared to offer a serious long-term challenge to the US presence in Vietnam, thereby discouraging American attempts to remain. It is unclear how much foreign assistance the Iraqi insurgents enjoy, but they clearly have considerable potential for such tactical support across Iraq's numerous borders. Any splits among the insurgents might work to the occupier's advantage as factions are played off against each other, but the historical record seems to indicate that factions tend to unite against the outsider, resuming their competition once the occupier leaves. Of course, international and alliance assistance to the interven-er might offset insurgent advantages and allow the occupier to stay longer.

A further set of factors considered integral to internal war end games involves "clarity and appeal of operational aims."[17] If local parties do not share a common vision of the future and are not at a point of sufficient "ripeness" or hurting stalemate,[18] then the ensuing peace arrangements might have to be transitional, deferred, and minimalist at best (as they technically are in Bosnia and Kosovo, for example). In cases of major power intervention, the situation may appear so unsettled that the power does not fully exit. French troops remained based in or near former African dependencies and frequently intervened to prop up these states long after independence. It has been argued, in fact, that too precise a timetable for departure and strict deadlines for implementation of provisions can work against the viability of a transition, as parties are tempted to dig in and wait out the process as the occupier departs. However, imprecise timetables and open-ended involvements can also undermine international willingness to participate in transitional arrangements.[19] Similar considerations affect the willingness and effectiveness of international mediators and power brokers in helping settle disputes, and the acceptance of mediation by major power interveners and minor power actors.[20]

The willingness to proceed with end game processes is also affected by the nature of the disputes and the disputing parties themselves.[21] In situations of extreme ethnic tension and mistrust, as seen so often in post-World War II and post-Cold War internal wars, any arrangements for co-existence as part of the withdrawal of outside interveners can present tremendous obstacles. Britain walked away from such severe difficulties in the Palestine of 1947 and dropped the problem in the lap of the United Nations. This withdrawal was probably facilitated by the normative change overtaking world politics at the time that increasingly branded colonialism, even of a so-called mandatory nature, as unacceptable, thus providing a fig leaf of compliance for Britain's exit, a move driven largely by the objective conditions of exhaustion, chaos, and terror – a cost/benefit ratio that was deemed too high.

A count of how ethnic wars have ended, referenced by Chaim Kaufmann, also pertains to the probabilities of successful exit by external neo-colonial occupiers under conditions of ethnic conflict. Ted Gurr[22] studied the ending of 27 ethnic civil wars and determined that among the 15 cases not ended by one side's military victory, only eight ended with an agreement that did not partition the country or involve continued outside occupation (five cases involved some form of partition and two were suppressed by long-term third party occupation). Thus, the potential for continued ethnic disturbance can either discourage occupiers, hastening their withdrawal to escape the chaos (as in colonial Palestine or India), or delay that departure for fear of national dismemberment, as in the Iraqi-Kurdish (US-British involvement in 1991) and Lebanese disputes, and potentially in Iraq under American occupation. Major powers would seem more susceptible to the latter considerations than middle or small powers, since they have a larger presumed stake in regional stability that can be affected by such dismem berment. However, the chaos might be so great, or the regional benefits so negligible, as to overcome these concerns and lead to withdrawal. One would predict less likelihood of timely withdrawal from places deemed strategically crucial or resource rich (Iraq) than those deemed more marginal (Somalia). The position of key regional neighbors also affects these calculations; Iraqi dismemberment would disturb Turkey in view of its fears of an independent Kurdistan on its borders, while Iran might or might not welcome an independent Arab Shi'a state on its border. This is why regional summits seem important as preparatory moves toward withdrawal.

Much of the literature from which we theorize about viable exit strategies deals particularly with civil war end games. At least one study, though, has looked directly at how colonial wars, as distinct from international system and civil wars, end. Paul Pillar[23] analyzed data from the Correlates of War (COW) project for wars between 1800 and 1980 and determined that 29 percent (13) of extra-systemic wars ended in negotiation, while 44 percent (20) concluded through capitulation or military victory, and, disturbingly, 27 percent (12) terminated in regime extermination or expulsion. It does not sound as though graceful or timely exit was the norm, though perhaps some of the expulsions involved such moves. One can conceive of the colonial power leaving and its local allies going along into exile in situations of capitulation. Negotiated outcomes for colonial wars were fewer than the 68 percent (38) of interstate wars ending in negotiation and roughly at the same level (32 percent, or 6) of civil wars ending in negotia-tion[.24]

