Staying the course is no longer an option. Here's the best scenario for the U.S. to do some good before it pulls out.
It's a grim sign of the chaos engulfing Iraq today that trying to save your family can put them in even more danger. That's what happened to Ammar Jawad, a Shi'ite in Baghdad, who this month moved his wife and two children to Balad, an hour's drive north of the violence-racked capital. He figured his family would be safer in Balad, a Shi'ite-majority town—until the war went there too. A week after Jawad's family arrived in Balad, a couple of Sunnis were killed in a suburb. Sunnis in a neighboring town retaliated by killing a dozen Shi'ite laborers. The Shi'ites then called in militias from Baghdad, and they went on a rampage in and around Balad. By the time U.S. troops finally stanched the bloodbath last week, nearly 100 people had died. Now Iraqis like Jawad, whose real name has been changed to protect his identity, are wondering if there's anywhere to go. "Even if I can get them out of Balad, where can I hope to send them next?" he asks. "What is the use in making any plans?"
There are no good options left in Iraq. To those who have lived through the daily carnage wrought by organized criminals, sectarian militias and jihadist terrorists, the idea that the U.S. can prevent a full-scale civil war—let alone transform Iraq into a stable democracy—has been dead for months. The main question is, How long will it take for military officials in Iraq and policymakers in Washington to concede that the whole enterprise is closer to failure than success? Midway through what is already one of the deadliest months this year, the U.S. military's spokesman in Baghdad, Major General William B. Caldwell IV, last week called the persistence of sectarian violence in Baghdad "disheartening" and acknowledged that the three-month-old U.S. campaign to take back the city has gone nowhere. That verdict added to rising clamor for an overhaul of the U.S.'s strategy in Iraq. In recent weeks, senior Republicans, like Virginia Senator John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, have said the Bush Administration should insist that the Iraqi government demonstrate progress by the end of the year or face a change of course by the U.S. Foreign policy hands in both parties are hoping that the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic Representative from Indiana, will provide the White House with the political cover to abandon its now quixotic goals of creating democracy in Iraq in favor of a more limited focus on establishing enough stability to allow U.S. troops to leave without catastrophic consequences. "You can't sugarcoat that. The Iraq situation's not winnable in any meaningful sense of the word. What the U.S. needs to do now is look for a way to limit the losses and the costs," Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of the Administration's foreign policy team, said last week. The question, Haass added, is "how poorly it's going to end up."
It's not just the politicians who are reassessing the U.S.'s options in Iraq. General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has ordered a group of young officers to review the military's strategy in Iraq and ask tough questions. Pace is pursuing the underlying riddle: Why are there almost as many U.S. troops in Iraq now as there were two years ago when, in the interim, more than 300,000 Iraqi security forces have been recruited and trained? Pace, according to an officer familiar with the process, wants to know, What's wrong with this picture?
So what can still be done? Despite the consensus of gloom—Bush told abc News last week that the violence in Baghdad "could be" compared to the Tet offensive in Vietnam in 1968-69, which helped turn many Americans against that war—few Iraqi or U.S. officials believe an immediate withdrawal is wise or likely. But paralysis could be worse. So the focus is on finding ways to bring violence down to a sustainable level, after which the U.S. can begin to extricate itself from the mess. At this late date, there's nothing the U.S. or the Iraqi government can do to stop the bleeding altogether. Iraq's most pressing problems may still take years to resolve. But quick and decisive action in a few key areas could at least help slow the inexorable descent into anarchy. Here are five of them:
CLEAN OUT THE ROGUES
The Bush administration's strategy has hinged on standing up credible Iraqi security forces to take over responsibility for the country's security. So far there are 311,000 U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers and police, of varying capabilities. While that's close to the goal of 325,000, the real problem is less about quantity than loyalty. To anybody paying attention, it's clear that the security forces, broadly divided between the police under the Interior Ministry and the army under the Defense Ministry, are the main vectors of the widening civil war. The bureaucracies and the fighters have been infiltrated by militias, notably the Mahdi Army of Shi'ite radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the Iran-backed Badr Organization, affiliated with the dominant party in the Shi'ite coalition that controls parliament. Many policemen and soldiers are more loyal to their sect leaders and militia bosses than to the Iraqi government. In Baghdad, for instance, many police vehicles and Interior Ministry offices bear stickers and posters of al-Sadr. Sunni victims of sectarian violence routinely accuse the police and army of looking the other way when the militias unleash havoc—or worse, joining in the killing.
