With Bush's 'Surge' Finally in Place, a Clamor for Results
Now, can Iraq weather the bombing of a key mosque?
For months, U.S. officials have been worried that it might take just one catastrophic event, perhaps a particularly deadly bombing or sectarian massacre, to obliterate any tenuous glimmers of progress in reducing violence in Baghdad. So when the news came in last week about explosions toppling the minarets of Samarra's Askariya shrine—the same holy Shiite site whose bombing in February 2006 plunged Iraq into a frenzy of sectarian violence—the Bush administration was understandably worried. Iraqi and U.S. authorities immediately imposed curfews across the country and a ban on vehicles in Baghdad to prevent a spate of retaliatory attacks.
The following day was relatively quiet, despite reports that some families fled their homes fearing sectarian violence. But the strict measures are a reminder of how tenuous the security situation is five months after President Bush announced his so-called surge strategy. Just this month, the full complement of some 28,000 additional U.S. troops finally arrived in Iraq. As those reinforcements continue to fan out around Baghdad to establish new security posts, the Bush administration says that it will take at least two months before the Pentagon can evaluate what effect the new security plan is having.
Moving around. Early indications are far from encouraging. While sectarian killings appear to have declined at least temporarily in the capital, the Pentagon reports that overall violence levels nationwide remain as high as ever. Indeed, even as U.S. troops boost their presence in some Baghdad neighborhoods, many insurgents appear to have simply moved to outlying provinces that now have a much thinner security presence. Even worse, insurgents continue to successfully attack U.S. forces. Monthly death tolls for American soldiers are near record levels, in part because the new strategy leaves them more exposed on the streets of Baghdad. For its part, the Iraqi government has been unable to find any new breathing room on making long-overdue political reforms, and politicians in Washington are becoming increasingly impatient.
The one spot of good news—a serious drop in al Qaeda activity in the troubled western province of Anbar—appears to have little to do with the surge strategy. A report issued by the Pentagon last week trumpeted a 34 percent decline in the number of attacks in Anbar since December 2006, with violence levels in Ramadi at a two-year low. U.S. commanders report that more Iraqis are joining the security forces there and civilians are providing better tips about terrorist activity. But the most important factor is a decision by many Sunni tribesmen to band together against al Qaeda in Iraq and other jihadist groups.
Suspicion. U.S. officials are quietly supplying those Sunni tribes with weapons and ammunition. That strategy could backfire, given the tribes' history of fast-shifting alliances. "If al Qaeda is ever run out of town, the next agenda item for most Sunni Arabs is an end to the occupation," says Wayne White, a former top Iraq analyst for the State Department's intelligence office who is now an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute. "They could well turn on us." Fueling that concern is a persistent suspicion among Iraqis that the United States has far-reaching designs on their country and its oil resources. "There is nothing that offends Iraqis more or stirs up anti-foreign sentiment in Iraq more than talking about foreign bases," says White. "As long as we reject calls to renounce permanent bases, Iraqis will remain very skeptical of our long-term intentions."
Despite that concern, Bush administration officials are being increasingly explicit about the need for a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq. White House spokesman Tony Snow recently raised the analogy of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, while Secretary of Defense Robert Gates talked about a "protracted" deployment in Iraq. Indeed, some officials argue that an extended stay is essential for the Bush strategy to succeed and that past security plans failed because extremists returned as soon as U.S. soldiers cleared an area and moved to another. "There is no doubt that the United States has to have a presence in Iraq for years to come," says a Bush administration official. "There is a level of U.S. troop long-term presence that is acceptable to the people of Iraq and also acceptable to the people of the United States. But I don't think anyone knows what the number is yet." Some press reports last week suggested that officials were drawing up plans for a "post-occupation" force that could top 40,000 troops, although Bush aides insist that they are focused now only on trying to make the surge work. "It's so obvious to me that George Bush will never want to be the guy to ratchet back our presence in a way that is tantamount to admitting defeat," says Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who follows the U.S. military. "The question is whether the country is willing to fund it."
Tough battles lie ahead in Washington. Democratic leaders said last week that they are planning a new round of votes on proposals to impose timetables for withdrawal from Iraq. The bills face tough hurdles in the Senate (and it will most likely be impossible to overcome a presidential veto). But the skirmishes will foreshadow a bruising funding battle set for September, when next year's budget will be discussed and the first assessments of the surge's full impact are due.
The other potential limiting factor is what kind of deployments the U.S. military will be able to sustain over time (along with the mission in Afghanistan). "There is no way to prove whether or not the force can handle this because there is no statistical data relevant to this level of strain," says O'Hanlon. "We'll probably be able to hold up for at least a few more years of this, but if you're concerned about more intangible questions, such as whether this is fair or not to our men and women in uniform, you may come to a different conclusion."
Of course, all of this could be moot if the Iraqis cannot reach some difficult political compromises. Iraqi political leaders have moved a few steps closer to agreeing on legislation to govern distribution of oil revenues, but the bill is still being blocked. Efforts to loosen the strict law banning tens of thousands of former officials from Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from government posts have also run into a brick wall. And a dispute over the forced resignation of the controversial Iraqi parliament speaker, one of the most prominent Sunni politicians in the shaky coalition government, will only further delay the stalled efforts at negotiating reforms to Iraq's Constitution aimed at defusing sectarianism.
This story appears in the June 25, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.