One other COW category, withdrawal, might also have related to exit strategies, but was exceedingly rare in the wars under study. For extra-systemic wars withdrawal occurred only in the Spanish-Santo Domincan war of 1863-65, coming after unsuccessful prior negotiation efforts, and the Sudani Mahdist campaign of 1882-85.[25] One must remember, though, that since the United States incursion into Iraq in 2003 began as an international war between two sovereign states and ended in occupation (some would analogize to the US occupation of defeated Axis powers after World War II, but there are key differences in the nature of the target country's military defeat and the extent of sympathy for Western initiated reforms) there are grounds also for considering certain international conflicts with features of major power involvement, occupation, and withdrawal. There were four withdrawals from international combat noted: the Spanish-Chilean war of 1865-66, as "combat ceased when the Spanish fleet withdrew from the Chilean coast in May 1866" and "[a] formal armistice was signed in 1871, and a final peace treaty in 1879"[26] ; the Franco-Mexican war of 1862-67, as the United States pressured Napoleon II to withdraw all French troops from Mexico in 1866 leaving the Emperor Maximilian to fight on and finally capitulate in May 1867; the Sino-Indian war of 1962, after Chinese forces had pushed Indian troops well back from their disputed border, sending an important symbolic message; and the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979, as Vietnam proved a more resilient foe than China evidently expected.

One gleans from these examples the evident importance of cost-benefit calculations as well as the original intent of a war or invasion; when China determined that the campaign in India had proven its point, it withdrew rather than risk international consequences of an "aggressive" land acquisition and occupation. By way of contrast China seemed to calculate that having its eye blackened in a war to teach the Vietnamese a lesson was probably not worth it. In both cases Beijing did not appear to worry much about the lasting implications of withdrawal as some form of loss of face (indeed if anyone had lost face in the Sino-Indian encounter it was India). One also sees the potential importance of outside third parties in pressing for withdrawal and making it potentially palatable, as in American pressure on France to back out of the Western Hemisphere. Finally, there may be a considerable hiatus between a withdrawal or exit and the conclusion of final peace terms, as seen in the Spanish-Chilean case. Endings need not be neat; promised troop withdrawals can be played out over time with much backsliding potential and many pressures brought to bear, and domestic conditions in the formerly occupied state can bear heavily on the prospect for an overall settlement and improvement in post-war conditions long after the exit occurs.

Clearly, then, the decision to seek exit as well as the modalities of exit can depend on both micro conditions "on the ground" in the conflict zone and on wider macro considerations in the regional, international, and domestic home environment for the intervener. The first key decision is the intervener's calculation that continued presence is not worth the candle. It then seeks a means of convenient and palatable exit, either in the very short-term, or delayed and phased over time. Conditions on the ground can be quite complicated, as Licklider[27] discusses in a review of endings for selected civil wars. If orderly negotiated exit is to be sought, the intervener and insurgents must communicate, and thereby have established a modicum of mutual accommodation if not trust, a willingness to alter policy at the operational level. Ceasefires must hold; advantage taking during exit must be avoided. Communication can be direct or through third party channels. Constituents, including domestic audiences, must be brought around to accept such modalities with the "enemy." Arrangements may depend on the ability of communicating parties to deliver their side's cooperation, and this can be complicated if insurgents are significantly factionalized and diverse, if indigenous allies of the intervener object and make exit embarrassing (as in Vietnam), or if various parties retain the hope of defeating the enemy at all cost. Some factions might allow the intervener to exit without interference; others might seek advantage or pressure for more long-term influence by threatening the exit process; still others might seek to exact vengeance. Finally, the underwriting of departure terms and expectations in a regional summit of concerned states, each pledging some sort of non-disruptive association with the agreement, presumably further improves success probabilities.

