The New Plan for Iraq

[Jedburgh]

CSIS, 16 Jan 07: The New Bush Strategy in Iraq: Is Victory Still Possible?

...The new Bush approach is considerably more sophisticated and comprehensive than the one the President could fit into his 20-minute address – which had been cut back from a longer 40-minute version. It combines political, military, and economic action in ways that do offer a significant hope of success. The following analysis examines the strengths and weaknesses of the proposals in the President’s speech in detail, but also adds important further details and clarifications by Secretary of State Rice, Secretary of Defense Gates, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace.

A reading of these additional details is far more reassuring than the bare bones of the President’s speech, but it is clear that the new strategy and plan still do involve several critical risks, the most important of which are political and military.

The most critical such risk is that the success of his strategy depends on the cooperation of a weak and divided Iraqi government that may not agree with his desire to deprive Shi’ite militias of their growing power, on Iraqi forces that so far have shown little fighting capability and key elements of which are corrupt or allied with Shiite and Kurdish militias, and on the acceptance of a major US urban warfare campaign by a divided Iraqi people, many of which are hostile to the US and the presence of US forces....

[jcustis]

At the risk of sounding pessimistic, we could have all the resources and greatest strategy to defeat the insurgency, but there will be one small hiccup.

After years of repression and mistrust, do the Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurds have the capacity to "bury the hatchet" and at least move towards the path of national reconciliation?

I am not inclined to believe that defeating the insurgency means we have secured the future of Iraq. It all goes back to my points elsewhere about looking 5-10 years down the road. Are there any studies or forecasts out circulating out there that shows folks are putting thought to that problem?

[marct]

Hi JC,

At the risk of sounding pessimistic, we could have all the resources and greatest strategy to defeat the insurgency, but there will be one small hiccup.

After years of repression and mistrust, do the Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurds have the capacity to "bury the hatchet" and at least move towards the path of national reconciliation?

I certainly haven't seen any stuidies on this. I suspect that it *could* work, but is a fairly low probability.

Marc

[Rob Thornton]

From JC

After years of repression and mistrust, do the Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurds have the capacity to "bury the hatchet" and at least move towards the path of national reconciliation?

I only see couple of ways to convince people and both of them begin with a requirement that an exceptable standard of living (circus tent of subjective stuff under that) be available for all, so that category of "survival" is removed. The quickest path I think means figuring out how to get what's underground out of the ground and converted to a better standard of living for all. Yes, there are allot of links in doing that from extraction to refinement to distribution to a system that disburses profits evenly without the skimming as it makes its way down the line. Once you get the basic needs met and convince people they have some hope of a better life, people are probably more willing to consider their differences over chai, vs. over a PKC. Iraq's petroleum and natural gas reserves are the most valuable resource in terms of guarenteed profits that could effect Iraq's situation across the board. You can bury allot of hatchets I've seen up here with $$$. It might not get to all the problems, it might even create a few others, but it would buy time to resolve some other things, some of which might get resolved on their own.

I beleive they have to convince themselves there is more benefit moving forward together then apart. That is going to be very hard for them to do. Baghdad has become such a flashpoint and media event, psychologically its effecting the whole region. Security there will dampen it I think and allow for feelings to subside outside of Baghdad at least.

The other way is burying the hatchet - just not in the dirt. Lots of that, I just wonder when or if they ever get tired of it? History says it could go on indefinetly. Makes you wonder if it were just Shiite, or just Sunni what the level of violence would be?