Caught in the Middle of An Iraqi Civil War Posted by Suzanne Nossel

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that the only thing worse than civil war in Iraq was civil war in Iraq with 130,000 American troops serving there.  This weekend, after a couple of weeks of relative calm, things blew up again with six simultaneous bombings in crowded markets in Shiite areas.  Shiite militiamen are out on the street and the fear is that this will spark a rash of sectarian violence akin to the outbreak triggered by the bombing of a Shiite temple three weeks ago, and maybe worse.  All this coincides with the planned drawdown of US troops starting this Spring.   

If sectarian violence flares up untamed, what will the US do?  It's been obvious for a long time that the consequences of Iraq becoming a failed state are so severe that the US must do everything in its power to avoid that outcome.  It's equally clear that the US's strategy - despite several reincarnations - has not placed Iraq on a trajectory toward stability.  It increasingly looks as though, despite the best efforts of our military and some improvements in American tactics, Iraq is sliding in the wrong direction. 

The worst thing about this is that now, with Iraq descending into chaos, even if everyone agreed that our presence was doing no good, it would be virtually impossible to leave.  Last fall, when John Murtha called for US withdrawal and the Center for American Progress argued for redeployment elsewhere in the region, drawing down struck many as premature and faint-hearted.  If we leave as Iraq descends directly into mass-killings, however, it will look even worse: unconscionable and craven, an invitation for Iran to have its way.  Given the Administration's rhetoric over the last few months, I can't see it happening.

So what will the US do if Iraq succumbs to out-and-out war?  For one thing, US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad is working feverishly to try to get a government together so that there will be some local authority the US can support, and some entity to try to hold together the fragmenting military the US has worked to build.  If there is a government in place, we'll do what we can to try to prop it up and retain its hold over its troops. 

The role of our military in a situation of unbridled sectarian warfare is unclear.  Having failed to prevent the chaos and bloodshed, its hard to see how we'd stop it.  From the sound of things internecine fighting among religious militias is a whole lot harder for the US to deal with than the terrorist insurgency:  these militias hold far broader allegiance among the general populations, and have the support of leaders considered legitimate.  Even if we were able to suppress them somehow, the political backlash would be untenable.

So the likelihood is that if things do not come under control, the US forces in Iraq will be relegated to trying to protect infrastructure and seal the country's borders to limit the number of foreign fighters that enter the fray.  Those jobs will be highly risky and, even if we succeed, we'll only have deflected some fuel away from the fire, rather than putting out the flames themselves.

The bottom line is that if Iraq does slip further toward sectarian violence, the US will be unable to get out and unable to do much good while in.  If that happens, the Administration and many others may look back on last fall's debate and wish they had followed Murtha's advice while they still could have.

Comments

[Cal]

Last fall, when John Murtha called for US withdrawal and the Center for American Progress argued for redeployment elsewhere in the region, drawing down struck many as premature and faint-hearted.

Including you as I recall. I'm not trying to be insulting, but Murtha was widely viewed as speaking for the generals, and yet you say his proposal was dismissed by many as "faint-hearted" -- cowardly, in other words.

Does anybody in the military or the intelligence services have any influence with either political party, when these institutions recommend a "dovish" course of action?

Both parties ignored State and the CIA before the war when they warned that a democracy in Iraq was a fantasy. Then, after two and a half years of almost non-stop bad news, both parties played the same game again, trying to out-macho the military.

Tell me, why should the American people trust the foreign policy establishment, when the elites seem incapable of following good advise because of the political environment?

[Souldrift]

Apparently, we're going to drop lots of bombs.

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