In the analysis to follow, we shall try empirically to identify those factors that characterize successful versus unsuccessful exits, exits that appear to leave the former colony better off in the near-to-long run. Thus, we seek to suggest optimum exit strategies that afford the greatest hope for benefits to the retiring intervener and the former target state. Necessarily this entails consideration of factors generally thought to underpin long-term successful resolution of international conflicts. Fen Hampson has outlined many such factors, and generally concludes that:

Greater levels of success are . . . associated with the comprehensiveness and durability of the confidence-building measures that are put in place during the postsettlement or peace-building phase of an agreement . . . the list of tasks includes (1) reconstructing civil society at both the national and local level, (2) reintegrating displaced populations into the society and economy, (3) redefining the role of the military and police forces in the maintenance of law and order, (4) building communities and allowing them to survive by bridging the gap between emergency assistance and development, and (5) addressing the needs of particularly vulnerable sectors and groups in society such as women and children . . .. However, in the short term, if societies are to make this transition [from a state of war to a state of peace] the key considerations are these: Did civil strife and violence end? And did the parties fulfill the commitments theyagreed to under the settlement?[28]

It is perhaps too much to expect that departing occupiers will be willing and able to engineer such peace-building missions, though some critics argue, for example, that American assistance to Iraq could be greater and more effective coming from outside rather than inside the country, i.e., following rather than during a military occupation.[29] Yet, the quality of an exit strategy might depend on the degree to which international support is gathered either at the time of exit or subsequently to address the five points Hampson specifies. And for our analytical purposes one key question would be the emergence or not of civil fighting in the society after exit. Certainly, influences in the post-conflict environment will have as much (or more) effect on long-term stability and the nurturance of civil society in the former colony as the exit strategy itself. The two can go hand in hand, and one will want to consider the extent to which the exit is embedded in a larger peace-building strategy.

The conflict in Iraq is one that involves an insurgency pitted against the external coalition forces led by the United States, and by extension the new Iraqi government and developing Iraqi police force. Although the original insurgent force appeared to be drawn from the former Iraqi military and guardsmen loyal to the ousted Saddam Hussein, it became clear as the conflict progressed and Hussein was captured that these forces extended beyond the Sunni population to the Shi'a population as well. It has become clear, both in statements by kidnappers but also in the commitment by the forces, that all insurgents appear united in their desire to see the United States and other coalition forces withdraw from Iraq. Therefore, in order to study successful exit strategies, we refer to the Correlates of War Extra-State Wars dataset.[30] We focus specifically on extra-state wars as potentially comparable cases to the current situation the United States is facing in Iraq. Extra-state wars are wars between a recognized member of the international system and a non-state entity, such as a dependent colony, involving at least 1,000 battle-related deaths for the system member.[31] Clearly, the potential for civil war in Iraq – Iraqi insurgents pitted against the Iraqi government or against each other – is imminent as the United States and its supporters move to withdraw themselves, at least militarily, from the country. Yet, the role of the United States, having militarily taken economic and political control of the country, and the insurgent opposition to such moves appears to closely mirror situations faced by former colonial regimes. The goal of this article is to examine the various exit strategies employed by these colonial regimes and learn from history in an effort to better understand which factors might assist in successful exits.

For the purposes of this study and in view of data availability, we concentrate on cases occurring between 1945 and 1999.[32] In order to measure the various indicators of a successful exit strategy, we derive contextual details from the following resources: Keesing's Contemporary Archives, www.onwar.com, and the New York Times Historical Periodical database (the latter two available online), for cases 1960-2000,[33] and the New York Times Index, the New York Times Historical Periodical database, and www.onwar.com for cases 1945-59. For additional information not found within these sources, we use various academic historical sources available either online or in hard copy.

Before we begin our discussion of which factors may lead to successful exits, we must first describe and operationally define what exactly a successful exit entails.

The approach of studying cases comparable to the United States' current predicament in Iraq through the exploration of extra-state war resulted in only 13 cases for the period 1945 to 1999; while this can be considered a population of colonial exit cases, it is too small a number for sophisticated statistical analysis. Four additional cases of extra-state war were dismissed from the analyses either because they did not result in exit of the external power (Hyderabad and Tibet) or the territory has not achieved independence (East Timor, currently a UN protectorate, and Western Sahara, where Morocco currently maintains part of the territory as well). All cases are listed in the Appendix.

It is not surprising that exit strategies of external states often "fail" if one hopes to leave behind an independent, democratic, economically viable state reasonably free of intra-state violence. Of the 13 cases of exit and independence, the case that comes closest to full "success" is the Malaya insurgency (1948-57). Although Malaysia continued to experience internal strife, these were minor struggles short of war, even short of intermediate intra-state violence for that matter. We can also identify Namibia (1975-88) as a successful exit when South Africa left the state independent. After five years of statehood, Namibia was rated a six on the Polity IV regime scale and had not experienced civil war. The country's economy was strained, however, with a four-year post-independence growth rate of 7.8. Although Namibia's average state terror score is a relatively unimpressive 3.11, and despite lingering socio-political challenges for both Malaysia and Namibia, we will include them as cases of "full" success despite the limitations.