Until recently, the government has ignored such allegations, suggesting that the victims were deceived by insurgents masquerading as cops or soldiers. But in the past few weeks, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has acknowledged that some elements of the security forces have gone rogue. An entire police brigade was suspended this month on grounds that officers were indulging in sectarian or criminal activities, and the Interior Ministry claimed it fired some 3,000 employees and removed from their posts two top police generals.
But that doesn't go far enough. Al-Maliki says the security forces will continue to recruit from the ranks of the militias—leaving ordinary Iraqis feeling that one set of bad cops and soldiers will simply be replaced by another. The only option is for the U.S. to press al-Maliki to abandon his plans to absorb the militias into the security forces, slow down recruitment and set up a screening process to prevent militiamen from infiltrating the ranks. And cops suspected of abuses can't merely be fired. "If these officers and policemen have been guilty of sectarian crimes, they should be in jail and not in the street where they can commit more crimes," says political analyst Tahseen al-Shekhli. "Otherwise, the message al-Maliki sends to every policeman is, 'There is no punishment for killing Sunnis.'"
DEAL WITH AL-SADR
Since the Feb. 22 destruction of a major Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, the Mahdi Army, al-Sadr's black-clad private militia, has been on the warpath against Sunnis, especially in and around Baghdad. Once driven by anti-Americanism—the Mahdi Army fought pitched battles against U.S. troops in 2004—the militias are fired by a determination to avenge centuries of Sunni oppression. Often with the connivance of the Iraqi security forces, marauding gangs professing loyalty to al-Sadr have killed or kidnapped thousands—not only Sunnis but also Shi'ites who don't subscribe to their radical version of the faith. Al-Sadr's truculence has become increasingly destabilizing. Last week, just days after he met with al-Maliki to discuss an end to sectarian killings, al-Sadr's men battled police and a rival Shi'ite militia and briefly seized control of the southern city of Amarah.
In public, the U.S. military says al-Sadr—who controls a sizable block of parliament—is a major political figure and must be treated accordingly; in media briefings, even al-Sadr's name and that of his militia are studiously avoided. Privately, however, American commanders say they would like the shackles taken off just long enough to deliver some blows against the Mahdi Army. It wouldn't be simple: a full-frontal assault on heavily populated Sadr City isn't a smart option, and a senior U.S. intelligence officer says that "Sadr himself has a diminished ability to command and control his forces." But the U.S. may still be able to do some good by hacking away at those elements of the Mahdi Army responsible for the worst sectarian atrocities and criminal activities. Doing so, however, would require more steel from the al-Maliki government. After the U.S. arrested a top al-Sadr operative in Baghdad last week, a man they described as "the alleged leader of a murder and kidnapping cell" in east Baghdad, the Prime Minister emerged from a meeting with al-Sadr in Najaf to order the man's release.
BRING THE SUNNIS BACK
Yes, that's been tried, but much of the hard slog U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad put in last winter to bring the Sunnis into the political process was undone last month when Shi'ite and Kurdish parties forced through legislation that brings Iraq closer to a partitioned state, which Sunnis fear would leave them without access to the country's main resource, oil. "The Shi'ites and Kurds used their combined parliamentary majority to bully the Sunnis," says a Western diplomat in Baghdad. "They need to understand that a big part of democracy is about reassuring the minority that its worst fears won't be realized."
Sunni parties boycotted the vote on the federalism bill and are threatening to withdraw from the all-party government. The risk is that more Sunnis will join the insurgency, which is being driven by extremist jihadis who have taken over parts of western Iraq. The Mujahedin Shura Council, an umbrella of jihadist groups that includes al-Qaeda's Iraqi wing, last week announced the formation of an Islamic state in "the Sunni provinces of Iraq." Scores of white-clad jihadis staged a brazen show of force in several towns in Anbar province. Although the majority of Sunnis want no part of an Islamic state run by jihadis, they may feel they have no option if the political process seems rigged against them.
One option, says the Western diplomat, is to use U.S. leverage with the Kurds to "get them to stop pushing the Sunnis into a corner." That would isolate the Shi'ites, who won't have a large enough majority in parliament to pass legislation. Khalilzad can draw on the fact that the Kurds, although committed to their own autonomy, owe their very existence to American arms. And the growing number of jihadist attacks on Kirkuk, a northern city coveted by the Kurds for its rich oil deposits, shows that they too stand to lose by radicalizing the Sunnis.
WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS
Since Syria and Iran are a big part of Iraq's problems—Damascus shelters and funds Sunni insurgents; Tehran arms and trains Shi'ite militias—they will have to be a big part of any solution. That has always been clear in Baghdad, where leaders like President Jalal Talabani maintain that the U.S. needs to engage Iraq's neighbors in some sort of dialogue, through unofficial channels if no other options exist. Talabani told the bbc last week that "if Iran and Syria were involved, it will be the beginning of the end of terrorism and securing Iraq within months."
But talks with either country remain anathema to the Bush Administration, which has consistently accused Syria of harboring terrorists and is currently engaged in a war of words with Iran over its nuclear program. "We'd be very happy for them not to foment terror," White House spokesman Tony Snow said last week. "But it certainly doesn't change our diplomatic stance toward either." Given the U.S.'s predicament, the Administration needs all the help it can get in Iraq. "Dialogue is what everybody does—enemies and friends," says former Marine General Anthony Zinni, a former chief of the U.S. Central Command. "It's neither good nor bad."
Haass, who served both President Bushes, says that despite the Administration's current reluctance, the U.S. will eventually find itself in such dire straits that it won't have much choice but to engage Syria and Iran. "We don't have the luxury of not talking with Iran about Iraq simply because we disagree with Iran about other things," Haass says flatly. "I believe that as a rule of thumb we make a mistake when we set preconditions for negotiations. What matters in a negotiation is not where you begin, but where you end up."
GET TOUGH. THEN GET OUT
Given the breakdown of security in much of Baghdad and western Iraq, military commanders won't contemplate an imminent reduction in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq—which is holding steady at 140,000. And although some hawks, like Arizona Senator John McCain, advocate sending more troops in the short term, the Bush Administration—and the public—hasn't signaled any inclination to do so.
Even at current troop levels, U.S. forces may be able to bring the violence down to a more tolerable level. As the insurgency has intensified, many U.S. units have gone into "force protection" mode: going outside the wire only when a situation has reached crisis proportions and there's little they can do to set things right. That's the scenario that unfolded in Balad last week, when U.S. forces stood on the sidelines despite calls by Sunni leaders for them to intervene against the Shi'ite death squads. Some top commanders would instead like to see the U.S. military adopt more aggressive counterinsurgency tactics. For instance, rather than confine most troops to a few large bases on the outskirts of urban centers, the commanders advocate setting up smaller "patrol bases" near volatile neighborhoods. Those would give U.S. troops a higher profile—which is in itself a deterrent against violence—and allow them to respond more swiftly to trouble.
In Baghdad, the Americans have increased their patrolling in the city, but they are rarely on hand to prevent Shi'ite militias or Sunni insurgents from strafing a neighborhood or snatching people from the streets. Setting up more patrol bases in Baghdad could allow for surprise swoops and a more rapid response to crises.
But the corollary to a more aggressive posture is that as U.S. troops grow more visible, the insurgents will have greater incentive to keep fighting, which would inevitably lead to higher U.S. casualties. Although the military says it can withstand even the heavy toll it has suffered this month, many officers, as well as lawmakers from both parties, acknowledge that the unabated sacrifice of American life will eventually exhaust what public support remains for the war. At the Pentagon, officers are discussing withdrawal schemes. The question at this point may simply come down to how rapidly it's done. "We're all waiting for Nov. 7," says a senior officer, referring to Election Day in the U.S. "We know things have to change, but it needs to be reasonable. They can't just want us to bail out immediately. That would be ugly."
If all of these prescriptions were applied, would they make a difference? It's possible, but only if taken together. The Iraqi security forces can't be cleaned up unless the U.S. is prepared to face down al-Sadr—and it can accomplish neither of these tasks unless American commanders are allowed to be more aggressive on the ground. And no political solution is possible unless the Sunnis stay in the tent and the Iranians and Syrians agree to stay out of it.
Equally plausible, however, is the prospect that none of these steps will work, taken separately or together. Among independent analysts in Iraq and Washington, there is a growing skepticism about prescriptions of any kind. "No mix of options for U.S. action can provide a convincing plan for victory in Iraq," wrote Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in a recent paper. "The initiative has passed into Iraqi hands. There are no 'silver bullets' that can quickly rescue this situation." Saving Iraq, if it's still possible, won't happen without more blood and heartbreak—among Americans as well as Iraqis like Ammar Jawad. His family survived the bloodletting in Balad, and Jawad is leaning toward leaving his family there.
He says he has "given up believing things will be better anywhere in Iraq." It will be a long time before Iraqis like him will be persuaded otherwise—no matter when the U.S. goes.
—With reporting by Sally B. Donnelly, Michael Duffy and Mark Thompson/Washington, M. Ezzat/Baghdad and Scott MacLeod/Cairo
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