Scoring the Iraq aftermath

National Interest, The, Winter, 2003 by Michael O'Hanlon, Adriana Lins de Albuquerque

Toward a More Complete Picture

BOTH THE positive and negative spin of what is happening in Iraq are largely anecdotal--compilations of convenient facts with little analytic framework for putting them together. How do we know which news, the good or the bad, is more important? How do we detect trends? And how can we assess the importance of being so exposed internationally, with little help from key friends and allies, in the mission in Iraq?

There are no definitive answers to these questions, of course, but a few rules of thumb can increase the odds of seeing things clearly. The first is to track all the relevant data regardless of whether one wishes to sell optimism or pessimism. The second is to monitor all of this information over time so as to detect trends. And finally, with as much data in hand as possible, one must attempt to place it into proper perspective. This, however, requires a broader argument about how to succeed in a counterinsurgency. Such knowledge can help make the disparate data more than the sum of their confusing and contradictory parts.

A successful counterinsurgency must have security and economic dimensions. In the security sphere, it is necessary to try to assess progress in the counterinsurgency: namely in neutralizing resistance forces, reducing crime rates and in building Iraqi security services. In the economic realm, it is necessary to have information relating both to quality of life--availability of water, electricity, cooking gas and so on--as well as to employment and economic recovery. Certainly, some information is more readily accessible than other kinds at this time, meaning that all calculations are works in progress.

A third category of effort in any counterinsurgency, politics is harder to track using quantitative data. That is especially true because Iraq has local governments throughout almost all of the country at present, in addition to a national Governing Council. Hence, future progress will be dependent more on how well Iraqi leaders do their jobs and how quickly they establish legitimacy among the population than on increases in their ranks. An imperfect proxy for this is polling data showing how the Iraqi population feels about the foreign presence in its country and about the general direction of political life within the country. Here the verdict remains mixed. Recent Gallup polls show that a clear majority of Iraqis want coalition forces to stay and believe that life will gradually improve in the post-Saddam era. But the majority also feels frustrated and worried about internal political trends, and, as should be quite obvious, a sizeable minority with the potential to do great harm opposes the entire course of events.

There is also a question of long-term sustainability. In the economic sphere, for example, a number of businesses have been created, and market activity is much more lively. Available data, however, do not yet show a substantial increase in employment levels. Nor can they demonstrate that Iraq yet has a notably healthier economic base that could survive the departure of the foreign presence and its associated large but artificial economic stimulus. The direction these trends take in the coming months will say much about Iraq's prognosis, but one principal question will linger: How do we evaluate progress when, as is likely to be the case, some data remain promising and other data remain troublesome? A broader analytical framework for understanding counterinsurgency is needed.