How do these two cases compare to the 11 unsuccessful exits? A clear predictor variable does not appear. There was no clear pattern of external support of colonial powers in successful exits; in one case, Britain in Malaysia had external support, and in the other, South Africa in Namibia, did not. There was also a mixed pattern in cases of unsuccessful exits; four had no support and seven had support. This might yet indicate that external support tended to complicate or delay exits, but the evidence is still uncertain. The majority of our cases (all but one) involved some form of outside support for the insurgent group in their independence campaign. Of course, this is partly a function of the time in which many of these cases took place. Following the creation of the United Nations and the expressed rights of self-determination for colonial states, support for decolonization was widespread. Both of our success cases had diplomatic and/or material support for insurgents from major powers, but so did a number of unsuccessful exits as well; it will be instructive to determine the external assistance pattern in future analyses of earlier colonial cases.

As indicated earlier, key events either within the occupying power, as in France and Portugal, or significant military defeats contributed significantly to the decision by the external powers to make an exit. There were four cases of unsuccessful exits resulting from each of these types of events, but there were also five cases without major political or military events, two of which were successful exits. We might suspect that such events tend to sway support in the direction of a more rapid exit, which it appears, may have undesirable consequences.

Our remaining support variables, pre-exit polarization and the involvement of international or regional organizations, were even less compelling. Both unsuccessful and successful exits exhibited these characteristics somewhat evenly. Clearly, in Iraq pre-exit polarization exists. The good news is that armed factions also existed in Malaya prior to the British exit. Although low-level violence continued to exist periodically, all out war was avoided. Of course, the armed factions within Malaysia were actually defeated by the new government with the assistance of the British. This will be discussed further below.

We might also speculate that the involvement of the United Nations could help with issues of exit and post-exit legitimacy. The results of our analysis, however, showed one UN involvement in the two successes, and six (of 11) in the failures. Thus, there is no clear historical evidence of consistent UN success in exit facilitation. The United States has already made attempts to work with the United Nations in Iraq, although significant UN military involvement has failed to materialize up to this point given the strained US-UN relationship.

Arrangements surrounding the agreement for exit and independence have proved revealing. We would expect that agreements that provide for internal (power sharing, see Table 1) and external security arrangements designed to protect minorities, as well as mechanisms for guaranteeing that protection, would be associated with successful exit. Our findings, however, did not support this assumption. Although the majority of cases included security or power-sharing arrangements, the two cases of success did not. It is clear that power-sharing arrangements can help protect minorities, but they can be problematic as well. Although Malaysia and Namibia both experienced internal armed factions prior to independence, neither agreement for exit involved security arrangements for minority groups. In Malaysia, however, while there was no formal agreement for post-exit power sharing among ethnic groups, appreciable Chinese electoral representation did take place in a united front electoral coalition. Britain had participated in talks prior to the formation of this coalition. Neither Malaysia nor Namibia experienced post-exit civil wars.

Given that power-sharing/security arrangements were not included in successful exit agreements, it is not surprising that these two cases did not include all relevant stakeholders in negotiations for exit either. Only six of the 13 cases included all relevant parties, but all of those were in unsuccessful exits. Other security arrangements involving exit agreements include military or peacekeeping enforcement and external supervision of the agreement implementation. The two success cases were split on these variables and the majority of non-success cases did not include these elements. Namibia was one of the three cases to include such provisions in the agreement for exit, but Malaysia was not.

One final agreement variable can be linked closely with the economic growth component of our measure of full success. Five of our exit agreements included economic favors for the exiting power (see Table 2); eight of our cases did not, including both Malaysia and Namibia. This would seem to support the notion that economic ties to the external power might complicate the newly emerging state's chances of success.

Our control variables include conflict intensity, major power status of the intervening party, identification of the external power, and demographic polarization of the newly emerging state. None of these variables emerged as associated with exit success, with the possible exception of identification of the external power (n=5). External powers involved in extra-state wars (where exit and independence occurred) during the 1945-99 time period include France, Great Britain, Portugal, South Africa, and the Netherlands. Although France and Portugal account for eight of our 13 cases, none of their exit strategies resulted in success as we have defined it. Both of these states, as indicated earlier, however, experienced political changes within their countries that facilitated or hastened exit, which did not necessarily benefit their former colonies except to afford independence. The two cases of success include the former British colony of Malaysia, as well as Namibia, which was able to obtain independence once South Africa left amidst strong pressure from the United Nations.

