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Featured Commentary

What Next in Iraq?

By Carlos Pascual, vice president & director for foreign policy studies, the Brookings Institution & former coordinator for stabilization and reconstruction, U.S. State Department (2004-2005). Original Commentary for Middle East Bulletin.

posted on 04/23/08

The failure of U.S. policy in Iraq presents an untenable situation. The withdrawal of U.S. troops will most likely unleash an internal conflagration that could increase the threat of transnational terrorism, send oil prices soaring further, and add to the number and anguish of 4.5 million Iraqi refugees and displaced people. Yet, keeping U.S. troops in Iraq is an unsustainable stopgap in the absence of major progress toward a political settlement among Iraq’s warring factions.

In Congressional hearings in early April, General Petraeus presented an impressive array of statistics illustrating reduced violence in Iraq. I would also predict that if most senior military officers were asked if this progress is sustainable without a political settlement, their answer would be “no.” Consider three factors.

First, Sunni tribes in Anbar and other parts of Iraq decided that they hated Al Qaeda in Iraq more than the United States. In late 2006 they started cooperating with U.S. forces against Al Qaeda’s brutality. Around 85,000 “concerned citizens” now participate in this “Awakening.” They are paid by the U.S. military. That puts food on the table. It also provides cash to rearm.

Second, Shi’a militias called a ceasefire against U.S. troops while fighting each other in Basra to control Iraq’s wealthiest region. The ceasefire came apart in late March when the Iraqi Security Forces launched a campaign against “outlaws” in Basra. Others put it more sharply: Iraqi forces took sides in a Shi’a sectarian war, and by implication so did their U.S. patrons. The result: shelling the U.S. compound in the Green Zone. A new ceasefire has been struck, but the web of retaliation we saw in late March underscored the fragility of the Shi’a ceasefire.

Third, Iraqi politics are in shambles. Reduced violence has facilitated incremental progress: an improved 2008 budget, an Amnesty Law that (unsurprisingly) militia leaders support, some reversal of the de-Baathification laws, legislation to authorize provincial elections in October, and signs of improved governance in some provinces.
Yet there is still no understanding on core issues dividing Iraqi society: federal-regional relations, long-term revenue allocation, disarmament and demobilization of militias, the inclusion of former Baathists in senior positions, and protection of minority rights. Turkey has already taken military action in the Kurdish areas. There is no question that Iran can be disruptive when it wants to. Iraqi Security Forces cannot carry out operations effectively on their own. The Iraqi police cannot enforce the rule of law.

If U.S. forces are taken away from this equation, bet on an upsurge in violence, possibly at even greater levels than seen in the past given the regrouping of Sunni militias that have still not accepted a Shi’a-dominated national government. Yet to leave U.S. forces in the midst of this quagmire is also irresponsible if efforts are not made to address the fundamental political issues that drive the Iraqis to war.

On this matter, there should be no partisan divide in the United States: there must be focused and urgent attention to negotiating a political settlement in Iraq. President Bush has made clear that force levels are not dropping significantly during his term. The process of implementing a diplomatic strategy focused on the future of Iraqi politics must start now, when the U.S. force presence can enhance diplomatic leverage.

Such an initiative must go beyond well-worn platitudes about commitments to diplomacy. The UN should play a central role. The United States must make clear that it welcomes UN involvement and that it will coordinate military action to support the diplomatic process.

All Iraqi parties that are not associated with Al Qaeda in Iraq should be given a voice in the process. To succeed, regional actors would have to endorse a political settlement, or agree at a minimum not to undermine it. If an agreement is reached, it will require international troops and oversight to implement it.

For many Republicans, the hardest point to accept in this strategy is this: if Iraqis are given the chance to broker a political settlement and reject it, then this eclipses the rationale to keep U.S. troops in Iraq. U.S. forces cannot fix Iraq for them. We would need to tell Iraqis clearly that if they do not take this opportunity, we will reposition U.S. forces to control the spillover from Iraq.

For many Democrats the point of discomfort comes with success. If a settlement can be reached, then Iraqis will need sustained international support in order to implement it. A UN-brokered settlement increases the prospects to diversify the international military presence, but the core military effort would still have to be borne by the United States.

Although the chances for a diplomatic initiative producing a brokered political settlement are not high, it is still worth trying. The cost of trying is low. The gains from succeeding are huge. The fallout from failure is limited. The process of reviving an international diplomatic process on Iraq could help our friends and allies come to appreciate that they, too, have a stake in contributing to regional efforts to mitigate the spillover from war.

If the Bush Administration and Congress are serious about a sustainable outcome in Iraq, they need to get beyond their fixation on the military aspects of Iraq’s civil war. Some senators have begun to call for the U.S. to engage the UN to seek a brokered political settlement among Iraqis. Without such a truce, the U.S. military is at best a stopgap. Our troops, our country, and the Iraqi people deserve that we use every diplomatic tool at our disposal to seek an outcome that can lead to a better future in Iraq, and not simply reduce the death count.