The Surge Has Failed, Again Posted by Shadi Hamid

Iraq's largest Sunni bloc has apparently quit the Maliki government. If this doesn't provide further evidence of the failure of the "surge," what will? That's 44 seats. How many Sunnis does that leave in the "national" parliament? (That's sort of a rhetorical question, but I kind of what to know what the exact number is too). Marc Lynch zeroes in on what this means for Petraeus and his strategy of "buying time." Question: doesn't this quite blatantly contradict the claims of progress made in O'Hanlon and Pollack's New York Times op-ed? Answer: yes.

Comments

[SoldierNoLongerInIraq]

Shadi, the corrupt and incompetent Dawa-led coalition of Shi'i confessional parties have been declining in popularity for some time. The politicaly wing of al-Sadr's JAM dropped out of the cabinet, then the parliament, and only returned recently due to constitutional questions on Kirkuk (the Kurds were promised a referendum and they want a clause to the constitution that makes them the guard over the area).

There has been an ongoing process by the Kurd and Sunni parties (plus some of the Allawi-centric parliamentarians) to destabilize further Maliki's hold. Quite frankly, I'm not sure he could withstand a confidence vote, should one emerge, which might explain as much as anything why the confessional parties have been so quick to take long vacations.

But all that is inside baseball. The reality is that many of us for some time have suggested that there might not be a reconciliation between the many Shi'i and Sunni for a generation or so, and that we might as well consider the Kurdish proto-state as its own government.

How can there be a "political" solution to a cultural problem?

Because just as Yugoslavia (another Ottoman rump of empire) couldn't long survive the death of Tito, how long really did the Baath regime in Baghdad have? Ruling as a tyrant, attempting dynastic succession with children as blood thirsty as Aztecs, and creating an internal Ministry of Fear on the bedrock of fellow orthodox Sunni Tikriti tribesmen wasn't exactly going to make it long past Saddam's last breath, eh?

As much as I love "Iraq," the languages and the peoples and the beauties of their faiths and the mosaic of their ethnicities, the jumble really doesn't scab into a "nation" anymore than Yugoslavia was a state of any meaningful cohesion.

The so-called "Surge" can't address this. At best, it might give pause long enough for the Badrists to isolate the Sadrists, and perhaps work out with the various Sunni parties a carbon revenue sharing program in exchange for an end to the bloodshed, but that's probably not even possible.

Vengeance is a poor political "solution," should one wish to arrive at reconciliation, but that is the path chosen by the confessional parties of the Shi'i thus far. And when we look at the remaining utility of our forces, in the end isn't partition the best "solution" to a cultural problem?

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I would like to say the situation looks dire, and might be basically hopeless.I would love nothing more than for a withdrawal to begin soon, but, as you point out, it's not going to happen. In the meantime, the Americans need to lay all of due pressure on al-Maliki et al. to get some work done.