Will a surge of U.S. troops make a difference in Iraq? How viable is the current Iraqi government? Will an American withdrawal lead to all-out civil war?
In a new book, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace (Yale University Press), Ali A. Allawi argues that American forces failed to understand what they were getting into and made numerous costly mistakes along the way. He brings an insider’s perspective to the subject: A longtime opponent of the Baathist regime, Allawi was living in exile and teaching at the University of Oxford in 2003 when he was chosen to be minister of trade under the Iraq Governing Council. He has since served as Iraq’s first post-invasion civilian minister of defense, as an elected member of Iraq’s Transitional National Assembly, and as minister of finance under Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s transitional National Government.
We asked Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and the influential blogger at Informed Comment (http://juancole.com), to interview Allawi, by e-mail, about the situation in Iraq. They talked about the occupation; the current Iraqi government and sectarian violence; and the military and political prospects for Iraq, occupation forces stationed there, and the country’s Arab neighbors.
Cole: Your book is titled The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace. Many Iraqi government figures have argued against referring to the U.S. presence as an occupation, but you accept this term. In your view, can the U.S. military still accomplish anything positive in Iraq, or is it time for the troops to leave the country? Will the addition of a division or so (25,000 soldiers) for six to nine months really change anything on the ground? What do you think is the attitude by now of Iraqis toward the U.S. troops on the ground?
Allawi: The coalition presence in Iraq is an occupation, even though the fiction is assiduously maintained that the Multi-National Force is there at the specific request of the Iraqi authorities and authorized by an enabling U.N. resolution. All elements of an occupation are there. They include the absence of a governing agreement between the MNF and Iraq, a so-called status of forces agreement; the absolute immunity and extraterritoriality enjoyed by the MNF from any Iraqi laws and directives; the subservience of the Iraqi military command to the MNF in matters of substance; and the existence of Iraqi security institutions, such as the intelligence services and a number of elite military formations, that report to the MNF only.
In addition, the Iraqi government, which is a dysfunctional organism, is dependent on policy initiatives and prescriptions that are generated by foreign advisers and consultants attached to the U.S. Embassy. The U.S. and U.K. ambassadors openly take part in domestic Iraqi politics and have overturned the selection of a democratically nominated prime-ministerial candidate, [Ibra[DisHy]him] Jaafari, when it did not suit their interests. The relationship between the Iraqi government and the U.S. is not between equals. The evidence of a dependency culture is embarrassingly evident. It is an unusual form of an occupation that masquerades as something else.
The withdrawal of U.S. troops outside the framework of a comprehensive political settlement will not lead to civil warIraq is already mired in civil conflictbut it will accelerate the consolidation of a sectarian central state. It will lead to a redoubling of the efforts by the present governing alliance to extend its control over the central state and its security institutions. Currently the U.S. is, unwittingly or otherwise, doing the job for the alliance by targeting troublesome militias and the insurgents. The surge should be seen in that light. I believe the level of violence in Baghdad will decline, but it will stay the same or even increase in Sunni-majority provinces, as it becomes clear to the Sunni Arabs that stabilization in Baghdad has worked in favor of the [predominantly Shiite] United Iraqi Alliance-led government.
In many ways the U.S. is following contradictory objectives: Its security strategy will inevitably strengthen the hand of the alliance in charge of the government, while its political strategy claims that it is seeking to build a nonsectarian political order. The U.S. is trying to finesse this by setting political markers for the [Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki government as a condition of further support, but it will tie itself up in more knots, I believe.
Iraqis are thoroughly fed up with the presence of foreign troops that have done nothing to stem the violence and mayhem in the country. All the recent polls confirm this. But the foreign military presence acts as an uncomfortable security blanket in the absence of a definitive political settlement. Should the U.S. pull out its troops? On balance I would say yes, within a 12-to-18-month framework. The U.S. should be explicit about the Iraq that it wants and is prepared to support. If the Iraqi political class is not willing to make the necessary adjustments and learn to forget each community’s grievances in the drawing up of a new national compact — and if the regional powers are not prepared to make their own compromises on Iraq in pursuit of their own interests — I can’t see how and why the Americans should be expected to keep the house from falling.
Cole: Is the Iraqi government as it is now constituted really viable? Can it be expected to assert itself any time soon, given that it is internally deeply divided and has a weak, inexperienced, and often reluctant military and a police force wracked with corruption and absenteeism? Is there any chance that an international peacekeeping and reconstruction force could help shore it up in a way that the U.S. has not been able to?
