Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

The public relations campaign ahead of the Surgin’ General’s report this September has been fierce. The White House and its surrogates have been beating the drums about the military successes of the "surge". Those who are opposed to Mr. Bush’s "surge" have been arguing that even though there has been military progress in Iraq, without political reconciliation the "surge" will have been a failure. Thus the battle lines in Washington have been drawn and the talking points drawn up. The White House, which previously had dismissed casualty counts as merely "snapshots", is now embracing a perceived lull in violence in Iraq in July.

One measure of the violence in Iraq is the death count. The death count does not tell the whole story of the ravaging of Iraq - to do that one has to consider the breakdown of civil society, the massive population flight out of Iraq, the ethnic cleansing and sectarian dismemberment of Iraq, etc. However, the White House and its allies have now hung their hat on the violence levels in Iraq to justify the surge. So let us look at the numbers.

In the seven months of the surge, January to July of 2007, the number of reported Iraqi civilian deaths was 13,236. In the same period (January to July) in 2006 the Iraqi civilian death toll was 5757. One might argue that violence in Iraq did not deteriorate until much later in 2006 after the February 2006 bombing of the al-Askari mosque in Samarra. So let us take a look at the numbers from the second part of 2006: in the seven months from June 2006 to December 2006 the number of Iraqi civilian deaths was 12,608. The surge has not reduced the number of civilian deaths, even compared to the second half of 2006.

The chart below shows a month-by-month comparison of Iraqi civilian deaths between 2006 and 2007:

The month-to-month trend in civilian deaths, with monthly spikes and lulls, is similar in 2007 as in previous years, the only difference is that more Iraqis are getting killed.

The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) death toll also does not show any improvement. In the seven months between January 2006 and July 2006 the number of ISF killed was 1238. Between January and July of this year the ISF death toll was 1383; between June 2006 and December 2006 the number of ISF killed was 1202.

The chart below shows a month-by-month comparison of ISF deaths between 2006 and 2007:

The surge has made no difference in death tolls for the ISF.

The US military death toll has been just as disheartening. The US military death toll between January 2006 and July 2006 was 397. In the seven months of the surge, between January 2007 and July 2007, the number of US military servicemen and women killed was 655. In the seven months between June 2006 and December 2006 the US military death toll was 529. The seven months of the surge have been bloodier for the US military than comparable periods in 2006.

The chart below shows a month-by-month comparison of US military deaths between 2006 and 2007:

The month-to-month death toll for the US military during the surge has been significantly greater than the same period in 2006. The White House and the proponents of the surge like to point to the reduction in US military deaths in June and July to bolster their claim that the surge is working. Yet, comparing the month-to-month trend between 2006 and 2007 we see that there was a similar decline in US military death toll in the same period last year, without the "surge". That lull last year gave way to a bloodier second half for the US military in 2006. More disheartening are the partial numbers from the month of August 2007and the increasing complexity of attacks against the US military. As was the case last year, we may indeed be headed into a bloody August in Iraq.

Looking at the death tolls in Iraq there is little cause for optimism. Iraq remains a very violent place. The numbers suggest that Iraq is more violent now than it was last year, in spite of the "surge". There is very little in the numbers to suggest that the surge is working, even by the very limited military goals the White House has set for its public relations gambit. It is a macabre game being played with real lives that have been lost. We need to ask ourselves if the numbers cited above are worth any more Friedman units.

[The charts above are drawn from casualty statistics from iCasualties. The charts and tables can be downloaded here.]

From the outset of the Iraq invasion the Bush Administration has acted as a force of instability in Iraq. Continued American presence in Iraq will only add to further instability. The smart kids in Washington are warning against a "precipitous withdrawal". Instead, the adults are talking about an "orderly withdrawal" from Iraq that will take up to 18 months. In the mean time, the Surgin’ General, David Patraeus, has embarked on a strategy that will make that withdrawal a failure.

For four years the Bush Administration has armed Shiite militias in Iraq - a strategy that had made political reconciliation in Iraq a non-starter. Recently the Bush Administration has begun arming Sunni militias in a bid to "buy time for political reconciliation":

U.S. commanders are offering large sums to enlist, at breakneck pace, their former enemies, handing them broad security powers in a risky effort to tame this fractious area south of Baghdad in Babil province and, literally, buy time for national reconciliation.

American generals insist they are not creating militias. In contracts with the U.S. military, the sheiks are referred to as "security contractors." Each of their "guards" will receive 70 percent of an Iraqi policeman’s salary. U.S. commanders call them "concerned citizens," evoking suburban neighborhood watch groups.

