Live from the Nuke Free Zone

I’ve decided that, dead as this blog may be, it’s the best place to put some things I’ve been thinking about. This post is on something I think needs said, because I haven’t seen it referenced in the Iraq debate and someone has to say it — of course, a lot of people have to say it before it reaches currency, but that’s next.

I want to be as clear, objective, factual, and unopinionated about the following as possible, so pardon me if the statements are a bit bland of rhetoric. Sources cited are footnoted.

Thesis: Planning for and carrying out a withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq over the next several months is an important component of spurring progress among the disparate Iraqi populations on issues of importance to Iraq’s long-term security and stability (and thus American interests).

Argument:
Progress is being made in certain areas in Iraq.

Working with the Americans, Abu Azzam’s men have helped drive Islamist militants out of his group’s sector, he says, except for a hard-to-reach area north of Nasr Wa Salam. They have led American troops to weapons stockpiles, he says, and prevented car bombings. Markets and neighborhoods here, ghostly just a few months ago, now teem with people. A one-story hospital was just rebuilt with American money, and two new generators sit outside. Not long ago the violence would have made such a project impossible, Pinkerton said. [Abu Azzam Article]

Key to much of this progress is reconciliation with armed, often Sunni groups that have in the past worked against the American military and its allies, the majority-Shiite Iraqi Army. Such alliances provide valuable intelligence links and popular-perception links to the community [1], turn former opposition into allies [2], and yield capable veteran soldiers in short supply among the main Iraqi Army [3].

[1]

Working with the Americans, Abu Azzam’s men have helped drive Islamist militants out of his group’s sector, he says, except for a hard-to-reach area north of Nasr Wa Salam. They have led American troops to weapons stockpiles, he says, and prevented car bombings. [Abu Azzam article]

[An episode where the Americans defended Abu Azzam’s men from Iraqi Army detention] “built credibility with the people.” [Abu Azzam article]

[2]

He became cagey when questions turned to his activities after the American invasion in 2003. “I was among the people who refused the occupation,” he said. But he insisted that that he never attacked Americans. He listed the insurgent groups he knows, including the 1920s Revolutionary Brigade, the Islamic Army and Ansar al-Sunna, a faction known for gruesome beheadings. “All of them I am in touch with,” he said. “They are waiting to see if my experience will succeed. If it succeeds, they will adopt it. But if it doesn’t, it will cause confrontation.” [Abu Azzam article]

Abu Azzam says the 2,300 men in his movement include members of fierce Sunni groups like the 1920s Revolutionary Brigade and the Mujahedeen Army that have fought the American occupation. Now his men patrol alongside the Americans, who want to turn them into a security force that can bring peace to this stretch between Baghdad and Falluja.[Abu Azzam article]

[3]

Using his Iraqi partners to pick out the insurgents and uncover the bombs they had seeded along the cratered roads, Captain Richards’s soldiers soon apprehended more than 100 militants, including several low-level emirs. The Iraqis called themselves the Local Committee; Captain Richards dubbed them the Kit Carson scouts. … During the recent American assault in western Baquba, soldiers from Blackhawk Company got a glimpse of an alliance the Americans hope to see. An Iraqi seemingly emerged from nowhere, announced himself as a member of the 1920s Revolutionary Brigades and warned the soldiers that insurgents could be found on the far side of a sand berm around the corner. The tip was accurate.[Kit Carson article]

An important theme emerges when the leaders of these groups are asked why they have changed sides: they realize that the Americans are going to leave, and face the prospect of dangerous groups in their midst left behind to trouble them, or Shiite-dominated groups in the government with motivations to persecute Sunnis:

Afterward, he [Abu Azzam] said his men joined forces with the Americans because the extremist groups were killing so many fellow Sunni Arabs. But he allowed that the new alliance was complicated. The Americans will someday leave, he said, and the far bigger threat is a permanent Iranian occupation. He fears the Muthanna Brigade [a Shiite-dominated brigade of the Iraqi Army] is a harbinger of that, because he says it is infiltrated by Iranian-sympathizing militiamen who abuse Sunnis. [Abu Azzam article]