Not surprisingly, reliable information on conflict disarmament is somewhat elusive. We can assume to some degree that when disarmament occurs, or armed factions are incorporated and integrated into a national army, we will hear about it. If disarmament is not even addressed by the exit agreement or implementation of the agreement, we are less likely to find that fact included in case narratives. Disarmament was attempted and successful in two of the 13 cases. One of these cases was Namibia, a success. Five cases involved the integration of armed forces into a national army. These were all unsuccessful exits. We lacked sufficient information to assess levels of disarmament for the remaining six cases, including Malaysia. This other case of success, however, did involve successful amnesty offers for communist rebels, which presumably would have involved some disarmament.

We can conclude that cases which meet our stringent definition of success can be characterized as those in which the insurgent group(s) received external diplomatic and/or material assistance, and their exit agreements did not involve a major political or military event, did not involve formal security arrangements for competing groups within the newly emerging state, and did not involve economic favors for the exiting power. Using "success" as our only outcome measure is clearly problematic. Ideally, the US will want to leave Iraq independent, free of civil war, democratic, and economically viable. If that proves possible, we will be able to add the Iraqi case to the very small list of "successful exits." It might be helpful, however, to explore the dependent variables in isolation so as to get a better understanding of which factors appear to be associated with other, albeit less comprehensive, forms of success.

As we indicated above, there were only two cases that came close to a successful exit leaving behind a functioning democratic, economically viable country with limited internal strife. The case of Namibia, however, did not involve a major power as the external intervener. Malaysia, on the other hand, exhibits similarities with the current US situation in Iraq worth pursuing further.

Interestingly, this case is one in which the primarily Chinese communist insurgents actually failed in their quest. Although they had initiated the rebellion against the British, the ethnic Chinese were defeated by both the British and ethnic Malay forces, as the British strategically played on intense internal rivalries and fears. Independence was achieved in 1957. The country quickly became democratic with a five-year post regime Polity score of 10 and an average terror score of 2.46. It had a respectable growth rate of 27.7 from year one to year five post-independence. Although Malaysia has not experienced civil war since independence, it has experienced minor levels of intra-state violence as battles with the Communist Party of Malaya continued periodically (1958-60, 1974-75, and 1981). Malaysian authorities also engaged in minor conflict with the Clandestine Communist Organization in the territory of North Borneo (1963-66). Evident regional instability due to Malaysia's independence was confined to the initial split of Singapore. Britain experienced no negative internal disruptions from its exit.

Despite the relatively minor skirmishes, the case of the Malayan insurgency comes closest to a successful exit. In terms of support, the British had been assisted by the ethnic Malay, as indicated earlier, but also by New Zealand and Australia, both of which sent troops following the collapse of talks between the British and the communist leader, Chin Peng.[42] The insurgents, on the other hand, received diplomatic support from the USSR and China, but lacked the material assistance needed to defeat a well-armed and supported British coalition.

The success of the exit, perhaps, comes from the efforts made by the British to prepare and work with the Malayan people. During the course of the insurgency, the British high commissioner had been assassinated by the Malay Races Liberation Army (MRLA) in October 1951. The replacement for Henry Gurney, Gerald Templer, worked with Malayan groups seeking to establish their trust, providing the right to vote to ethnic Chinese, and promising independence.[43] UK plans for independence included continued economic and military aid for the newly emerging Malayan government, although no clear cut economic favors for the exiting country. It is clear that the communist insurgents were relatively isolated during this process and all party talks did not actually take place.

Similarly, in Iraq the Americans are working closely with the provisional government and there have been promises of financial aid. The United States is also clearly involved in assisting the Iraqi police and security forces. Further, the Sunni-led boycott of the January 2005 elections has had the effect of further isolating an already apprehensive and distrustful Sunni population (estimated at 32-37 percent of the entire Iraqi population). Indirect talks have taken place with Sunni political authorities, and to a much lesser extent insurgent leaders. In Malaysia, the British had extended discussions to the ethnic Chinese in an effort to diminish insurgent support and limit their potential for expansion. It appears that there remains room for the US and Iraqi authorities to extend the same consideration to the Sunni population in Iraq, and that it is crucial that they do so in such a way as to involve leaders with at least a modicum of influence with the insurgent forces. Plans for repeated trials of Saddam Hussein on various charges would not seem to bode well for the success of such talks.

