Prognosis
This list of problems and issues, and post-election tasks, presents many real challenges. Sunni inclusiveness also remains uncertain. Yet, there are few real deadlines and many areas where muddling through and ambiguity will work or buy time. With good political leadership, finding workable approaches should not be daunting, much less impossible. Iraqi public opinion polls also indicate that Iraqis will not insist on final solutions, only ask for a good beginning.
There are still serious problems in creating the kind of police forces Iraqis need to defeat the insurgents and provide security. There also have been growing problems with Shi’ite elements in the Ministry of Interior special security units that have treated Sunnis unfairly and may have attacked and killed Sunnis in political and revenge attacks. There is ongoing progress in both areas, however, and the election takes place at a time when significant overall improvements are taking place in Iraqi forces.
As of early December, Iraqi forces already totaled some 214,000 personnel. These included 102,000 in the armed forces under the Ministry of Defense: 101,000 army, some 200 air force, and some 800 navy. They included 112,000 in the police and security forces under the Ministry of Interior: 75,000 police and highway patrol, and 37,000 other MOI forces.
A total of some 130 army and special police battalions, with some 500-800 men each, were fighting in the insurgency. This was 7 battalions more than in late October. A total of 45 were at level 1-3 readiness and “in the lead” in early December. Some 33 battalions were in charge of their own battle space versus only 24 in late October.
The key to success will obviously be pragmatism, inclusiveness, and compromise. As such, it will be far more important for the new government to avoid divisive mistakes than have dramatic successes. Post-election Iraq will be a “close run thing,” and everything will depend on the quality of Iraq’s new leaders. The odds of success, however, are at least even -- if success is defined as a government that can preserve the core of the nation, reach critical compromise, and move forward in ways that steadily diminish both the insurgency and Shi’ite and Kurdish pressures to divide the nation.
One caution would be that insurgents will have every possible incentive to strike at successful political leaders and a successful political process. Those who believe in ethnic and sectarian division also face a critical six- to eight-month time window in which to push their causes at the expense of efforts at national unity. At least for much of 2006, neither Iraqi political success nor a steadily more effective set of Iraqi forces is likely to put an end to a stream of violent acts of terrorism. Politics will often be brutal and anything but pretty. This, however, is not a sign of failure, and it may well be a sign of success.
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