But interviews with ground commanders and tribal leaders offer a window into how the United States is financing a new constellation of mostly Sunni armed groups with murky allegiances and shady pasts.

This new strategy, much hailed in Washington as a sign of progress, is setting the stage for a bloody confrontation between Shia and Sunni in the wake of an American withdrawal. Far from creating conditions for political reconciliation this strategy is in effect arming both sides of a civil war. This strategy of arming both sides in a civil conflict will serve to further delay an American withdrawal from Iraq. This strategy, and the entire "surge" in general, is predicated on the misguided notion that the violence in Iraq must be brought under control first before national reconciliation can take place. What Mr. Bush and his Surgin’ General ignore is that the violence is being driven by political divisions, not causing it. By arming both sides the prospects of national reconciliation becomes even more remote. What is hailed as "success" by the so-called "pundits" who got us into this mess is in fact creating conditions for continued failure in Iraq.

There is a well-established protocol for pacifying conflict zones that the Bush Administration would do well to consider. It is known as Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR). DDR is an integrated program to pacify conflict zones after political reconciliation efforts have begun. It consists of first disarming the combatants and the civilian population. Second, the armed factions are demobilized and given compensation or other assistance as they transition to civilian life. Finally, the demobilized armed parties are provided training and income generating activities as they reintegrate into civilian life. For DDR to succeed it must be well-funded and undertaken under the umbrella of political reconciliation. The Bush Administration made a half-hearted and ill-funded attempt at DDR when it disbanded the Iraqi army in the early days of the occupation without any attempt at political reconciliation (most notably undermined by its ill-conceived debaathification program). Without a comprehensive DDR plan the disbanding of the Iraqi army became one of the major failures of the American occupation of Iraq. According the United Nations guidelines on DDR, this failure was entirely predictable:

In the short term, the failure to disarm and demobilize former combatants effectively may contribute to an immediate relapse into war. In the medium and long term, incomplete or ineffective reintegration of ex-combatants into civil society may lead to armed criminality by those former soldiers who have no other means of earning a living. In States where internal structures for civil order have already been weakened by an internecine conflict, this increase in armed criminality would be a further detriment to consolidating peace.

Today the Bush Administration is further fueling the conflict by its short-sighted arming of both Shia and Sunni combatants in Iraq.

In the past four years the United States has become a party to the civil conflict in Iraq. It is almost certainly no longer in a position to broker a political reconciliation in Iraq. The past four years of conflict and the counter-productive strategies of the Bush Administration may have made the possibility of political reconciliation without a bloody settling of scores all but impossible. But if there is any hope of averting a bloody collapse of Iraq it lies in political reconciliation. It may be time for the Bush Administration to politically and militarily disengage from Iraq and transition responsibility to a third party such as a regional working group or the United Nations. Under the auspices of this third party a renewed effort can be made to secure regional cooperation and begin the process of political reconciliation. It may also set the stage for the withdrawal of American troops and the beginning of DDR under an international force without an American face.

However, for political reconciliation to begin the Bush Administration must first stop arming the warring sides in Iraq. The alternative is a continued, counter-productive and bloody occupation of Iraq.

The conversation in Washington is about the consequences of withdrawal. The Surgin’ General, David Petraeus, warns that an early withdrawal would lead to an "increase in sectarian violence". Small businessman and House Minority Leader John Boehner pleads for more time for the surge - he suggests we will see results in the "next three to four months." Ayman al-Zawahiri endorses President Bush’s strategy in Iraq. The White House sets the record straight by agreeing with al Qaeda that Iraq is the "central front of al Qaeda’s global campaign."

There is consensus between the Bush administration and al Qaeda that the United States should continue its fiasco in Iraq - but for different reasons. In Washington, there seems to be a general consensus that withdrawal from Iraq will have catastrophic consequences. On the one hand, this argument is used by the war advocates to justify prolonged involvement; while on the other hand, this argument causes the opponents of the war to mute their calls for withdrawal. Everyone wants to look tough and not lose their "national security" credentials by sounding weak. I am reminded of the same kind of group think that took place when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

A few days ago CNN posted an article on the front page of their web site with the blaring title "No safe way for the U.S. to leave Iraq, experts warn". Enter the fear mongering:

"Everyone wants the troops home — the Iraqis, the U.S., the world — but no one wants a precipitous withdrawal that produces a civil war, a bloodbath, nor a wider war in an unstable Mideast," Shepperd said, adding that the image of the United States was important too.

"And we do not want a U.S that is perceived as having been badly defeated in the global war on terror or as an unreliable future ally or coalition partner."

