In a diary yesterday titled Police & Puppeteers: New Mission for US Military in Iraq, I analyzed the August 8th Rand Corporation report, “US Policy Options for Iraq: a Reassessment” commissioned by the USAF. Please read that diary in conjunction with today’s.
Today I’ll analyze what Anthony H. Cordesman has to say in his report on his recent trip to Iraq, coincidentally released the same day as the Rand Corporation’s report. In a nutshell, Cordesman offers,
From my perspective, the US now has only uncertain, high risk options in Iraq. It cannot dictate Iraq’s future, only influence it, and this presents serious problems at a time when the Iraqi political process has failed to move forward in reaching either a new consensus or some form of peaceful coexistence. Synopsis: Trip Report
Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. His report on Iraq, “The Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience in Iraq” (.pdf) condemns the Iraqi government as a failure and concludes that its failure has undermined the American military mission, erasing any possibility that it could produce an outcome with any “political meaning,” i.e. “success.”
With that said, Cordesman manages to retain some guarded optimism.
. . .there is still a tenuous case for strategic patience in Iraq, and for timing reductions in US forces and aid to Iraqi progress rather than arbitrary dates and uncertain benchmarks. It recognizes that strategic patience is a high risk strategy, but it also describes positive trends in the fighting, and hints of future political progress.
The question is, is his optimism warranted or does Cordesman find himself unable to purge Bushie Kool-Aid from his system, having previously served as national security assistant to Senator John McCain? His war analytical abilities also extend to America’s involvement in Afghanistan, about which he said in his February testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs this year that there is,
. . .a very real risk that the US and NATO could lose their war with Al Qa’ida, the Taliban, and the other Islamist movements fighting the Afghan government. We are still winning tactically, but we may well be losing strategically. Winning in Afghanistan: Challenges and Response
No guarded optimism there.
Or here, either. Only in January, Cordesman went on record saying that
the Bush administration’s latest strategy on Iraq makes victory there “possible” but “the problem is it also isn’t probable.” Council on Foreign Relations Interview
He went on to define exactly what he meant by “victory,” and presumably what he considered the Bush Administration meant by it also.
If we can’t win the battle of Baghdad in three to six months, if we can’t secure the city, if we can’t drive out most of the Sunni insurgents, or destroy them, if we can’t bring the extreme Shiite militias under control, if we can’t bring not simple tactical victory, but the ability to both secure areas and actually bring aid and some kind of belief the government can work, then essentially the strategy has failed and so has the U.S. war effort. Whatever will happen, the country will then drift into sectarian and ethnic divisions. The only question will be how violent, how much chaos will occur, and how many countries around Iraq will become involved.
That’s pretty clear. We failed to win in Iraq. It’s two months past Cordesman’s deadline for winning in Baghdad alone. None of the other items on his list of terms for victory are assured, either. Ergo. . .
Yet, Cordesman continues to be teased by Iraq. Why? Perhaps because in his latest report he no longer discusses the possibilities of victory, rather his theme is adjusting the American attitude to the constantly changing events in Iraq. In fact, he’s quite blunt regarding “victory.”
. . .while Americans are still concerned with finding ways to define “victory” in Iraq, virtually the entire world already perceives the US as having decisively lost. Report
Including the country of Iraq, and he cites the opinion polls to prove it.
In essence, any flirtations with victory appearing in his latest report that Cordesman continues to engage in are delusional, since the adage “perception is reality” applies in the world view and to the minds of the citizens of Iraq. Reversing the entire world’s attitude to coincide with the “official US attitude” is impossible. More realistic is for America to adjust its attitude. What is left for Bush’s legacy then?
It may well be that
the US will ultimately be judged far more by how it leaves Iraq, and what it leaves behind, than how it entered Iraq.
. . .”and what it did to Iraq while it was there,” Cordesman tactfully fails to include. That the US created the largest share of international refugees by its war in Afghanistan and by driving more than 2 million of the best and brightest Iraqis out of their homeland in addition to displacing another 2 million people within Iraq is but one example of Cordesman’s lack of tact.