Allawi: The Iraqi government relies on its continuity in power on deals made by its principal components, the Shia United Iraqi Alliance, the Kurdistan Front, the secular Iraqiya list [associated with the former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi], and the Sunni Tawafuq bloc, which were brokered by the U.S. Embassy. So far this uneasy coalition, misleadingly called the “national unity” government, has remained mostly intact despite defections from the UIA and some rumblings inside the Tawafuq. A great deal depends on the position of the U.S., which has huge influence on the Kurds, the Sunni-led groups inside the governing coalition, and elements of the UIA.
So far the U.S. has continued to support the Maliki government, even though it is extremely uncomfortable generally about Shia Islamists in power. The risks of jettisoning the Maliki government at this stage are simply too high. That might change, however, and political rivals to Maliki are hovering around trying to fashion a new governing parliamentary majority if the security situation is not stabilized or more defections from the UIA take place. In spite of all the risks ahead, I believe the Maliki government will continue in power as a weak and divided government simply because of the absence of a credible alternative from within the current parliamentary majority.
The current security plan masks an ongoing battle for the control over the central state. The Shia-led alliance is well on its way to dominating essential parts of the state apparatus. The U.S., joined by the Tawafuq and the secular Iraqiya list, is trying to thwart that eventuality. However, it is difficult to see how the desired objective of stabilizing the security front can be squared with the resultant enhancement of Shia control over the government. The U.S. is trying to finesse this conundrum by claiming ultimate control over the Iraqi security forces, while the Iraqi government, in the name of national sovereignty, is, conversely, trying to assert its authority on some or all of the security forces.
All this against a backdrop where the nonterrorist wing of the insurgency is being wooed into abandoning its armed resistance and joining a political process that it instinctively distrusts. If that effort fails, it is difficult to see how the alternative of either a Shia-dominated central state with an autonomous Kurdistan or a regionally based political division of Iraq can be avoided. The former outcome is basically a continuation of the current state of affairs and its attendant instability.
An international force can succeed only if there is an overarching political settlement that all parties subscribe to and that is guaranteed in one shape or another by an international treaty or accord, to which the key regional players accede. The dispatch of a peacekeeping force would be a necessary concomitant of that effort.
Cole: You said above that Iraq was already in a state of civil conflict, and that you did not expect an American withdrawal to produce a conventional civil war. But is there anything the Iraqi government can do to stop the cycle of sectarian and ethnic violence? It seems to me that the Sunni Arab guerrillas, whether Baathists or Salafi fundamentalists, are deliberately attempting to provoke feuds between Shiites and Sunnis by targeting the former with huge bombings. The Sistani tactic of calling for Shiite restraint has increasingly failed. The new Iraqi army is clearly too weak in the short to medium term to crush the guerrillas. The government does not seem able or willing to effectively negotiate with them. Is the Maliki government capable of accomplishing anything at all on this issue? What of the neighbors? Could or would Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey play a positive role in tamping down the sectarian and ethnic violence?
Allawi: The drive toward establishing control over the state structures by the Shia is taking place at a different rate and on a different plane than either the strengthening of the internal functioning of the government or the spread of its control. Those are two entirely separate issues. It is very probable that the central Iraqi governmentirrespective of its reach and powerwill be dominated by the Shia, acting through a variety of sectarian parties. That will provide the platform, as they see it, for the future strengthening of the state and its span of authority. Seize the commanding heights and then fortify your position. The Maliki government is an agency for that strategy, as is the presence of the Multi-National Force. I doubt if any other configuration from within the United Iraqi Alliance will work differently in essence.
The Ayad Allawi alternative [building a nonsectarian government on the basis of competence, not sectarian quotas] is an altogether different strategy, with different end goals. It will fail, I believe, because he will find it nearly impossible to form a parliamentary majority that will need to include large chunks from the UIA. The Kurds will also have to think long and hard about breaking their strategic alliance with Sciri [the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a powerful Shia party], and, through Sciri, with the UIA.
The way forward really depends on the end state that one wishes to see. The current strategy is a variant of the 80:20 solution [Shiites and Kurds make up 80 percent of the population, so the Sunni 20 percent would need to go along with majority rule], which the Sunni Arabs can accept or reject. It may result, a few years down the line, with a Shia-dominated Iraqi state, a quasi-independent Kurdish region attached to it, and the Sunni Arabs in varying conditions of discontent. How stable — or desirable — that would be is another matter. The role of the regional powers, and their support for a stabilization strategy for Iraq, cannot be disassociated from this end state, and how it would affect their interests.
Cole: It seems likely that the British Labour Party will pull most U.K. troops out of southern Iraq during the next eight months. The patience of the American public is also not infinite. Some 25,000 U.S. troops have been killed or wounded, with the death toll marching toward 4,000 and at least 20 percent of the injuries serious. The public has turned to the Democratic Party in a bid to find someone who will extract them from this quagmire. It seems entirely possible that the 2008 elections will produce another political earthquake, and it seems highly unlikely that whoever comes to power in 2009 in Washington is going to want Bush’s albatross hanging around their necks.
