Over the weekend I was reading from a forthcoming book that
has a section detailing the decline of security in Mosul in 2004, after
then-Maj. Gen. David Petraeus packed up and left with the 101st
Airborne, turning northern Iraq over to a much smaller replacement force. Over
the course of several months, deals Petraeus had cut began to fall apart, and
Iraqis he had brought on board were assassinated. These days the city is one of
the most troubled in Iraq.
So I began to wonder: Is what we are seeing in Iraq now is a
larger and slower version of those events? That is, the deals that Petraeus
patched together as the top commander in Iraq in 2007-08 have begun unwinding
slowly, and the momentum promises to accelerate with the sharp decline in U.S.
troop levels scheduled for early next year.
I asked a senior officer about this, and he responded:
I
don't think that's what we're seeing, though there certainly are plenty of
challenges facing Iraq -- among them continuation of agreements Iraqi leaders
have made about taking care of Sons of Iraq members, observing international
conventions regarding the Mujahideen el Khalq, not inflaming tensions with the
Kurdish Regional Government, a budget crunch (due to the fall in the price of
oil), Sunni-Shia tensions, and intra-Shia competition, among others. By no means were all the agreements reached
on Petraeus' watch (he left in early Sep 08, albeit to go to CENTCOM which
still oversees Iraq), of course, and many are in the realm of political or
diplomatic issues, vice military. Beyond
that, and despite the periodic sensational attacks causing concern in recent
months, the level of violence has remained at the low levels that have
characterized the past 6 months -- between 10 and 15 attacks per day, on
average, vice the 160 attacks per day at the height of the violence in June
2007.
Looking
back, Mosul actually hung together better than any other area of Iraq
during the April 2004 "uprising," when the Iraqi forces elsewhere in the
country collapsed in the face of Sunni insurgent and Shia militia violence. (Petraeus and the 101st Abn Div left Mosul in
Feb 04, and the ICDC
they trained did reasonably well in Apr 04.) Beyond that, most observers
assess that the spiral downward in Mosul began with the assassination
of the governor of the province at the end of June 2004, following
which many of the Sunni members of the provincial council walked
out over the process followed to select the next governor, obviously
not something over which Petraeus had any influence. Over time,
this led to an increase in Sunni rejection of the situation and support
for the insurgency that undermined security to the point that the
police collapsed in Mosul in the face of an attack by AQI intended to
draw attention away from the ongoing operation to clear Fallujah in November
2004.
Despite his first sentence, I don't think his observations
really say that the pattern I am seeing is incorrect.
I have heard you speak a couple of times, and you state that you believe American involvement in Iraq will last for at least another eight years. Correct me if i am wrong, but you seem to say that the situation with unravel so quickly once Obama starts withdrawing troops, that his troop withdrawal plan with be aborted in the face of increasing violence.
Yet, the unraveling is already beginning and the troop withdrawals have not even begun yet. Is Petraus leaving your alternative explanation?
You argue that the surge failed because of the lack political reconciliation, yet you think we will (should?) keep troops in Iraq? I would like a clarification of your thinking.
These are good questions. I know I will come back to them again, but here are some initial responses:
--Yes, I think that President Obama's current plans for troop drawdowns will be changed. I think especially the idea that the mission after August of next year will be "non-combat" will be dropped. I also think the SOFA is likely to be altered to permit U.S. troops to remain for many years.
--The unraveling already is beginning because troop cuts are only part of the equation. Another is the fact that the Iraqi government never liked the deals the US made with the Sunni insurgents. A third is that the jockeying over post-Bush Iraq is underway.
--I don't think leaving troops is a good idea. But I do think it beats any other plan I've seen.
1) I agree with Mr. Ricks that its likely that the U.S. will be in Iraq for several more years past the 2011 deadline, but not for the same reasons. I think the major reason why the U.S. will end up staying is that because the Iraqi security forces will not be able to provide national defense by the time the SOFA deadline hits. The Iraqi air force has no fighter jets, the navy hardly has any boats, the border guard are a work in progress. The Iraqi Defense Ministry originally had 2017 as the date when they would have enough heavy equipment to protect the country from exterior threats. That got moved back to 2020. Now that date has been scrapped because all plans for moving towards a defense force instead of a counterinsurgency one have been put on hold this year due to the Iraqi budget deficit. That's the number one reason, IMO, that both the Iraqi government and the U.S. military will be pushing Obama to stay, not because Iraq is falling apart.
2) Many of Ricks' arguments for things unraveling in Iraq are largely American concerns, not Iraqi ones. Take the Sons of Iraq integration. Two members from the US Institute of Peace recently returned from Iraq and wrote a paper saying that the Iraqi government thinks the SOI are solely an American problem, not there's. The U.S. cut nearly 200 peace deals with tribes and former insurgents which created the SOI. None of those included the Iraqi government. It was an American policy, and integrating them was a U.S. idea as well. Baghdad has taken over their pay, but finding jobs is a crap shoot for any Iraqi, not just SOI. The budget problems have put in a hiring freeze in all of the Iraqi ministries since Nov. 08 which makes the matter worse. For all their talk about going back to the insurgency, what every report I've read has said is that the SOI either flee when they hear about arrest warrants being issued by the government, or they go looking for work elsewhere. There has only been one incident of violence, which happened in Fadhila. That only lasted 2 days. Most of the SOI are likely to join the unemployment line rather than destabilize the country.
3) The reason why Mosul fell apart and remains one of the most violent cities in the country is because of the Arab-Kurd fault line. Petraeus was able to broker deals between those major groups in the city, but when his unit withdrew a smaller American one was put in that didn't have the forces to patrol the 3rd largest city in Iraq. They asked the peshmerga for help and they haven't left since. Their presence has been greatly resented by the Arabs ever since. The Kurds also have aspirations to annex northern districts of Ninewa and are using Mosul as a chess piece in that game. Both have allowed the insurgents to portray themselves as protectors of Arabs against the Kurds. Since 2008 the Iraqi government has launched 3 military operations in the city, with only minimal affect on security. In fact, Maliki has been trying to cozy up to the Sunni Arabs of the province in his increasing rivalry with the Kurds, which has made the situation no better. The Americans have had very little influence on this larger issue, so the city hasn't fallen apart because of American deal unraveling, but rather because of internal political dispute amongst Iraqi parties.
I only posted the initial questions. I didn't mean to sound confrontational. It is tough to hold together an understanding of the important factors in the Iraq war with real cognitive clarity given the chaos of the situation. I was just asking questions because I am struggling to try to understand.
Given the herculean task that Petraeus and the troops of the surge accomplished, and that it still wasn't enough to affect political reconciliation, where do we go from here?
The surge was always temporary. To sustain it over a decade, there would have to be a draft and even higher levels of funding than we have seen to this point. I believe counterinsurgency is an important tool the military needs to learn, but it is clear to me that any chance for it succeed long term is 6 years and 100,000 dead Iraqis too late.
I won't blame the Iraqis; it is our mess. But I think they can clean it up better than we can. Our presence gives the insurgents the legitimacy to keep fighting. We can be a bandaid for a while, but the wound is too deep to heal. In fact, the wound is deepening right in front of our eyes.
"Maliki's Iraq Between Two Elections," US Institute of Peace, May 2009 - based upon a recent trip to Iraq and consultation with Iraqi leaders.
"One notable dissonance between the Iraqi elite discussion of the security situation and that of the U.S. analytical community concerns the importance of the Sons of Iraq, or SOIs, and whether the failure of the Iraqi government to fully assume responsibility for contracts the SOIs signed with the U.S. is contributing to the decline in the security situation. Only one Iraqi interlocutor independently raised the issue. To be sure, some Iraqi leaders think in terms of "Ba'thists," or "terrorists," who may be behind the recent uptick in violence, and the groups who constitute the SOIs may, at least implicitly, fall in those categories. But in itself, the SOI contract issue is largely viewed as an American concern and an American responsibility, and whatever its true relevance to the security situation, is by and large not part of the discussion among top-level Iraqi leaders."