So great is the exodus of Iraqis that it has caused a 14 percent rise in the number of refugees in the world, to almost 10 million globally. That’s the first rise in absolute numbers since 2002. UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Tactlessness might have been a gentle description of Cordesman’s June report, in which he wrote
The US is often the first to call for transparency and integrity in the reporting of other governments. It has never provided transparency or integrity in its reporting on the war in Iraq. It has downplayed the growth of the insurgency and other civil conflicts. It exaggerated progress in the development of Iraqi forces, and has reported meaningless macroeconomic figures claiming “progress” in the face of steadily deteriorating economic conditions for most Iraqis outside the Kurdish security zone, and does so in the face of almost incredible incompetence by USAID and the Corps of Engineers. Still Losing
The June report is a litany (and seemingly endless list) of America’s failures in Iraq.
Just as in the Rand report, Cordesman deals with the inevitable and only realistic conclusion regarding “victory” in Iraq — the timely withdrawal of American troops and materiel over a period of 9-12 months, optimistically, assuming withdrawal into Kuwait, or 2 years, in the opinion of military commanders. Cordesman resorts to tact again, describing such a retreat as a “secure” withdrawal. (He’s a lot less tactful describing the US embassy construction project in Baghadad: “. . the most expensive white elephant in the history of diplomacy and an extraordinary monument to human folly even by the demanding standards of the Middle East.”) By now you’d think the author would be convinced.
No. He begins to make an argument for a “new” attitude that he terms “strategic patience,” among which are these three points:
1. More Realistic Plans and Reducing Troop Levels As Conditions Make This Possible
The US team in Iraq made it clear that it was examining options for phasing down US forces, and for planning longer-term US commitments that would extend well into the next Administration with much lower troop levels and budgets.
2. Looking Beyond Partisanship and Artificial Deadlines
The idea that General Petraeus can give a military progress report in September that should shape US policy ignores the fact that the fate of Iraq is scarcely dominated by US military action. US policy must look at the political and economic situation, and all of Iraq’s civil conflicts, and must not just focus on Al Qa’ida and the worst elements of the Sadr militia.
3. Luck and the Tribes Partly Compensate for a Failed the Surge Strategy
Declassified intelligence data generated by MNF-West confirms in far more detail what a walk on the ground reveals in both Anbar and Northern Iraq. Substantial numbers of tribal leaders have turned against Al Qa’ida.
(snip)
Key tribal leaders, and the main tribal confederation in the area have started to fight Al Qa’ida, have turned to US forces for help, and seem willing to strike a bargain with the Shi’ite-dominated central government if the government will give them money, a reasonable degree of de facto Sunni autonomy, and incorporate their fighters into auxiliary police forces, the regular police, and Iraqi Army.
But the risks to “strategic patience” are enormous, with a 50/50 chance of succeeding in Cordesman’s estimation. Here are but the top 4.
–Prime Minister Maliki may sometimes tell us what we want to hear, but he is at best weak and ineffective and may well be far more committed to sectarian Shi’ite positions than he has publicly stated.
–The Kurds are hanging together, but have scarcely solved their problems with the Turcomans, the Arabs, Turkey, Iran, and Syria.
–The Sunni political leaders inside and outside the central government have limited popular credibility, and sometimes almost none with the same Sunni tribes that have turned on Al Qa’ida.
–The Shi’ites increasingly are turning on each other at the national, provincial, and local level.
Chances for the success of “strategic patience”? Tenuous, at best, in Cordesman’s own opinion. In an attempt to make a case for such a foundering hope, Cordesman says
The real case for strategic patience, however, is not the high probability of success in most areas, but the reasonable prospect of success in some areas.
What!? In the end, Cordesman doesn’t even attempt to sell a full bill of goods. Only half a bill. And I, for one, am not buying.
The truth is, I only listed four of the problems (risks); there are many more. Only a deluded Bushie would attempt to convince anyone that those problems are solvable. We all know, none of the milestones expected of the Iraqi government have been met. Delusion again is required to believe that those “risk factors” on Cordesman’s list (and it includes many of those seen in the Rand Report) will be solved. Depending on the sustained political action of a moribund Iraqi government, which is the underpinning condition for “strategic patience,” is an option that could only be attractive to a gambler living in a Fool’s Paradise. “Strategic patience” in Iraq is an unwarranted option in this diarist’s view.