WASHINGTON - Despite a reduction in
violence over the past 15 months, "The US risks
getting bogged down in Iraq for a long time to
come, with serious consequences for its interests
in other parts of the world," according to a new
assessment by the same group of experts who
advised the bipartisan blue-ribbon Iraq Study
Group (ISG) in 2006.
The assessment, which
was released on the eve of a critical
congressional testimony this week by Washington's
ambassador and chief military officer in Iraq,
concludes that the decline in violence has
resulted in very little progress toward achieving
national reconciliation and that gains in security
remain "fragile and dependent on the presence of
US forces".
"Political progress is so
slow, halting and superficial, and social
and political
fragmentation so pronounced that the US is no
closer to being able to leave Iraq than it was a
year ago," according to the report released by the
US Institute of Peace (USIP) and entitled "Iraq
After the Surge: Options and Questions".
"Lasting political development could take
five to 10 years of full, unconditional US
commitment to Iraq," it concluded, noting that
such a commitment already "carries a massive cost,
both human and financial, in addition to the
global interests the US is sacrificing to its
commitment in Iraq. Even if progress in Iraq
continues, the results may not be worth the cost,"
it warned.
The report, which lays out
three possible options for US policy in Iraq over
the next year or so, comes just two days before
ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus
are to ask that Washington suspend its current
drawdown of US "surge" forces in Iraq at the
anticipated 140,000-troop level by the end of July
to ensure that security gains achieved over the
past year can be sustained. At the height of the
"surge" several months ago, Washington had about
170,000 troops in Iraq.
That
recommendation, which appears to enjoy the backing
of US President George W Bush, is likely to be
hotly disputed by Democrats in Congress who favor
continuing to withdraw combat troops at the rate
of about 5,000 a month through the end of the year
- a position privately shared by the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, who have fretted publicly that
maintaining high levels of deployment in Iraq is
taking an unsustainable toll on both the morale of
US ground forces and on their readiness to deal
with other potential military crises.
The
new USIP report, which represents the views of
scores of military and regional experts who
advised the bipartisan, Congressionally appointed
Iraq Study Group (ISG) two years ago, will almost
certainly give the dissenters ammunition in their
questioning of Crocker and Petraeus.
The
ISG, which was co-chaired by former secretary of
state James Baker and former Democratic
Representative Lee Hamilton, had called in
December 2006 for withdrawing all US combat troops
by April 2008, leaving the remaining troops -
about 80,000 - to focus on training and equipping
Iraqi security forces, conducting operations
against al-Qaeda in Iraq, and protecting US
civilian personnel.
Bush, however,
rejected that recommendation and opted instead for
a "surge" strategy that increased US troop
strength by about 30,000 in hopes that the
additional forces would substantially reduce
sectarian violence in and around Baghdad and
encourage Iraq's warring political and religious
factions to make the compromises necessary for
national reconciliation.
While the
strategy has made major advances on the security
front, progress toward reconciliation has been
largely consisted of "tactical horse-trading"
designed above all to satisfy minimum US
"benchmarks" - such as revenue sharing and a
reform of the de-Ba'athification laws - to ensure
Washington's continued support, according to the
report.
"[T]hough positive as far as it
goes, [it] has not alleviated the underlying
causes of political instability in Iraq or
facilitated the emergence of a truly national
polity," the report concluded, noting as well that
"much of [the] success [of the current strategy]
is due to factors that are outside US control and
therefore subject to change."
Among those
factors are a ceasefire by the Muqtada al-Sadr's
Mahdi Army and the willingness of former Sunni
insurgents "stridently opposed to the
[Shi'ite-led] Iraqi government" to cooperate with
US forces against al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The
report suggests two possible alternatives to the
current policy of an "unconditional" US commitment
to Iraq.
The first, an echo of the 2006
ISG report, calls for a "reduced, conditional
commitment" that would tie future US support for
the government in Baghdad to a few minimal goals -
creating a mechanism for oil revenue sharing,
holding provincial elections to formalize a
decentralized power structure, and
professionalizing a non-sectarian army to "guard
the state and police factional violence".
If Baghdad failed to make meaningful
progress toward these goals by the end of this
year, then the US would withdraw its forces
according to its own timetable. If it did make
such progress, Washington would still reduce its
forces and focus on training and equipping the
Iraqi army and helping it prevent factional
violence.
A second option would be an
"unconditional, near-total reduction of the US
military commitment" coupled with "an enhanced
security presence in the region, an invigorated
diplomatic effort [directed primarily at Iran and
Saudi Arabia], and continuing political support
for the Iraqi government".
Each of these
options, including the current strategy of
unconditional commitment, carries different risks
and possible benefits for US interests in Iraq,
the region and beyond, according to the report,
which identifies five "paramount interests"
affected by US policy in Iraq.
They
include: preventing Iraq from becoming a haven or
platform for international terrorists; restoring
US credibility, prestige and capacity to act
worldwide; improving regional stability; limiting
and redirecting Iranian influence; and maintaining
an independent Iraq as a single state.
The
report addresses the possible impact of each of
the three scenarios on the five interests.
Maintaining the current strategy, it concludes
would have a "major negative impact" on
Washington's capacity to act worldwide; a reduced,
conditional commitment would, on the other hand,
have a "positive" impact on that capacity, while
an unconditional, near-total reduction of
commitment would have a mixed impact by, on the
one hand freeing up US military capacity, while,
on the other, risking the "perception of US
defeat".
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