…

Shepperd said Iraq’s neighbors would be drawn into the all-out civil war likely if U.S. forces left too quickly. Iran could move in to further strengthen its influence in southern Iraq; Turkey likely would move against the Kurds in the north; and Saudi Arabia would be inclined to take action to protect Sunnis in western Iraq, he said.

The oil sector could also get hit hard, with Iran potentially mining the Persian Gulf and attempting to close the Straits of Hormuz, putting a stranglehold on oil flow, Shepperd says.

"Oil prices would skyrocket," he said — perhaps soaring from current prices of about $60 a barrel to more than $100 a barrel, with consequent rises at the gas pump.

And that could bring further trouble, Shepperd added. "Saudi Arabia will not allow increasing Iranian dominance to endanger its regime and oil economy."

On top of that, Iran could speed up its nuclear ambitions, causing a "daunting and depressing scenario" of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East with Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and Turkey trying to get a nuclear bomb, Shepperd says.

The above is the "kitchen sink" argument. It is the same kind of argument used by Cheney, Rice, Bush and the rest to get us into Iraq. It is now being used to keep us in Iraq. It is Cheney’s "One Percent Doctrine" - but I like my phrase better.

I would like to put forward a different thesis. It is not a new thesis (I, as well as others, have made this case numerous times in the past). However, it is a view that has been pushed to the side since the so-called surge debate took control of Washington. In a sense, the "surge" has succeeded - it has succeeded politically in Washington by changing the nature of the debate. A cynic would say Americans and Iraqis are dying because the politicians in Washington are either trying to keep their drapes or measure for new ones.

Here is how I see it: The continued military presence of the United States in Iraq is creating the conditions for instability in the region. The nightmare scenario that everyone warns against if the U.S. withdraws becomes more likely the longer the United States remains in Iraq. The United States has been an enabler of ethnic cleansing in Iraq. Our presence has been the prime mover in tearing Iraqi societal structure apart. We have balkanized Iraq and continue to do so. Under our protection, rival forces in Iraq have armed themselves and organized under sectarian and tribal factions. We have introduced tools of ethnic cleansing, like the Baghdad Wall, to try to bring order to chaos. In doing so, we are underwriting the collapse of Iraqi society along ethnic lines.

The Bush Administration’s failure in Iraq has been comprehensive. Two million Iraqis have fled the country and now live as refugees, primarily in Syria and Jordan. Another two million have fled their homes and relocated along sectarian lines within Iraq. The United Nations estimates that about 50,000 Iraqis flee their homes every month in what has now become one of the biggest population shifts in recent times.

Iraq is a continuing tragedy. The massive death toll in Iraq continues to rise daily. The steady flood of refugees from Iraq continues to destabilize neighboring countries. Like it or not, Syria is already a party to the conflict - and it is not because terrorists are flooding Iraq from Syria, it is because refugees are flooding Syria from Iraq and overwhelming its economy. Chaos is being spread outward from Iraq.

The failure in Iraq is so immense that it becomes difficult to grasp its scope. Sometimes it helps to focus the mind by considering the barbarity at its most basic level. Consider the following story from Iraq tucked into a larger article about the Baghdad Wall as reported by the New York Times two weeks ago:

 

Mr. Maliki’s announcement came as sectarian violence continued across Iraq, with a horrific execution by Sunni Arabs in Mosul of 23 members of a small religious sect, known as Yezidis.

The Yezidis, who are most numerous in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, practice an offshoot of Islam that combines some Muslim teachings with those of ancient Persian religion.

…

But the most chilling attack was the one in Mosul. It followed the marriage in early April of a Sunni Arab man and a woman from the Yezidi faith, the police said.

The police said that when the woman married, she converted to Islam, which angered some of the Yezidis. She was kidnapped and as she was being brought back to her tribe, a crowd gathered and stoned her to death, said Brig. Gen. Muhammad al-Waqa of the Mosul police.

The Sunni Arabs in the area demanded that the Yezidis turn over the killers, and the police also put out a warrant for their arrest. In one Yezidi-majority town east of Mosul, residents found leaflets saying, ‘’Unless you turn them over, we will never let any Yezidi breathe the air.'’

The Yezidis refused. On Sunday afternoon, armed men stopped minibuses traveling from a government textile factory in Mosul, where many Yezidis and Christians were known to work. The men dragged the passengers off the buses, checked their identity cards and lined the Yezidis up against a wall and shot them, killing 23 people and wounding three, General Waqa said.

