Iraq Reading

Some recommended weekend reading on Iraq:

The International Crisis Group has a new report discussing what it describes as "the dramatic decline in bloodshed in Iraq" and how to capitalize on that. The ICG believes that while the U.S. military's "surge" of thousands of extra troops contributed to the decline, it is largely due to Muqtada Sadr's unilateral cease-fire in August 2007. That, in turn, appears to have been the result of growing dissatisfaction within Sadr's support base with the radicalism and indiscipline in the ranks of Sadr's Mahdi Army.

See the full ICG report here: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5286&l=1

The ICG says that while militants in Sadr's camp are eager to end the cease-fire, Sadr's move opens the possibility of a more genuine and lasting transformation of his movement into a strictly non-violent political actor.

To facilitate that transformation, the ICG advises the U.S. and Iraqi governments to circumscribe military operations against the Mahdi Army and show tolerance toward Sadrist activities that are strictly
non-military, such as those involving education, media, health services and religious affairs. The ICG also encourages a freeze in recruitment into the U.S.-backed militias that were set up to fight the Mahdi Army. Instead, the ICG says, the Iraqi government should concentrate on building a professional, non-partisan security force that integrates Mahdi Army fighters.

Easier said than done, no doubt. Last week's TIME story on Iraq by Michael Duffy and Mark Kukis (our man in Baghdad) illustrates how the surge is a limited and fragile success. Not least because of the failure to date of national reconciliation efforts.

Duffy and Kukis:

Iraqi security forces remain unable to mount operations without the logistical help of U.S. forces. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is on the run, but it has not been routed, and it still enjoys free rein in some parts of the country. Murder, death threats and kidnappings are still commonplace; more than 100,000 sections of concrete car-bomb barriers now snake around Baghdad's neighborhoods. And in something of an understatement, even Petraeus calls the progress toward political reconciliation "tenuous." The largest Sunni bloc in parliament, known as the Accordance Front, walked out in August. In January, the parliament passed a measure that would extend to former Baathists and supporters of Saddam a measure of eligibility for service in the new government, which is largely controlled by Shi'ites. The move was long overdue, and no one knows whether the measure will ever be implemented; Sunnis are skeptical, and so, at times, is Washington. "We nudge. We push. We prod. We pull. We cajole," says U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker. But he adds that the Iraqis "have to make the decision."

And that's the trouble... Several thousand troops involved in the surge have quietly begun to pull out. For now, Petraeus and Odierno are sticking by their plan to draw down U.S. forces by roughly 4,000 troops a month through July. Left unchanged, that would return U.S. forces close to their pre-surge level. But both men caution that it could be halted if violence flares up. Petraeus says further withdrawals depend on a matrix of unknowns: military and economic conditions, and whether the Iraqis are showing signs of governing themselves.
Uncertainties of that size make it impossible to know where the U.S. will be in Iraq in six months, and that's something the presidential candidates would be better off not trying to predict. Iraq is an undoubtedly safer, better place than it was 12 months ago. Yet the ultimate outcome in Iraq is out of the hands of Petraeus and the U.S. military. After a yearlong surge, the U.S. is about to move from the relatively safe ground of betting on its troops to betting on Iraqis. And that's a very different kind of wager.

(The TIME story: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1708843,00.html)

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo