A Time to Choose: Finding the Right Strategy for Iraq
Dec. 11, 2005 -- -- America and its allies face many risks and problems in Iraq, but it is all too easy to snatch defeat from the jaws of uncertainty. The debate in the U.S., Britain, and other coalition countries is becoming steadily more bitter, more polarized and more distant from the evolving facts on the ground.
Politicians and journalists are thinking in ideological sound bites when they should be observing and dealing with the complexities of what is actually happening in Iraq.
There are two very good reasons to avoid choosing either an "exit strategy" or "stay the course" strategy at this time. The first is political. The constitutional referendum now forces Iraqis to address the issues that will determine whether or not Iraq can hold together and develop a workable political process. All of the key political issues are now on the table: federalism, the nature of the rule of law, the role of religion in the state, control of oil and national revenues, the power to tax, the relative strength of national and local government, the creation of national forces versus the role of militias, and human rights.
The Dec. 15 election will trigger a process where a new government will either succeed in including a large number of Sunnis or it won't. It may take several months to actually form a government, and the final allocation of power in top offices will be far more important than the actual voting results. The new government will then have a roughly four-month period to come to grips with most of the issues in the constitution or find compromises that can defer them.
If this political process fails, there may be civil war or the country may be divided. If so, the coalition has little reason to stay. Yet Iraqis should not be underestimated or judged by the small number of extremists who cause virtually all of the worst violence. There is a good chance Iraqis will work things out. In any case, the political unity and inclusiveness necessary to defeat the insurgency will or will not exist by mid-2006. We will not know whether we have political reasons to stay until Iraq can function on its own or whether to abandon a cause that outside powers cannot fix.
The second reason is that the military situation has roughly the same timing. The effort to create meaningful Iraqi force capabilities did not even begin until the summer of 2004, and only got the facilities and flow of equipment that was needed in the fall of that year. It was not until this spring that Iraqi combat units got the embedded training teams and coalition partner units they needed to help develop the leaders and experienced troops they need to learn how to become independent. Even today, the effort to develop the regular police lags badly behind the effort to develop an army and special police units.
But the fact that Iraqi units are still of mixed quality and lack the support and logistic units they need to be fully independent may be deeply misleading.
Far too much reporting on Iraqi forces is badly dated, impressionistic or focused on the wrong metrics. The punchline is that Iraqi forces now have 116 battalions versus three in the fall of 2004, and this total grew by 22 battalions between July and November. There are 88 battalions in the army and special forces and 28 special police battalions. It will be four to eight months before enough new support units come on line to allow most Iraqi combat units to reach Level 1 readiness and the ability to operate on their own. However, 36 army battalions, and two special police battalions already are capable of taking the lead in counterinsurgency warfare. A total of 52 more army battalions, and 26 special police battalions, can play some role in fighting side by side with coalition forces.
The success and cohesion of the Iraqi force development effort is no more certain than Iraqi political success. Both have to make major progress by the summer of 2006 if the coalition is to have a reason to stay and know it can sharply phase down its military presence. Even then, Iraq will still need years of political, economic, and military aid and advice.
Ironically, success in Iraq may give us a force reduction option, but it will not give us an exit strategy. The U.S., its coalition allies, and other nations will need to make a continuing effort in the following areas if Iraq is to achieve true stability and success:
1) We will need a longer-term Iraqi force development and U.S. advisory plan that Iraqis and the region can accept. The U.S. and its allies will then need to make a clear and public commitment to helping Iraq create heavy and effective Iraqi army and air forces over time that can defend the country. It will need to make it unambiguously clear that we will provide sustained aid, but that we do not seek permanent bases or to make Iraq a strategic power projection point.
2) We will need several years to deal with the fact that the effort to develop an effective Iraqi police force still presents problems -- as does training, advising and equipping the three critical ministries: defense, interior and finance. The formation of a new post-election government gives us one more shot to start making this advisory effort work beginning in early January. If we delay or fail, Iraqi politics and stability will suffer badly.
3) The same will be true of our efforts to help Iraqis define and improve their criminal justice system. By the time they finish debating the meaning of the constitution regarding the rule of law, outside influence will be sharply minimized. However, there will still be many opportunities to help develop a rule of law, an effective criminal justice system and better protection for human rights.
4) The U.S. needs to get its own act together, and deal with the fact that the present leadership of AID, and the overall management of the U.S. economic aid and advisory effort is an unmitigated national disgrace. It is incapable of self-reform. We need to transfer the aid effort to the Iraqis, to make our function vetting, accounting and quality control. We do, however, need major planning assistance efforts for infrastructure and oil where we help the Iraqis to make very complex decisions their way -- not ours. I believe this administration and Congress are totally incapable of doing this on a bipartisan basis, but it can't hurt for us to make the recommendations. We need to be honest, however, about saying it will probably take at least another $20 billion over time.
5) We need to develop and implement a clear strategy for "regional cooperation" that both reassures all of Iraq's neighbors (including Syria and Iran), and adds up to an aid but non-interference strategy on their part. We cannot dictate the future of the region, but the right effort could have great influence.
6) While all of this goes on, the U.S. and its allies will need to accept the fact that Iraq will emerge as a less secular and less united state where we need to be prepared to deal with at least a semi-Islamic government, "federalism," and continuing problems in aiding federal and local governments to achieve effective governance. Our goal cannot be to make Iraq an example to the region. It must be to get the best practical result in Iraq on Iraqi terms.
An Iraqi civil war, an Iraqi political collapse or the emergence of a government that demands we leave are all reasons for a true exit strategy. They will show the world that it is Iraq's failures, not ours, that made the situation untenable. We should not stay if our best efforts cannot help Iraqis help themselves.
But why polarize the debate or choose sides months before the basic indicators of success or failure are present? Fatigue, casualties, partisanship and uncertainty are excuses, not reasons. We cannot ignore the fact that Iraq has 27 million people who desperately need help. We should stay if there is a good chance half a year more patience can make things work.
Having the wrong debate over the wrong issues and making premature decisions at the wrong time also threaten more than the Iraqis. This could lead to a power vacuum in Iraq that would drag Iran in on the Shiite side, the Arab Sunni states in on the Sunni side, and isolate the Kurds. It could divide part of Islam, and create a broad crisis in the Gulf -- which has more than 60 percent of the world's proven conventional oil reserves and near 40 percent of its gas.
Pulling out of Iraq doesn't solve our problems, it simply broadens them. It forces us to find new solutions to Gulf security in the middle of a major struggle with Islamist extremism and terrorism. We need to try to make things work in the months ahead, and decide when we see the outcome.
Anthony H. Cordesman is a consultant for ABC News. He is also a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies as well as the author of more than 20 books, including a four-volume series on the lessons of modern war. His most recent books include: "The Iraq War"; "Saudi Arabia Enters the 21st Century"; "The Lessons of Afghanistan"; "Terrorism, Asymmetric Warfare, and Weapons of Mass Destruction"; "Cyberthreats, Information Warfare, and Critical Infrastructure Protection"; "Strategic Threats and National Missile Defenses"; and "The Lessons and Non-Lessons of the Air and Missile Campaign in Kosovo."
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