We’d better look at Iraq and define “failure,” because that’s
what the rest of the world will be doing for us in less than three
weeks. The U.N., Old Europe and the Democrats will be sneering that
the Iraqi election isn’t valid because some Iraqis didn’t vote, and
fewer than 50 percent chose the victors. But that won’t make the
coming election invalid, and it won’t make our military action in
Iraq a failure. Our goal is to end the threat of terrorism
emanating from many Middle Eastern regimes. Failure, for us, has to
be defined in accordance with that goal. The goal of the insurgents
in Iraq — and most of Iraq’s neighbors — is to cause American
forces to withdraw without bringing an end to the other regimes
that support terrorism. Right now, it’s about even money on us, and
on them.
President Bush is perhaps too optimistic. Interim Iraqi
president Ayad Allawi has hit the airwaves to campaign while Sunni
clerics — some preaching from Saudi Arabia — are ordering a
boycott of the vote. Prominent Iraqis are saying that the election
should be postponed, Osama bin Laden is condemning the election,
Syria and Iran are doing everything short of invasion to interfere.
Yesterday, some Sunni leaders declared that they would withdraw
their opposition to the election if we gave them a date certain by
which we’d withdraw from Iraq.
Last week, Iraqi security chief, Gen Mohammad Shahwani, was
asked if the insurgents were winning. He said, “They are not
losing.” Shahwani reportedly estimated the insurgents’ strength at
200,000, outnumbering Coalition troops. He later reduced the
number, saying that the hard-core insurgents numbered only about
40,000, but that many more Iraqis were actively supporting them. A
few days before Shahani’s outburst, one U.S. general said that
“spectacular” terrorist attacks could take place before the
election. Shahani’s forces don’t seem to be succeeding — or
growing — as they should, so Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld this
week ordered retired Army General Gary Luck back to active duty and
to Iraq to evaluate the Iraqi security forces and determine what
can be done to make them effective more quickly. Luck’s mission is
not, as the media insists, to evaluate the whole Iraqi effort and
fix what’s broken in time for the election. Whatever Luck finds and
recommends won’t change anything in time for the January 30
election.
Iraq is pretty much what it was when Saddam’s regime fell: a
firmly divided tribal/ethnic/religious society that lacks a
compelling motivation for national unity. That is the one fact that
overrides all other issues in Iraq. The peoples of Iraq are more
firmly connected to religious and tribal groups — which in some
cases means other Islamic nations — than they are connected to the
British exercise in map drawing we think of as Iraq. No matter how
many Iraqis vote, no matter how fearful many Iraqis are of the
insurgents, and no matter how much credence the international
community gives the results of the election, Iraq will retain its
national identity only if these disparate groups believe there is
more benefit to them in a unified Iraq than in splitting the nation
up and becoming a collection of Iranian, Syrian, and Saudi
provinces. Not that the Kurds would count themselves in any of
that. A separate Kurdistan would be very attractive to them were it
not for the objections of Turkey.
Other than Allawi, none of the candidates appear to be running
on any sort of national unity platform. If, as seems likely, Allawi
wins with a significant plurality he will have no majority behind
him and no mandate for anything. If enough Sunni and Kurdish
candidates win seats in the new parliament, and Allawi brings many
of them into his cabinet, a temporary unity can be achieved. Sunni
radicals and Iraqi and Syrian Baathists will surely continue the
insurgency regardless of the outcome. In sum, the election will be
a milestone, but not a significant one. What can we do?
Between now and the election, there’s only two things we can do.
First and foremost, the President needs to assure the Iraqi people
that if they choose to let us, we will do our best to keep them
free. To those in the Sunni Triangle, those words will ring pretty
hollow after more than a year of bloody insurgency. But they need
to be said again and again. In 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, where
relative peace has been achieved, they will mean a lot.
Second, we can and must put as much pressure on the insurgents
and their sponsors as we can. No, that doesn’t mean creating “death
squads” to search out and kill insurgents (which one breathless
report said — with a comprehensive lack of accuracy — we are in
the process of doing). What it does mean is sending covert
operations into Syria to deny the insurgents the sanctuaries they
enjoy there. It means providing as much security for Iraqi voters
as we can. And it means planning to stick around for a very long
time after the election. Though it’s unlikely, a new Iraqi
government could demand we withdraw or set a firm date for us to do
so. Were it to do so, the chances of civil war in Iraq with open
intervention by Syrian, Iranian, and Saudi forces would grow quite
high. Once we left, the terrorist neighbors of Iraq would be
greatly strengthened, not defanged, by their acquisition of Iraqi
territory and people. And that would be failure.
TAS Contributing Editor Jed Babbin is the author
of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are Worse Than
You Think (Regnery Publishing).