The current situation in Iraq is also complicated by the election results. It is clear that the United States would have preferred a more secular Iraqi government, yet results indicate Shi'ite clerics are more popular, at least among those who voted. Kurdish political parties constitute a secular counter-balance (as would Sunni parties), but their participation comes at the price of guaranteed stringent autonomy for their "Kurdistan" provinces, potentially creating further tension both inside Iraq and on the Turkish border. The British did not face quite the same regionally complicated scenario in the Malaya Republic circa 1957, though the ultimate split of Singapore constitutes a warning of potential political dismemberment in future exit scenarios.

Although our findings did not produce a clear pattern of successful exit, with our small number of cases, exploring past insurgencies in light of the current situation in Iraq does raise some questions about the theoretical expectations raised earlier in the article. We had suspected that international support for the occupying power and for the exit and independence agreement would more likely be associated with exit success. Our findings, however, did not clearly support that notion. Successful exit cases did not vary significantly from the unsuccessful ones on these scores. We did, however, find initial indications that continued economic dominance of former dependencies did not bode well for successful exit. This finding seems to support the frustration expressed by scholars that have suggested that political colonialism was replaced in many states by economic colonialism.[44]

The current US situation in Iraq and with the international community is somewhat different than what was experienced during the time period under study. Often, support for insurgents in the 1950s and 1960s was complicated by the Cold War. Where one superpower was providing diplomatic or material assistance to a rebel group, we would find counter pressure being applied by the other superpower. The current international environment is structured quite differently. It appears there is consensus over the issue of Iraqi independence and few major power alternatives to the US and Britain for significant logistical support. So-called terror networks and smaller powers interested in opposing Western dominance are present to fuel the fires of insurgency, however. As a result, although Iraqi insurgents evidently are not supported by major or superpowers, there is adequate potential for their re-supply across Iraq's numerous borders. Their fate could work in much the same way (defeat) as the communist insurgents in Malaysia (although even they had received some support from China), as compared to the Vietnamese (victorious) insurgents. Yet, the political challenge of winning Iraqis' "hearts and minds" remains significant. In Malaysia it was possible to play on racial fears and hatreds, associating the Chinese minority with communism. In Iraq there is plenty of ethnic suspicion and certainly a Sunni association with the previous Ba'athist regime, but the polarity is not necessarily of such magnitude as to discredit the insurgency as "counter-nationalist."

We also speculated that large-scale military defeats or major political events experienced by the external power might alter plans for exit. This appears to be the case in our sample of cases. External powers that experienced these events in the midst of insurgency in one or more of their territories made moves to change course rapidly, seemingly increasing the pace of exit without perhaps working through the measures necessary for a stable emerging state. It appears that strict timetables and deadlines for withdrawal, for example, could be potentially dangerous if appropriate trust building and security measures are not in place. Although the insurgency in Iraq is primarily focused on facilitating the exit of external powers, the threat of civil war upon exit remains. Quick exit without the necessary third party security guarantee identified by civil war settlement scholars as crucial to maintaining peace[45] might spell more disaster for an already devastated country. One could argue that a well-prepared exit, not accelerated by domestic political events within the intervening state, might allow for the necessary comprehensive negotiations and internal security arrangements thought important by civil war researchers. Interestingly, however, some agreement factors or measures we thought would contribute to exit success did not appear to do so. We expected that power-sharing arrangements, third party guarantors, internal security arrangements, and comprehensive negotiations would help move these rebellious territories toward stability. Our expectations were not generally supported, and worse; neither of our success cases included all parties in negotiations nor did they have power-sharing arrangements. This leaves us wondering if perhaps such measures are not as necessary as we had originally thought. There is much room for further study of these intriguing patterns of exit, and the ensuing political successes or failures.

Frederic S. Pearson is Director of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, and the Program on Mediating Theory and Democratic Systems at Wayne State University.

Marie Olson Lounsbery is Assistant Professor of Conflict Resolution and International Studies in the Department of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at Nova Southeastern University.

Loreta Costa is a Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at Nova Southeastern University, and an Adjunct Faculty member in the College of Allied Health and Nursing at NSU.