If the U.S. does reduce its troop strength to a half or a third what it is now, can the elected government survive? In what ways might Iraqis respond to such a big reduction in the U.S. military presence? Is not the coalition essentially handing the Shiite south to the Badr Corps [which is commanded by Sciri] and its local police allies (except in Maysan province, where surely the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr will take over)? Can a northern Sunni city like Mosul remain in Baghdad’s control if there are no U.S. troops in Nineveh province?
Allawi: I do not believe that the withdrawal of U.S. troops will have a material effect on the level of violence. What it will do is finalize the sectarian character of the Iraqi security forces. At present, the U.S. is, ineffectively, trying to bolster the formation of a professional military that owes its loyalty to the central Iraqi state, and weaving ties between the senior officer corps of the Iraqi army and the U.S. military establishment. That is being constantly undermined and thwarted by a countereffort to ensure that the senior military cadres are loyal to those who control the government apparatus.
A U.S. pullout will simply lead to the abandonment of the formal policy of a nonsectarian military. The government, we must remember, disposes of very large financial resources that will be used to strengthen armed forces that are loyal to it rather than to a nebulous concept of a united Iraqi state. The battle lines will be drawn more sharply, but not necessarily in ways that would inevitably lead to the proverbial bloodbath. The majority Sunni areas will resist more forcefully the imposition of the writ of the central government, possibly by institutionalizing sectarian security forces such as the Anbar tribal levies, and authorizing the formation of similar units in Mosul and elsewhere.
How those new Sunni security structures will relate to the insurgents and to Al Qaeda is an important issue. It is highly likely that they will be infiltrated by the insurgents. The south will not necessarily “fall” to the Badr Corps or to the Mahdi Army. There would be no need for that if the military in Baghdad is dominated by them in any case. The fiction will be maintained that the Iraqi armed forces are neutral between the contending groups, but in reality they will be dominated by the Shia political factions working through the government.
In many ways, such an outcome would be relatively stable, if the central government does not try to extend its authority to the Sunni Arab areas. The conflict would escalate only if the government tries to dominate those areas, or, alternatively, the Sunni Arab insurgents continue in a (losing) campaign to extend their control into Baghdad. In disputed areas, such as Diyala province, there is the chance that the fighting would escalate as both sides tried to assert their control.
Cole: Has not a conventional civil war in Iraq mainly been forestalled by the U.S. Air Force, which would attack any military formation larger than a company that mobilized for a set-piece battle? If the U.S. relinquishes such an interventionist role, isn’t it possible that Sunni militias and the Mahdi Army will form battalions and march against each other? That is, couldn’t Iraq end up looking like Afghanistan in the 1990s, locked in a highly destructive, open civil war? What could Iraqis and their neighbors do to avoid that fate?
Allawi: I do not think that a civil war, which presumes a rough equivalence between the groups inside Iraq, would break out more virulently than it already has. The insurgents will not be able to overwhelm the state. The fact remains that unless there is wide foreign (Arab) intervention on behalf of the Sunni Arabs, there is a power and resource imbalance between the Shia and the Sunni Arabs. The Shia demographic majority, their control over the government apparatus, and their access to resources ensure that this imbalance will continue to their advantage.
We also have to factor in the strategic and logistical support of Iran to the Shia if that ascendancy is seriously threatened. What the Sunni Arab insurgents can do is to make the country, or at least those parts that they can reach, insecure and violent, and difficult to govern. They can also block any attempts of the government to extend its control into their territory, or at least make it extremely costly for it to do so. A U.S. pullout will lead to the strengthening of sectarian and ethnic control over their respective heartlands, with flashpoints at points of contention such as Kirkuk, eastern Mosul, Diyala, and a few neighborhoods in Baghdad. I do not think that is a particularly horrible outcome, especially if it is acknowledged and accommodated in a political settlement that pushes for a regional and confederal solution.
The unified Iraqi state that the U.S. is trying to pursue is a chimera. The state that is being formed now is a Shia-dominated Arab state, to which a semi-independent Kurdistan is attached, with a Sunni Arab rump in varying conditions of discontent. That is an unstable outcome.
The alternative form of the Iraqi state is an Arab/Kurdish confederation. That would presume that the Shia and the Sunni could reach a historical deal on how to manage Arab Iraq, which at present seems unachievable. A gradual retreat by the central government from its claim of power over Sunni Arab areas can pave the way for a regional solution to the crisis, a process that will be accelerated if the U.S. pullout is achieved methodically and with a federal Iraq as an end state. In fact, a U.S. pullout may be an essential precondition for achieving this objective.
http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Volume 53, Issue 38, Page B6
