On Surging

Sorry it took so long, but here’s my take on Petraeus and “the surge:” ANY good news is good news but Bush might be overstating the surge’s “success.” To begin, let’s look at the operational rationalizations and goals for the surge’s implementation. First, the surge was designed to be Baghdad-centric. Forces were added to Anbar but combat strength was focused on Baghdad. The Euphrates River was to act as a barrier to insurgent held neighborhoods while increased U.S. combat teams, operating and living among Iraqis, cleared these areas. Second, relieving violence in these chosen areas would increase security, thus giving the Iraqi government breathing room to govern and foment reconciliation.

Now let’s look at what’s happened. Success in Baghdad has been limited. Some areas have been cleared, yet even these neighborhoods are not totally successes of American combat strength. Many of these areas have simply been “cleansed” through Sunni-Shi’a bloodletting and forced or elected migration. While much of the “cleansing” has been bloodless after the surge, thanks to the addition of troop-strength to end militia violence, Iraqis have cast their lot with their own ethnic groups instead of US forces and a centralized Iraqi government. Although violence may be curtailed, American forces have yet to gain the people’s confidence, the overriding counter-insurgency goal.

Alternatively, success in Anbar, which includes Fallujah, Ramadi, and Haditha, has bordered on the extraordinary. The Sunni have rejected al Qaeda operatives and the radical agenda they have sought to imposed and for the present time, have agreed to a TEMPORARY alliance with American forces to drive terrorist out of Anbar. This effort has been highly successful and brought peace and security to an area that has given American forces MAJOR problems ever since the invasion began. Here too, however, success has not been acquired by American operations but by a conscious choice by tribal leaders to reject Al Qaeda. Like Baghdad, the Sunni in Anbar still remain loyal to their tribes, sheiks, and local militias instead of the centralized Iraqi government.

Therefore, while violence overall is down, these successes are not successes that belong to the surge in troop strength. Rather, they are the result of a shift in strategic and operational creativity among Iraqi and American leader, which is a more than welcome development.

Now, what does this mean? Well, at the superficial level of Beltway politics, I think this report serves White House policy quite well. Any good news from Iraq will encourage Republican fence-sitters to stay with the president, at least for now, which should loosen congressional purse-strings. As far as developments in Iraq though, I think recent events suggest we are definitely on our way to some sort of Sunni-Shi’a-Kurdish partition. Whether this is a complete partition with three separate nations or a loose confederation held together by a central national government will depend on American successes and, increasingly, on the effectiveness of Iraqi security forces, whose success could instill national pride and increase confidence in a national government. A complete partition could be dangerous as a weak Kurdistan could encourage aggression from Turkey and an independent Sunni nation could still remain disconnected from the global economy, due to a lack of oil reservoirs in western Iraq, and therefore could still be vulnerable to terrorist infiltration. On the other hand, however, the Sunni in Anbar, which would probably make up most of a the possible independent state, have already rejected Al Qaeda so these fears, along with the broader fear that Iraq will become a haven for terrorists if US forces withdraw, could be overblown.

Time will tell but Petraeus is still the best chance we have.