The Endgame in Iraq

If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Hamlet 5.2.209.

While the situation in Iraq is still relatively calm when compared to the situation there 3 or 4 years ago, there are signs emerging that as American troops withdraw from the urban areas, ethnic conflict is, somewhat subliminally perhaps, returning to the scene.  Something that dramatically turned things around in Iraq was known as “The Awakening.”  The Awakening was composed of former Sunni insurgents that the Americans organized and paid to fight against Al Qaeda.  Members of “The Awakening” have maintained for some time that as more power is returned to the elected Iraqi government, which is decidedly non-Sunni, adverse events might begin to happen to them.

Many leaders of the Awakening, mostly former Sunni insurgents who joined hands with U.S. forces to fight the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, have long had a contentious relationship with Iraq's Shiite-led government. But the weekend battles have sparked fresh frustration and mistrust of both the U.S. military and Iraq's mostly Shiite security forces, according to interviews with Awakening leaders.

In an insurgent war the best one can hope for is for peace and stability to be achieved and the violence associated with the insurgency to disappear, that is, for the insurgency to disappear.  One problem though is that an insurgency can go into hiding at a time of its choosing.   Disappearing back into the general population is part of any insurgent strategy.  If this is what has happened in Iraq, what now appears subliminal may once again take on larger proportions. Thomas E. Ricks has maintained for some time that the war in Iraq isn't over, in fact, the main events may not even have happened yet. From researching his book on the Iraq War, he states in a recent column in the Washington Post:

Many of those closest to the situation in Iraq expect a full-blown civil war to break out there in the coming years. "I don't think the Iraqi civil war has been fought yet," one colonel told me. Others were concerned that Iraq was drifting toward a military takeover. Counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen worried that the classic conditions for a military coup were developing -- a venal political elite divorced from the population lives inside the Green Zone, while the Iraqi military outside the zone's walls grows both more capable and closer to the people, working with them and trying to address their concerns.

In 2007, Mr. Ricks compared the situation in Iraq as being like the third act of a five act Shakespearean tragedy, a situation where it was still not certain what the outcome would be and that the final outcome itself was still some distance away.  In spite of this, some Americans seem surprised that President Obama’s Iraq troop withdraw plan has 35,000-50,000 Americans still in Iraq in late 2011. 

It is clear that Obama Iraqi policy is part of a much larger Middle East Strategy that includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Israel and its neighbors.  Syria in particular has been mentioned.

The White House has tough diplomatic choices to make in the next few months. Assad has told the Obama Administration that his nation can ease the American withdrawal in Iraq. Syria also can help the U.S. engage with Iran, and the Iranians, in turn, could become an ally in neighboring Afghanistan, as the Obama Administration struggles to deal with the Taliban threat and its deepening involvement in that country—and to maintain its long-standing commitment to the well-being of Israel. Each of these scenarios has potential downsides. Resolving all of them will be formidable, and will involve sophisticated and intelligent diplomacy—the kind of diplomacy that disappeared during the past eight years, and that the Obama team has to prove it possesses.

Delusional mutterings from the world’s most evil person Dick Cheney allegedly “portrayed Obama to the Israelis as a “pro-Palestinian,” who would not support their efforts (and, in private, disparaged Obama, referring to him at one point as someone who would “never make it in the major leagues”)” fortunately seem a more apt description of what he sees when he looks in a mirror – it is a question of course whether he sees anything.  Regardless any sane person certainly hopes that the Obama administration will indeed explore areas that have been missing for some time in American foreign policy efforts.

It surely must, as the future will either see progress toward solutions to the most difficult issues the United States and the world face or degenerate into a series of processes that so far have only been hinted.  Movement toward concluding the United States involvement in Iraq on favorable terms may provide an early indication on how regional and global issues may or may not be easily resolved as well.