CMES faculty member Roger Owen penned an op-ed piece for the Boston Globe in May. Titled "Back to the Endgame in Iraq," read the editorial here:
By Roger Owen | May 31, 2007
LAST FALL, President Bush unceremoniously dumped the findings of the Baker-Hamilton report in favor of one last "surge" of troops in Iraq to bring the insurgency under control. Now, however, parts of the report are being touted in the White House as a guide to how to manage Iraq during a future withdrawal of troops. These include training Iraqi forces, reducing combat operations, except against Al Qaeda and in efforts to secure Iraq's borders, as well as attempting to obtain vital Iranian and Syrian cooperation in the process, now tentatively underway.
The reasons are not difficult to understand. The war is becoming increasingly unpopular by the day, the money released in the revised Iraq spending bill are due to run out in September, and, if past experience is an indication, any future discussion of Iraq will result in the defection of more Republicans anxious about their reelection prospects in 2008.
Moreover, the debate about Iraq has divided the nation into two camps. One says the American presence encourages more violence while allowing the government of Nouri al-Maliki to postpone difficult political decisions. The other speaks about breakdown and chaos if the troops leave too soon.
The truth is both sides are largely right. Given the sectarian nature of the Iraqi political situation, Iraqi leaders know that it is in their interest to reach a compromise across sectarian lines, both to ensure their continued access to the huge resources of the state and to prevent the more radical militia leaders from turning bits of the country into their own personal fiefs, as happened in Lebanon during its own civil war. Nevertheless, it is also clear that this is going to be a difficult process, accompanied by a great deal of violence and one that may take many years, perhaps a decade or two, to accomplish.
Interestingly, this is something that seems to be understood by the holders of two intermediate positions, the American commander of ground forces in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, and Rory Stewart, former coalition deputy governorate coordinator for Maysan Province in the Iraqi south.
For Odierno, rather than pressuring the Iraqi government to implement a set of measures concerning the future distribution of oil, reconciliation with the Sunnis, and so on, the United States should recognize that all this depends on a larger, prior, agreement by the Iraqi politicians to cooperate across a broad front, something that will take much more time.
For Stewart, though the United States and Britain should be prepared to pull the troops out immediately, on the grounds that the war is making sectarian reconciliation more difficult, it has to be done in an orderly way that allows the Iraqis time to adjust to the new situation.
Watching and waiting, of course, are the Iraqi politicians, still uncertain about what will happen next. They are handicapped by basic divisions between the Shi'ites, who want a unified Iraqi state, and the Kurds, who want a large measure of autonomy, especially when it comes to the exploitation of their oil reserves. They are also hindered by the lack of a credible Sunni leadership to act as partners in the creation of a new sectarian system of government and control.
Enter one of the most important Shi'ite politicians, Moqtada al- Sadr, back, it seems, from several months of exile in Iran. While it is possible to speculate on his motives, the way he views the situation, with its problems and possibilities, cannot be greatly different from that of the politicians who remained in Baghdad. He knows he has to be at the political center to be able to play the political game. He knows that he runs great risks if large sections of his own militia, the Mahdi's army, escape his control. And he knows that one of the best cards a Shi'ite leader can play in order to reach out to the Sunni leaders is that of non sectarian, anti-American, Iraqi nationalism.
Like the other politicians, Sadr can imagine the end of the process but with only the most general notions about how to get there. We in America are no different. One day the fractured country will put itself together again, but not until a great deal more violence, displacement, and destruction have taken place. Meanwhile, we should do our best to understand how a solution is likely to come about and what will be useful in promoting such an outcome.
This includes collaborating with Iraq's neighboring states, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia; encouraging the Kurds not to proclaim their independence; and assisting Iraqi forces to contain, or perhaps destroy, the local Al Qaeda and other Sunni militant Islamic networks. In a paradoxical way, the short-term presence of several large American bases would act as a spur to the politicians to re-establish Iraq's own sovereignty under their own control.
Beyond that lies what optimists must imagine as some kind of tipping point: when there is basic agreement in Baghdad about the new rules of the political game, when the Iraqi army and police can maintain greater security, when at least some of the huge army of exiles feel it's safe to return. The road there won't be pretty, it won't be short, and it won't be easy. But it will be fundamentally an Iraqi road, and there are still good reasons to believe that, in the end, it will succeed.
Roger Owen is a professor Middle East history at Harvard University.