Is that it ignores what Iraqis have said themselves.
The last public opinion poll done there was by ABC/BBC/NHK in Feb 09 and released the next month. They had run downs of their previous polls as well done in March 08, Aug. 07, Feb. 07, 2005 and 2004. (http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-opinion-poll-of-iraqis-in-mid-march_1060.html)
As you can see, Iraqis have a strong sense of national unity. During the height of the sectarian war in 2007 you saw it dip, but then climb back up when violence went down.
From an Iraqi government poll done in Jan. 09 by the National Media Center. (http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-iraqi-opinion-poll-on-preferences.html)
Ideas on federalism
Opposed 72%
Kurds in favor of 78%
Opposed to partition of country 80%
Opposed to autonomy for Basra 80%
Basrans opposed to autonomy for the province 94%
The Kurds have their own federal region in the north so are obviously more positive about the idea than the rest of Iraq.
From another Iraqi poll done by the Iraq Center for Research & Strategic Studies' in Oct. 08. (http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2008/10/iraq-center-for-research-strategic.html)
What is your most important way to identify yourself?
Iraqi citizen 69.8%
Again, Iraqis think of themselves as Iraqi first, not Arab or Kurd or Shiite, Sunni, etc.
It seems like people who condemn Europeans for cutting up the Middle East and forming Iraq are repeating the same mistake by saying they know what Iraqis really feel/think without asking them.
From my reading, Iraqi politicians at least, do not have an idea of the Sunnis returning to power anymore. The Shiites and Kurds would not allow it and the Sunnis realize they lost the sectarian war of 2006-2007.
Amongst Iraq's Arabs, both Shiite and Sunnis, there is still a struggle going on for power, but it is now about balancing Maliki. He has become the face of the Iraqi state and all the major parties are planning their steps in relation to him. The Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party has come out as Maliki's toughest critic and want to strengthen the parliament to be a check on Maliki's power. The Shiite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council is trying to reform itself after losing power in the 2009 provincial elections, but still want an alliance with Maliki in the 2010 parliamentary vote. There are a whole series of smaller Shiite, Sunni, and secular parties, and most of them want to ally with Maliki to gain power. The Sunni Anbar Awakenign for example want to join with Maliki as well in the parliamentary vote. So while all these maneuverings are going on, there seems to be a consensus on the Iraqi state and politics in a new status quo.
Where the big divide still exists is between Arabs and Kurds and even then there are differences. The Islamic Party and the Supreme Council have been in an alliance with the two major Kurdish parties since 2007, and all have a shared vision of limiting Maliki. On the other hand, Maliki and most of the other parties want the Kurds limited to Kurdistan, and don't want the Kurds to annex any of the disputed areas in the north like Kirkuk. This could be explosive, but has been limited to politics as well so far.
A group from the US Institute of Peace also went to Iraq in May 09 and talked with many Iraqi politicians. They worked with the newly elected provincial council in Diyala to forge a vision statement. The council is made up of Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and several different national parties, yet the USIP group found that their top priority was getting the government up and running and providing services. All the bickering at the national level about Maliki and their national leadership were not big priorities.
To me, what this all means is that at the local level, Iraqis want their government to work. At the national level, the Arab parties are all now talking about the state and politics and finding their way in the new status quo. Getting their sect to control that state apparatus isn't as important as their party getting positions and authority. There are also all kinds of cross sectarian, cross ethnic, cross party alliances being formed and broken to achieve this. The big issue is still between Baghdad and Kurdistan. so you've got a complicated picture going on in Iraq, but a lot of it points to undermining the argument that Iraq is divided by sect at least. There is still an ethnic Arab-Kurdish divide, but even then, the Kurds are allied with Sunni and Shiite parties. How it plays out will probably determine the future of the country.
Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military for the Washington Post from 2000 through 2008.
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