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by Fawaz A. Gerges
ISPU Fellow
Seven months after the "surge" of 21,000 more U.S.
troops to Iraq,
the security situation is too "fragile and reversible"
to allow for a
drawdown of the 140,000 combat forces that will remain
there in July.
That was the key point made by Army General David
Petraeus to
lawmakers, some of whom were skeptical of the open-ended
American
commitment toward the war-torn country.
The same general who sold the Army surge to a skeptical
American public last
September now recommends a 45-day freeze on any
withdrawal of U.S.
troops after July. He did not even commit himself to a
timetable for
resuming troop reduction after the 45-day freeze.
Bluntly put, Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker had
little good
news to deliver. The Iraq war continues; so does the
preponderant U.S.
military presence. Despite references to progress being
made,
according to Petraeus's own words, the political and
security
environment "remains exceeding complex and challenging."
What are we to make of Petraeus's report to Congress?
Little appears
to have strategically changed in Iraq if we keep in mind
that the
"surge" is a tactic, not a strategy. While security has
slightly
improved in the last few months, there has been no major
progress on
the political and sectarian fronts.
Multiple fault lines have resurfaced and threaten to
wreck the very
foundation of the new Iraq. The divide between Sunni and
Shia factions
is potent and simmering. The sectarian-dominated central
government
has resisted efforts by the U.S. to give the Sunni Arab
community a
greater role in the political-economic process. Many
Sunni Arabs whom
I recently interviewed expressed their anger and
frustration with the
Maliki government. They made it clear that there are
limits to their
patience, and that they might rethink the current truce
with Maliki.
American military officers on the ground in Iraq are
anxious about
mounting tensions between the central government and the
Sunni Arab
community. The U.S. armed and funded almost 100,000
Sunnis in the
so-called "Awakening Councils" in order to expel Al
Qaeda in Iraq from
their neighborhoods. Now U.S. officials fear that unless
these
militiamen are integrated into the Iraq security and
public sphere,
they could turn their guns against the central
authorities and
American troops as well. There is a gathering storm on
the Sunni front
that has mostly escaped the attention of outside
observers.
An equally alarming development is the breakout of
Shia civil war.
Intra-Shia hostilities have been brewing for a while but
were kept
under control. Last month, the first shot in the Shia
civil war was
fired in the southern city of Basra, Iraq's second
largest city and
its economic and oil pipeline, when Maliki put his
reputation on the
line and launched an all-out offensive against what he
called
"criminal gangs."
At that time Iraq and U.S. officials insisted that the
fight was not
aimed against the radical nationalist Shia cleric
Muqtada al-Sadar,
but against splinter gangs within his militia—the Mahdi
army. But
hostilities swiftly escalated and soon they engulfed
most of the Shia
south and Baghdad. Militiamen of the Mahdi army pounded
the
U.S.-controlled Green Zone with rockets and mortars,
causing American
and Iraqi casualties.
Under questioning by lawmakers, General Petraeus did
describe the
disappointing performance of some of the Iraqi forces
sent last month
to defeat the Shia militias in Basra. The offensive,
said Petraeus,
"could have been better planned" by the Iraqis. But
Petraeus's
concession downplays what has been lost in the Basra
offensive.
At the onset of hostilities in Basra, President Bush
publicly
supported Maliki's crackdown, praising him as a "bold"
leader and
stating that the government offensive was a defining
moment in Iraq's
history. The U.S. Department of Defense noted that the
fighting was a
positive development because it indicated that the Iraq
government was
going after criminals and thugs. There was no hint or
sign of
skepticism and reflection.
There should have been. Five days after the outbreak
of hostilities
in Basra, a ceasefire agreement brokered by Iran was
reached between
warring Shia leaders in the Iranian holy city, Qom. The
crisis showed
clearly that Iran, not the United States, is the most
influential
player in Iraq today.
Indeed, Iran has emerged as a pivotal factor in the
Iraq equation,
not because its paramilitary cells fund and train Shia
militias, as
Petraeus asserted, but because Iran has co-opted most of
the Shia
political groups and communities, including Sadar, who
initially
opposed Iranian influence in his country. It is now
doubtful if Iraq
can be stabilized without politically engaging its
powerful Iranian
neighbor.
In addition, the intra-Shia fighting in Basra exposes
the lack of
strategic planning by the Bush administration. Bush and
senior aides
should have been cautious and careful about publicly
making
exaggerated claims about the prowess of the Maliki
government. They
should have known that Shia militias were battling over
political
supremacy and economic spoils. That was not a fight
between the Iraqi
government and a bunch of criminals; rather, it was an
intra-Shia
armed struggle involving multiple factions and militias.
The U.S.-trained Iraq army performed dismally.
According to credible
reports, almost 40 percent of government troops
abandoned the fight
before a ceasefire was reached. Many soldiers and
officers defected to
warring militias. The devastating performance of the
Iraq security
forces has been a setback for U.S. military commanders
and certainly
is one reason why General Petraeus recommended a
suspension of troop
withdrawals after July.
U.S. officials should have known better than to take
sides in this
bloody and raging Shia civil war lest they become bogged
down and
entangled further in Iraq's shifting sands. The U.S. has
already made
many enemies, and while the U.S. blunders, Iran has more
leeway to
extend its influence in Iraq and the Middle East.
The bottom line is that the U.S. is at the mercy of
local Iraq
players in the same way that Britain was in the 1920s.
Desperate to
make headway, U.S. officials portray every skirmish and
battle as a
turning point, and then backtrack when it is followed by
a reversal.
No wonder the U.S. public has lost faith in the war—and
in those
officials who council more patience!
The question is when the now popular General David
Petraeus will
also fall out of favor. His latest progress report
offers only the
dismal prospect of war without end.
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Fawaz A. Gerges is a Fellow at the Institute for Social
Policy and Understanding (ISPU).
He holds the Christian A. Johnson Chair in International
Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies at Sarah Lawrence.
His most recent book is The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went
Global (Cambridge University Press).
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