In victory's direction: where we're headed in Iraq, and why we must arrive

National Review, Sept 15, 2008 by Bing West

IRAQ TODAY

While the situation in Iraq has improved greatly over the last two years, many challenges remain, both military and political. On the military side, the relationship between the Iraqi army and the police is fractious in some locales and acceptable in others. The leadership of the national police, a disgraced organization that was complicit in killing Sunnis two years ago, has been replaced, and recent assessments have been positive. In theory, Iraqi-army battalions are supposed to withdraw from the cities as the police demonstrate competence. In practice, a combination of politics, distrust, and factionalism indicates that it will be years before the balance between the police and the military is resolved. Maliki, in a move to centralize power in his hands, is pushing for provincial operations centers that will include police and military commanders, both reporting to him.

Levels of capability and confidence vary from one Iraqi division to another, but overall, the Iraqi army is in no rush to see the U.S. units depart. The battles against forces aligned with al-Qaeda in the northern provinces of Diyala and Nineveh, including Mosul, are far from finished. In Diyala, too much civil power resides in the hands of Shiite officials who continue to repress the Sunnis. In Nineveh, the provincial government is terribly led and the Kurds have been unwilling to share power equitably with the Sunnis. Those provinces are a year to 18 months away from sustainable security without an American combat presence.

Out west in Anbar Province, long the stronghold of the Sunni resistance, the anti-Qaeda "Awakening" of the tribes has blossomed into a political party that opposes both Maliki's administration and the Iraqi Islamic party, a Sunni organization elected in 2005 when most Sunnis boycotted elections. (The IIP is part of Maliki's governing coalition.) The tribes, confident of winning the next provincial election, accuse the IIP of theft on a grand scale.

The Sunni tribes insist that a continued U.S. presence is indispensable. As Sheik Ali Hatim of the Jabouri tribe put it, "Everything we have--fuel, schools, salaries--is because of the Americans. We told Senator Obama, 'Don't pull out the Americans.' Without them, we will fight." According to Sheik Hatim, in his tribal area around Ramadi, 477 Iraqis in the last two years have confessed to working for al-Qaeda. He didn't say what happened to them.

Petraeus describes the recent military gains as fragile. Colin Powell once explained the U.S. situation in Iraq with the analogy of breaking a vase at Pottery Barn and thus being charged for it. The Iraqi army is the glue that has stuck the vase back together. The American military is the tape around the vase that must be carefully peeled away after the glue sets. If the tape is ripped away too quickly, the vase will fall apart again.

Given the progress on the military front, politics--working out who gets what without resorting to violence--has emerged as the main area of effort for the U.S. Provincial elections were supposed to be held by the end of 2008, but the assembly failed to pass an election law when it could not reach a compromise with Kurdish leaders about the status of Kirkuk. The assembly will try again in the fall, but many Shiite and Sunni representatives, having failed for two years to deliver basic services, will want to delay an election that could throw them out of power.