The coalition reflects some hard-headed calculations on both sides. Eager for intelligence on their elusive foes, American officers have been willing to overlook the insurgent past of some of their new allies. Many Sunnis, for their part, are less inclined to see the soldiers as occupiers now that it is clear U.S. troop reductions are all but inevitable, and are more concerned with strengthening their ability to fend off threats from militias who plague the province.[Kit Carson article]

Political organization, not just the military conflict, also feels this effect. Moktada al-Sadr, who leads a powerful Shiite bloc that for some months had disengaged from the Iraqi government, thus contributing to political paralysis, defines his political position in opposition to the American presence and its allied legislators:

Qassim Daoud, a secular Shiite lawmaker, says Mr. Sadr has figured out the alchemy to playing the outsider, but having just enough of a place in the government to have leverage. “He is one of those people who has two legs, one inside the political process and one outside the political process,” Mr. Daoud said.[al-Sadr article]

Mr. Sadr is quite open about his short-term goals with regard to the American presence.

[al-Sadr’s] basic tenets are widely shared. Like most Iraqis, he opposes the American military presence and wants a timetable for departure — if only to attain some certainty that the Americans will leave eventually. He wants the country to stay unified and opposes the efforts of those Shiites who have had close ties to Iran to create a semiautonomous Shiite region in southern Iraq.[al-Sadr article]

Recently, the Sadrist bloc has somewhat re-engaged:

The six ministers in the cabinet and 30 lawmakers in Parliament allied to [Mr. Sadr] have been boycotting sessions. They returned Tuesday, but it is not clear they will stay long.[al-Sadr article]

This engagement occurs as the Iraqi government works on the outlines of all the major legislation, such as division of oil revenues among regions, necessary to establish a long-term government, and also under the spreading perception that the Americans will be leaving within a short time frame (albeit not within the month — Iraqi lawmakers plan to take August off.) The connection is merely contemporaneousness rather than explicit discussion of al-Sadr’s motivations, but then Mr. Sadr is unlikely to be forthcoming about those motivations and so we must infer from the evidence.

Synthesizing the independent sources, then, we have the common theme that antagonistic groups find the profit from opposing American forces to decrease when it becomes apparent that the Americans intend to leave. Militant turn their attention to combating more dedicated armed insurgents that continue to oppose Americans and threaten the population and the legitimate government. Politicians that support the same political goals we do (in particular, keeping Iran from taking advantage of Iraq’s instability to enhance its regional power) but find it valuable to define themselves in opposition to American activities cease deriving value from defining themselves in opposition to us, and re-engage with the process.

Conclusion:
What progress has been made in Iraq on both military and political fronts appears in substantial part dependent on the perception that Americans intend to leave, and within a short timeframe. Then any of: planning for a long-term presence, failing to seek and set withdrawal course on a short timeline, or failing to carry through with a withdrawal once planned, would militate against that perception and thus the progress that depends upon it. Therefore, components of the latest planning for Iraq (the Joint Campaign Plan) that envision substantial American presence until at least 2009 and possibly longer [Joint Campaign Plan article] and most especially the notion of a “Korea model” (that is to say, an indefinitely long American presence in force) [Global Policy article] are unwise and counterproductive, and should be opposed.

Sources:
[Abu Azzam article] “New U.S. allies seen as enemies by Iraqi troops” This article is from the International Herald Tribune, published on July 15, 2007.

[al-Sadr article]“Cleric Switches Tactics to Meet Changes in Iraq”, outside reprint of a July 19, 2007 New York Times article.

[Kit Carson article]“An unexpected alliance tackles insurgents in Iraq” This article may also be found in the International Herald Tribune, published on July 5, 2007.

[Joint Campaign Plan article]“U.S. Seen in Iraq Until at Least ’09″, on NYTimes website and available for free for about one week from posting of this article.

[Global Policy Article]“With Korea as Model, Bush Team
Ponders Long Support Role in Iraq” Reprint of a NYTimes article from June 3, 2007 on the external site globalpolicy.org.