Mishun (still un~)akomplish'd

[mahnmut]

Yesterday, the long awaited day came. The US troops were withdrawn from Iraq (now officially, after de facto doing it a week or so in advance). Everybody is home! Hooray! Victory!

Oh wait... Except, they're not. But still, Iraq is now a democracy, fully capable of taking care of itself. Right? Um, okay maybe not. Yet. Patience, folks. Mishun will be akomplish'd sooner or later. At some point in the future.

I'm not a military expert, but I hope I'm allowed to drop my 2 cents on the subject? I am? Thanks.

So it's official. The military part of the US mission in Iraq has been declared complete. More or less successful, I leave it to you to define. The fact is, there'll be less than 50 thousand US soldiers remaining in Iraq from now on, and just as a security guarantee but not for the purpose of combat. Nevertheless, the war is actually far from over, I'm sure you know. Neither for Iraq nor for the US.

There were no pompous victory parades on Times Square for the end of this war. There was no official ceremony with "Mishun Akomplish'd" placards like the one in 2003 for which W. was later so thoroughly mocked. There'll be 50,000 (fifty THOUSAND) US personnel based in Iraq, and the war is yet to be "won".

I'm sure many of you, particularly the solodiers' families and veterans themselves were feeling accomplished while looking at the images of the leaving troops. I'm sure many Iraqis are satisfied too, and think this is a major step forward in the right direction. It sends them a signal that they should gather themselves and take care of their country. And here's hoping that things won't deteriorate again.

During the last two weeks of August the US military completely withdrew its combat units from Iraq. Those who'll remain until the end of 2011, though ready to engage in combat situations if needed, are officially there just to train and consult the local security forces. However Iraq itself is still far from being a stable state and the unknown variables are still too many. The series of attacks on the local security forces during last week which caused the death of a US soldier who got under fire in the Basra base also show that the country remains a highly volatile place. That's why uncertainty could be sensed in all speeches and words coming from the military personnel who've served in Iraq, and it's why the White House has refrained from any triumphalist rhetoric this time.

So where do we go from here? The schoolbook democracy which W. promised still remains a mere pipe dream associated with the former neocon administration. Instead, it was substituted with a term which Gen. Petraeus coined: "Iraqracy", or democracy a-la-Iraq. The problem is that even the chaotic, bloody and controversial Iraqracy demonstrated on the March elections has now turned into an even more chaotic post-election situation. For more than 5 months the country goes on without a functioning government and that's symptomatic of how immature and weak the country's political class is, if it ever existed, since they can't reach an agreement even at such a critical moment.

The coalition of Nouri al-Maliki (the former Iraqi PM) and the national movement Al Iraqiya of his predecessor Ayad Allawi got 89 and 91 seats respectively in the 325-member parliament. In order to form a government one needs 163 seats. The problem is as trivial as it's unsolvable - both Maliki and Allawi want the PM chair. The West supports the creation of a coalition government between the two moderate Shi'ite factions because it would ease the ethnic tension in the country and would contain the influence of the more radical Shi'ites. Both contenders are trying to form alternative coalitions with the other parties in parliament but a majority hasn't been achieved thus far, and almost half a year has passed since the elections.

In order to escape the political stalemate the US advisors have started negotiating to cut the wide prerogatives of the PM position and transfer them to the President and other members of the cabinet. Although the PM chair is a complicated question now it'll hardly be the hardest question for the next government. The planned boom of the oil extraction (from the current 2.5 million barrels to 12 million per day for the next 6-7 years) is a much bigger source of tensions, corruption and conflicts. The quarrels about the redistribution of the oil income will continue to cause deep divisions and grievances in a country that's already pretty fucked up. The future of the oil-rich region around Tiqrit (Saddam's birthplace) also bodes lots of clashes between the Kurd and the Suni minority which dominate the area. All in all, the next few months will define how the country will be functioning in reality.

I'm thinking the creation of a stable state in Iraq will take not less than 5 more years, maybe 10 even. The Iraq war is far from over and it's definitely not "won" yet. In fact this is the most critical period since 2003. But IMO the most important thing is to keep bringing all these confrontations and conflicts of interests on the political arena rather than the streets and roads, and to keep encouraging the use of political means rather than guns. No-one expects Iraq to become another Switzerland, all what's needed is the political process to keep going. If political opponents stop finding political means for solving their differences and resort to military means it'll lead back to the 2005/6 nightmare which almost brought Iraq to a civil war.

As to Obama's administration, they're now squashed between a host of domestic issues and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, so they could only afford to invest a limited amount of time and resources on the Iraq issue. Going ahead with the withdrawal plan despite the unstable situation speaks that the White House also believes that political solution is the only way for Iraq at this point. The last few years have shown the limits of military force - even the most powerful military force in the world is helpless in dealing with the reconstruction of a country if that country lacks strong political figures and is torn by deep ethnic and religious gaps. It's true that the US military has participated in the reconstruction of other war-torn countries like former Yugoslavia, but the difference here is the scale. After Iraq, it's already clear that a war doesn't end with capturing the enemy capital city; establishing and maintaining peace is just as important as a successful invasion beforehand. And without a clear plan for a full and deep recovery of the conquered country, the victorious army would suddenly be standing in front of new and far more dangerous conflicts that keep popping up everywhere. I guess those who planned and ordered the invasion were not fully aware of the thing they were getting involved in, but why would they care after all? They're not in charge now, and they're protected from prosecution as it turns out.

The US troops may be leaving now but a whole new army of civil workers is taking off to Baghdad. In October the Department of State will take charge of the duties of reconstructing the new Iraq, and its 2,400 diplomats in Iraq will be appointing experts with term contracts. Apart from that, 7,000 private contractors will be looking after the security of the civil personnel. This is a unprecedented expansion of prerogatives in the entire history of the Department of State. If this strategy works fine, it'll become the new matrix for the eventual reconstruction of Afghanistan when/if the hostilities subside there, and all other possible conflict locations around the world after that. Because we all know Iraq and Afghanistan won't be the last nation-building wars which the US will be having. Let's face it - the more America sees its global role threatened, and the more challenges to the US interest it senses, and the more scarce the energy resources become, so more frequent these wars will become. Call me Chomsky if you like.

Surely, the day when the last combat units left was a great day for peace, but I'm afraid this is hardly the end of America's involvement in Iraq. America's relations with Iraq have been a problem for decades, and for a good reason. Ever since the Desert Storm operation in Gulf War I, this conflict has never ceased. It went on, only with a changing intensity and form. So it'd be naive to believe that the US involvement there would last for just another year and a half, maybe two. No, it won't. There's too much at stake there - a potentially stable Iraq could become a stabilizing factor in an otherwise very volatile region; a US-servile-friendly Iraq would be a huge bonus for the US interests, both geopolitical and economical. The reversed scenario, an Iraq at the brink of a civil war, would be a huge blow to the US interests and prestige.

So let's be realistic. A US military presence in Iraq will continue to exist in one form or another long after December 2011. Even some of Al-Sadr's people (the Shi'ite extremist Mahdi Army) admit that they prefer the US to remain there after 2011. My impression is that while everyone in Iraq claims they want the US completely out of Iraq, they're more scared of the prospect of it happening in real.

x-posted