Scoring the Iraq aftermath

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

The most serious problem facing the U.S. counterinsurgency come from jihadists, including members of Ansar Al-Islam and possibly of Al-Qaeda. This is perhaps the greatest reason for long-term worry, but there are means to deal with them. First, we can improve border security to force the jihadists to enter Iraq in smaller numbers, a policy already being implemented. Second, we can train Iraqi border guards to help. This policy is also being implemented, even if the 10,000 or so Iraqi border agents now fielded may be too small. (These numbers are more appropriate for patrolling intra-European borders than Iraq's much rougher and longer frontier.) Third, to the extent that the Ba'athi resistance can be contained while stability and a decent quality of life are restored to the country, coalition forces will be more likely to benefit from human intelligence--that is, from Iraqis providing information about the identities, locations and plans of terrorist elements. This last piece is, of course, a tall order, and it is another way of saying that success will develop its own momentum (if we can get to the point where we are widely perceived as succeeding).

The growing number of Iraqi security forces are already helping with patrols and protection of fixed infrastructure. This makes the overall operation more indigenous and thus presumably more legitimate in Iraqi eyes, while also reducing the number of missions putting U.S. troops at acute risk. In addition, U.S. troops are following much better practices to prosecute counterinsurgency operations than they did in Vietnam. Firepower is generally being used quite carefully, even if mistakes such as the accidental killing of some ten Iraqi policemen in September are sometimes made, and even if the coalition's initial raiding tactics were sometimes culturally insensitive. Regional commanders are hiring Iraqis to help with recovery and reconstruction, a key kind of foreign assistance effort that Congress must continue to support. Moreover, while insurgents have displayed the full range of standard terrorist tactics--truck bombings, assassinations, use of remotely detonated explosives, mortar and rocket attacks--they are not very sophisticated. Taken together, these factors provide grounds for guarded optimism.

THERE IS still much that can go wrong, however. A few more pivotal assassinations or devastating truck bombings of the type witnessed in August--or even several more periods of violence like those witnessed in late-October and early-November--and a sense of pessimism about the prospects of the U.S.-led effort could snowball, making it easier for Iraqi extremists to incite the public to violence. More delay in the economic recovery could have similar political effects. Foreign jihadists might be able to enter Iraq by the thousands and avoid quick detection. They might even escalate their tactics beyond the relatively simple and standard ones now in use. Iraq's Shi'a population may tilt in fundamentalist directions. More likely, Sunni Arabs, less than 20 percent of the population but accustomed to having their own kind run the country, could resist a democratic form of government in which their influence (or at least their access to the spoils of power) may appear less than it was under Saddam.