It is proving for the US that one man can take a horse to water but a thousand can’t make him drink.
Five years of a conflict with seemingly no end-sight has taken its toll. With the cost of operations in Iraq at $10billion a month, a US economy in recession, rocketing fuel prices, over 4000 US casualties and protracted political progress in Iraq, disgruntled voices in the Senate and general US public are understandably growing by the day.
Much like their Iraqi counterparts in their transition to democracy, the US has often taken one step forward and two steps back. This view was reinforced after President Bush as widely expected announced his intention to freeze troop withdrawals from July and allow senior commander General David Petraeus time to evaluate and assess the next steps.
With Petraeus unwilling to commit on troop numbers and Bush’s wait and see approach, it is apparent that at least under his presidential tenure, Bush has no strategy for ending America’s highly contentious and costly involvement in Iraq.
The Democrats have accused Bush of handing over the headache to the next president by side-stepping tough decisions. The announcement to halt troop drawdown means that US troop levels will remain above 140,000 well into 2009 at the minimum. Although Democrat-presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have signalled their intention to withdraw as soon as feasible, the next administrations hands may well have been tied for the foreseeable future.
Even in the face of other critical concerns at home headed by looming economic recession, it is easy to see why Iraq has dominated the presidential race.
Bush may well be executing his own exit strategy as he hailed a “major strategic shift” in Iraq. Bush’s stance was notably more encouraging than that of Petraeus and Crocker, as he delivered an upbeat speech pointing out to military, political and economic progress in Iraq.
However, although the surge has reaped dividends in Iraq, the ultimate goal of political reconciliation in Iraq has been instigated at a leisurely pace. Whilst the US has too-often hailed what has been achieved, the emptier half of the glass is of far greater weighting. Key benchmarks such as a representative national government, oil sharing and provincial powers are proving as elusive as ever. On the ground, reconstruction is slow and heavily reliant on US funding.
As Bush may have tied the hands of the next administration, Baghdad has effectively tied the hands of Bush. The Iraqi military, riven by sectarianism, is still heavily reliant on the US and unable to function effectively as a ‘central’ force. Meanwhile, the fractious Iraqi political landscape is plagued by common mistrust with the cancerous influence of numerous militias proving a major time-bomb. Recent violence in Basra only highlighted the tentative and volatile climate in Iraq.
Violence has certainly dropped and al-Qaeda has taken a major blow, thanks largely to the onset of Sunni councils. However, this may yet haunt Iraq in the future if Sunni demands for a bigger slice of the political cake are not fulfilled.
Petraeus has warned that any hasty pullout would undercut security, while the US institute for Peace claiming “the U.S. is no closer to being able to leave Iraq than it was a year ago”, warned of mass chaos and genocide in such an eventuality.
While more troops can enforce valuable security, at the end of the day any sacrifice is in vain if Iraqis do not capitalise on the windows of opportunity afforded. Even with all the time and money in the world, the appetite of the Iraqi factions for reconciliation and compromise, is far more empowering than the might of any army.
If the current US vision of a democratic, prosperous and peaceful Iraq is to be realised, one can forget withdrawal in the next 10 years. Ominously, even then such full US-engagement may prove inconclusive or even powerless to avoid civil war.
The only way the US can withdraw in the next 1-2 years is to implement a drastically fuzzier interpretation of “success”, then possibly opt to allow nature to run its course in Iraq. Bush may be accused of creating the current mayhem in Iraq, but in reality they only lifted the unceremonious lid. Iraq’s problems are far more deep-rooted and artificial. Century’s old sectarian and ethnic tension can not be papered over by Western values.
If the Iraqis do not advocate the same ideals, the US can dream all it likes.