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April 11, 2008

The Iraq Conundrum

By Robert Robb

After five years in Iraq, you'd think confident statements about current and future events would be few and far between.

However, to borrow from the old saw, politicians may often be wrong, but they are never in doubt.

According to President Bush and John McCain, if we continue the course with the surge, Iraq becomes Switzerland. And if we don't, al-Qaida takes over and uses Iraq as a base from which to eat our grandchildren.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton see neither past nor future. They see only the present and to them Iraq is Vietnam.

In reality, the situation in Iraq has never been more cloudy nor the choices for the United States more difficult. The United States confronts a very complex and delicate conundrum.

The surge has produced tangible progress. Violence is down considerably.

Sunni tribal leaders throughout Iraq have turned against al-Qaida.

The important political question is whether Sunnis have reconciled themselves to a decisively minority status in a Shia-dominated Iraq.

The answer is not clear, but indications are encouraging.

The Sunnis have wanted the United States to impose an oversized role for them on the Shiites. The United States made a strategic mistake in not doing more to dowse those ambitions from the beginning.

However, it seems that Sunni ambitions have become more realistic, looking toward regional self-governance rather than apportioned power and spoils at the national level.

Nevertheless, Sunni tribal leaders remain skeptical to hostile regarding the Shia-dominated national government.

That means that the United States may have become an indispensable bridge for Sunni reconciliation. And a large military presence is necessary to make that bridge credible.

In the meantime, Shiite militias are now the larger threat to Iraqi pacification, according to both General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker.

The finger is being pointed at Iran for fostering Shiite militia violence.

But competition among Shiite militias, while more lethal due to Iranian support, exists independent of Iranian subornation.

Iran's goal certainly is not to make Shiite governance impossible in Iraq.

It probably isn't even to topple the Maliki government. The main faction in the current national government, the
Islamic Supreme Council, has close ties to Iran, where most of its leadership found refuge during Saddam's reign.

The council also has a militia which competes with that of Moqtada al-Sadr for influence in some parts of Iraq.
Instead, Iran's goal is probably to cause as much trouble for the United States as possible in Iraq, to keep us occupied there so we are less capable of pressuring or attacking it.

Sadr's political faction is also part of the current government. He strongly objects to the U.S. presence in Iraq and has said that he would stand down his militia if a withdrawal schedule were negotiated.

Whether this is an accurate or full reading of the Iranian objective is very much subject to doubt, as is the believability of Sadr's professions.

However, it may be that the key to Shia pacification is a sharp shrinkage of the U.S. presence in Iraq.

So, while a large U.S. military presence is possibly necessary for Sunni reconciliation, it is also probably a substantial obstacle to Shia pacification.

The way out of this dilemma may involve an option that none of the partisans in the U.S. debate are discussing.

That would involve negotiating a flexible withdrawal schedule with the Maliki government, but one that begins quite slowly, leaving a large U.S. military presence for a while.

That might give Sunni tribal leaders the confidence to take the next steps, particularly if the national government makes good on its promise of provincial elections this fall.

This wouldn't reduce the incentive for Iran to continue to cause as much trouble for the United States as possible in Iraq. However, it might reduce the willingness of Iraqi Shiite militias to go along or act as an Iranian proxy. The ethnic differences between Iraqi and Iranian Shiites make it more likely some sort of negotiated withdrawal schedule could be a nudge toward a separation of interests.

I realize that there are a lot of maybes, possibles and probables in these conjectures. But that's the reality of the current U.S. conundrum.

Nothing in Iraq is as simple or clear as the pronouncements of our politicians.

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