Iraq is disintegrating. Our continuing presence furthers this disintegration. The Bush administration is responsible for creating and then enabling the chaos. Hanging one’s hat on a "surge" in Baghdad seems to miss the totality of the collapse that has been wrought on Iraq.

America will withdraw from Iraq, either now or sometime in the future - that much is certain. The strategic and moral question that faces the United States is this: Does remaining longer in Iraq help or hurt stability in Iraq, stability in the region, and American national security when the eventual pullout occurs? I think the answer is clear.

We can continue to listen to "experts" spin stories about the turning point coming in the "next three or four months" or after another Friedman Unit, or we can begin to prepare the ground for an orderly withdrawal. Just know that with each passing Friedman Unit, the inevitable withdrawal will leave a more unstable wake.

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;"

- King Henry V at the siege of Harfleur, Act III, Scene 1, William Shakespeare’s "Henry V"

Iraq is not France and Baghdad is not Harfleur. And George W Bush is not Henry the Fifth. The rumor is that George W Bush is enamored of the notion of a "surge" in Iraq - a "surge" that will snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in Iraq. It is all very manly. The word itself invokes a powerful rush of strength, a rush of victorious energy, a rising tide of manliness - in short, very George W Bush.

After the Iraq Study Group cut Mr. Bush from his secure "stay the course" moorings by making the fantasy of "progress" in Iraq unsustainable, a change in direction at the White House was inevitable. Waiting in the wings were the neo-conservatives with their pet theory of neo-colonialism at the barrel of a gun. Building upon their first disaster in Iraq, some neo-conservatives are finding their inner-Kissingers in full bloom. Just like Kissinger, who has yet to quench his appetite for war crimes, the neo-Kissingers are also finding a willing, albeit less discriminating, ear in the Oval Office.

Enter Fred Kagan and the "surge". Not too long ago, Mr. Kagan was of the opinion that Iraq was going swimmingly, and Mr. Bush should stay the course:

If the U.S. were to keep its troop levels constant over the next 18 months, the manpower available to perform all of these critical tasks would increase dramatically as Iraqi forces became available to handle basic security functions.

Unfortunately, it does not appear that the Bush administration favors such a course. Repeated rumors–including a report about U.S. plans to withdraw, leaked by the British Ministry of Defense recently, and statements by the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq–indicate that the administration would prefer to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq as Iraqi forces become available in larger numbers.

Understandable though that desire is, it is wrongheaded. Now, above all, is the moment when determination and perseverance are most needed. If the U.S. begins pulling troops out prematurely, it runs the risk of allowing the insurgency to grow, perhaps becoming what it now is not–a real military threat to the government.

If, on the other hand, Bush stays the course and pays the price for success, the prospects for winning will get better every day.

Mr. Kagan, always an advocate of more troops in Iraq, was more concerned about Mr. Bush paying the price for success than our troops paying the price for Mr. Bush’s "success".

Mr. Kagan has been hawking his "surge" idea for a while now.  In the spring of this year Mr. Kagan proposed a two-phase plan for "victory":

With an additional 7 brigades devoted to active combat operations, it should be possible to conduct clear-hold-build operations in two phases, totaling perhaps 12 to 18 months of significant combat, followed by a longer-term commitment of substantially smaller numbers of "leave-behind" forces. The general concept of the operation is to move from the outside in.

…

The first phase of the operation would clear the three river valleys except for Ramadi. U.S. forces would advance town by town from the upper Euphrates, upper Tigris, and upper Diyala rivers toward Baghdad, clearing and holding as they went and leaving behind a significant ISF presence, leavened with U.S. forces, to consolidate.

…

When clearing operations were completed, the ISF troops that had participated would remain in place to consolidate, supported by about 5 American battalions (2.5 brigades). That would leave about 9 battalions (4.5 brigades), in addition to those already deployed in Iraq, to continue active operations in the second phase: clearing Ramadi and the southern suburbs of Baghdad, and beginning to clear Baghdad itself.

…

It may be that the fastest way to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis and draw down American forces is not a steady decline of troop numbers. Instead, the fastest possible "exit strategy" may require one last surge effort to bring the insurgency down to a level that the indigenous forces can handle on their own. [Emphasis added by me.] 

He is old school - he believes that a determined local population can be "pacified" by an occupying power if the right amount of force is applied and the right number of locals are killed. Unfortunately, history is replete with examples of insurgencies that have outlasted the occupying power’s will to fight. Mr. Kagan and his neo-Kissingers would argue that if only the occupier would have stayed longer and been more brutal, the outcome might have been different. If only.

