Interpreting the surge

Last week, I posted some preliminary thoughts on the surge of American troops proposed by President George Bush, essentially adopting the line that the surge is unlikely to produce a militarily significant outcome, although it may yield some short-term diplomatic gains both inside and outside Iraq. Chief among these would be placating the Saudis, who had grown nervous over a possible American withdrawal from the field in Iraq. If we were to leave, with the current situation on the ground being what it is, the Saudis would be compelled to aid more directly and substantially the Sunni insurgents in order to guard against Iranian domination of Iraq, which throws open the very real possibility of a regional war.

After viewing Sunday’s roundtables and sorting through the different reactions from Capitol Hill and the Pentagon to Mr. Bush’s speech, it would seem that I may have understated just how Saudi-centric the surge policy is, for there really is no justifiable explanation for the surge other than deference to Saudi Arabia. Opposition to it is even stronger than I had imagined, especially within the Pentagon’s bureaucracy. It is becoming clear that Mr. Bush is determined to keep the Saudis out of the fray and is willing to gamble all of his remaining political capital on it.

The problem with this strategy is that it does relatively little to resolve our quandary in the short term. On the plus side, if our surge signals to the Saudis our resolve in the matter, they may feel emboldened to cut off support to the Sunni insurgents operating inside Iraq (though there are a score of reasons why this may not happen). Dialing down the Sunni rebellion would be a good thing to be sure; however, we have been told repeatedly by our military—including our leading counter-terrorist experts—that the addition of American troops to Iraq would not accomplish anything and would instead make matters worse. Surely there are military and diplomatic options available to us to crush the Sunni rebellion without the addition of more troops. In fact, I am fairly confident that the American army could accomplish a great deal merely by virtue of being deployed along the Saudi borderlands where militants and materiel transit. Indeed, the only viable military mission for the Americans at this stage in the game is securing the borders, thereby allowing the Iraqis themselves to secure Baghdad and its environs.

Instead, we have chosen the exact opposite strategy. Rather than shutting down the Saudi and Syrian borders ourselves, we are relying on the goodwill of the Saudis to close off the pipeline of aid to the Sunni insurgency, which will allow the American army to deploy in force to Baghdad and/or the Iranian border. The problem is that we’ve been told by the Iraqi government that we’re not wanted in Baghdad, at least, that was the story until we leaned on Prime Minister Maliki to change his tune.

To make a long story short, the surge strategy reveals a few important things about the current state of affairs. First, there is close to zero trust between the Iraqi ‘Unity’ government and the Bush administration. Simply put, Bush does not trust that the Iraqi Shiites to do what they say they will do, which is to shut down the Shiite militias in Baghdad, hence our feeding troops into the capital city in order to insure progress. I’m not sure at this point whether the presence of the American army in Baghdad would further embolden the Maliki government to follow through, but that is the thinking.

The lack of trust, however, goes further than the short-term security situation in Baghdad. By essentially agreeing to do the Saudis’ bidding, we have apparently bought the Saudi argument that the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government cannot be trusted to maintain neutrality vis-à-vis the Iranians. Why do I say this? It is clear to me that the quickest and cleanest resolution here is for us to crush the Sunni rebellion ourselves and then help—as much as is possible—the Maliki government reach a political accommodation with the various Shiite factions. This might mean the destruction of intransigent militias, such as the Mahdi Army, but I suspect once the wheels begin to spin—and once the Sunnis are neutralized, thus removing the sectarian justification for maintaining militias—those Shiites currently outside the central government will elect to play ball and join the political process. It would almost certainly lead to a government even more dominated by the Shiites, but given their majority in Iraq, why shouldn’t a democratic government be controlled by the majority? To expect otherwise is foolishness. Even in highly evolved democracies such as our own, we are constantly challenged by the role and rights of the minority in government, and yet we expect Iraq, a young and fragile democracy, to exhibit such an outstanding degree of minority representation? And let’s not forget that the ‘minority’ in this case brutally suppressed the Shiites for decades.

But this is what the Saudis want, and it is, apparently, what we’re trying to deliver. So it seems to me, at root, our new strategy rests upon a geopolitical fantasy of power-sharing in Iraq. We still have not accepted the fact that the new Iraq will be dominated by Shiites; we are still trying to rig the game to our own long-term advantage, when at this point, the goal should be standing up a government—any government—that we can leave in place without utter chaos ensuing.

I cannot claim that I am sure the new strategy will fail, but I am fairly certain that it is far more risky than the alternatives, which leads me to the conclusion that the surge strategy is one born of political desperation and is not in the best interests of the American people. We cannot be guided by the desire to keep the Saudis out of harm’s way, nor should we delude ourselves into thinking that we can micromanage Iraq’s foreign affairs over the long term. If the Saudis don’t have the good sense to stay home, that’s their problem.