It seems like just yesterday — to surge or not to surge?
If you’re thinking it was just yesterday, then you’ve got the wrong major American military deployment. Not Afghanistan, but Iraq. What a difference a year makes — at the heart of the presidential campaign debate on national security in 2008, Iraq has all but faded from public discussion.
So, to review: Earlier this month, the Iraqi parliament passed an election law for the January 18, 2010, parliamentary vote. The law theoretically resolved a handful of outstanding yet crucial issues that were needed to facilitate the vote, even though the U.N.’s man in Baghdad says pulling off the election by January would be a “herculean task.” Just today Iraqi President Jalad Talibani again threw the January poll in doubt by insisting, perhaps on behalf of his Sunni veep, that minority and refugee Iraqis needed greater representation in parliament.
The election is the last major hurdle to a U.S. military withdrawal at the end of 2010 (save 40,000-50,000 American troops for training and counterterrorism operations). Failure to conduct a legitimate election — and more importantly, to have the loser accept the results without resorting to more violence — could potentially re-escalate sectarian strife as Iraq’s deep political wounds along ethnic lines would be ripped open again.
Addressing and resolving the parties’ various complaints about the election law will be a major issue over the next few days. Watch this space.
If you believe Tom Ricks’ analysis (and in this case, I happen to) there’s a good chance that violence in 2010 — at least against Iraq’s civilian population if not American military forces — will be the highest it has been in several years. Anecdotal evidence suggests that one-off attacks are on the rise, with the occasional massive bombing like the August attack against the Iraqi Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Finance that killed some 155 people. Groups proclaiming themselves to be al Qaeda in Iraq — though probably composed of Saddam’s Ba’ath party loyalists — have claimed responsibility in several instances.
The good news? Even though they carry the “al Qaeda” brand, they’re not intent on or capable of an attack on the U.S. mainland.
The bad news? They could be a major destabilizing force in Iraq for years to come, because the U.S. military has pulled back from cities and towns — as stipulated in the Status of Forces Agreement — and is now in a supportive role to Baghdad’s forces, which seem none-too-hurried to ask for American help. What’s more, the cash used to flip the Sunni Sons of Iraq to cooperate with Iraqi/American forces has dried up as the task of distributing payment has fallen to the Iraqi government.
Or, to cut all this down to a nice, tidy phrase used by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction’s (SIGIR’s) quarterly report from October 2009: “The security picture in Iraq remains mixed.”
As for reconstruction itself, SIGIR points to several positive developments in oil infrastructure development, but nothing will be really resolved until a comprehensive revenue-sharing agreement among the Sunnis, Shi’ites, and Kurds for hydrocarbons is passed.
That’s a ton to chew over. Here’s what I think all this means: If the election is held come January and the Iraqi security forces are able to at least contain violence, then the U.S. will able to stick to the plan. American troops will be substantially reduced from 120,000 to 50,000 by the end of 2010. This is no small feat and there are a few major hurdles before it happens. However, if it does happen, allow me to bastardize a Churchillian phrase and say it would represent the beginning of the end.