My hope is that not a single American soldier has to lose his or her life in the service of armchair ideologues like Fred Kagan and their pet theories. It appears that the joint chiefs are making an effort to put an end to this hair-brained scheme called a "surge". Let us hope they succeed.

While the press has been obsessed with the "surge", the International Crisis Group released their proposal for rescuing Iraq from the abyss. In a report entitled "After Baker-Hamilton: What to Do in Iraq" the ICG lays out 27 recommendations that deserve serious attention. However, the report was released with barely any press attention at all.

I will have a more detailed post on the ICG report tomorrow, but for now, I wanted to give the report some airtime on the blogosphere.

While the ICG report agrees with the ISG report that the situation in Iraq is dire, it takes issue with the ISG recommendations for not going far enough:

Slowly, incrementally, the realisation that a new strategy is needed for Iraq finally is dawning on U.S. policy-makers. It was about time. By underscoring the U.S. intervention’s disastrous political, security, and economic balance sheet, and by highlighting the need for both a new regional and Iraqi strategy, the Baker-Hamilton report represents an important and refreshing moment in the country’s domestic debate. Many of its key – and controversial – recommendations should be wholly supported, including engaging Iran and Syria, revitalising the Arab-Israeli peace process, reintegrating Baathists, instituting a far-reaching amnesty, delaying the Kirkuk referendum, negotiating the withdrawal of U.S. forces with Iraqis and engaging all parties in Iraq.

But the change the report advocates is not nearly radical enough, and its prescriptions are no match for its diagnosis. What is needed today is a clean break both in the way the U.S. and other international actors deal with the Iraqi government, and in the way the U.S. deals with the region: in essence, a new multinational effort to achieve a new political compact between all relevant Iraqi constituents.

A new course of action must begin with an honest assessment of where things stand. Hollowed out and fatally weakened, the Iraqi state today is prey to armed militias, sectarian forces and a political class that, by putting short term personal benefit ahead of long term national interests, is complicit in Iraq’s tragic destruction. Not unlike the groups they combat, the forces that dominate the current government thrive on identity politics, communal polarisation, and a cycle of intensifying violence and counter-violence. Increasingly indifferent to the country’s interests, political leaders gradually are becoming warlords. What Iraq desperately needs are national leaders.

As it approaches its fifth year, the conflict also has become both a magnet for deeper regional interference and a source of greater regional instability. Instead of working together toward an outcome they all could live with – a weak but united Iraq that does not present a threat to its neighbours – regional actors are taking measures in anticipation of the outcome they most fear: Iraq’s descent into all-out chaos and fragmentation. By increasing support for some Iraqi actors against others, their actions have all the wisdom of a self-fulfilling prophecy: steps that will accelerate the very process they claim to wish to avoid.

The report’s recommendations are novel because they put three issues squarely on the table: the withdrawal of American troops and American bases, movement from fighting the insurgency to protecting the civilian population, and stepping away from supporting one group over another in Iraq’s civil war. These three issues, it seems to me, are essential ingredients of any stable future for Iraq.

The report offers recommendations for Iraq, for its neighbors, for the international community and for the United States. Among its recommendations are some urgent steps that United States should take to stem the violence:

18.  Adopt a less aggressive military posture in Iraq by:

(a)  redirecting resources to a program of embedding U.S. troops in Iraqi units; and

(b)  moving away from fighting the insurgency to focusing on protecting the civilian population, and in particular halting blind sweeps that endanger civilians, antagonise the population and have had limited effect on the insurgency.

…

21.  Avoid steps to engineer a cabinet reshuffle aimed at side-lining Muqtada al-Sadr, which would further inflame the situation.

…

23.  Free and compensate Iraqi prisoners detained by the U.S. without charge.

24.  Compensate Iraqis who have suffered as a result of the U.S.-led counterinsurgency campaign.

…

26.   Abandon the super-embassy project and move a reduced embassy to a more neutral location.

27.  Publicly deny any intention of establishing long-term military bases or seeking to control Iraq’s oil.

The recommendations are aimed at fostering reconciliation and shifting to a less belligerent posture. In that they are the exact opposite of the "surge" approach. While the ICG recommendations may save lives, the "surge" is guaranteed to take lives, both Iraqi and American.

The goal of the ICG report is the stabilization of Iraq and the reduction of the American footprint in Iraq. These twin goals can serve as the underpinnings of a strategy to extricate ourselves from George W Bush’s mess and avoid the "surge" that leads to the quagmire of Kaganistan.

 [Cross posted at Taylor Marsh and Daily Kos]