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Iraq’s plight imperils goals of U.S.
Violence since American forces left illustrates there remains ‘unfinished business’
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Iraq’s troubled start to life without U.S. forces calls into question the Obama administration’s assertion that it has wound down America’s long war responsibly: at least 78 killed in blasts across the country in a single day last week, a protracted political crisis with no end in sight, top political leaders accusing each other of monstrous criminality.
An extension of the costly and unpopular deployment of U.S. troops to Iraq may have only temporarily suppressed some of the tensions, but the heightened violence and political dysfunction illustrate the unfinished business the United States has left behind in Iraq.
Nine years after U.S. proponents of intervention predicted a cakewalk, a welcome mat and Iraqis singing and flying kites in a shining example of democracy for the Arab world, the U.S. is still struggling to finish the job.
It is unclear how much more help Iraq wants. Last month’s send-off of the last U.S. soldiers was followed inauspiciously by Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordering an arrest warrant for the country’s highest-ranking Sunni official, threatening to exclude the rival sect’s main political party from his government and warning of “rivers of blood” if Sunnis seek an autonomous region.
The Obama administration is defending the military withdrawal from Iraq, after the two countries were unable to agree on whether U.S. troops should be granted legal immunity.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said in an interview on Sunday that “periodic acts of violence” in Iraq, like those seen recently, are not new and that the thousands of U.S. civilians working there can be safe under Iraqi protection.
“We’re confident that we have an Iraqi government and an Iraqi security force that is capable of dealing with the security threats that are there now,” Mr. Panetta said on CBS‘ “Face the Nation.”
But President Obama’s decision is being attacked by critics during an election year.
“In all due respect, Iraq is unraveling. It’s unraveling because we did not keep residual forces there,” said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mr. McCain also spoke on CBS.
Leading U.S. efforts, the State Department got $6.2 billion in Iraq funds for the year. Some $3.8 billion is for the department’s operations, including for the deployment of several hundred diplomats, civil service experts and specialists in fields from agriculture and commerce to health and education.
Hundreds more are needed for management, logistics and security support in a land still wracked by violence. Thousands of security contractors also are being employed.
The Defense Department got an additional $11 billion to wrap up military operations and fund a leftover contingent of advisers and officials.
The total is a small amount against the backdrop of $1.3 trillion spent on Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade. Yet it belies any notion that the U.S. and Iraq can easily or cheaply “normalize” a relationship that has more often than not been nonexistent over the last four decades.
In Baghdad, the Vatican-sized U.S. Embassy stands like a city within a city, a reminder of the previous administration’s ambitious vision of an ironclad U.S.-Iraqi alliance based on shared interests, peace and democracy.
By far the biggest such U.S. outpost overseas and costing several hundred million dollars, the danger is it ends up being a symbol of U.S. isolation, its diplomats ensconced safely inside but unable to influence events beyond the fortress walls.
The Obama administration has maintained some of the optimistic Bush-era rhetoric for its vision of the future, while acknowledging that much depends on solving Iraq’s immediate problems.
When Mr. Maliki teamed up with Muqtada al-Sadr’s hard-line Shiite supporters, it guaranteed him the prime minister’s office. The U.S. secured a role for Ayad Allawi’s Sunni-led bloc after it won the most parliamentary seats, but key decisions on the legislation for the power-sharing arrangement were pushed off.
Iraq’s Defense and Interior ministries were similarly left for later. Now is later.
One legacy of the occupation that costs money to maintain but could be a key diplomatic tool is the distribution of U.S. diplomats throughout the country.
Instead of having all U.S. personnel pooled in the capital, and all its engagement efforts directed solely toward the prime minister and other central government leaders, Washington can simultaneously press the Kurds in the North and Sunnis and Shia at the regional level.
While Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. mobilizes his years of personal relationship with Iraq’s political elite at the very top, officials staff consulates in Basra, Irbil and, since Christmas, Kirkuk.
The administration wants to begin lowering costs in Iraq further. The plan envisions local staff replacing Americans in security and logistics, and more food and fuel purchased on local markets. The shift would depend on a more peaceful environment prevailing and the country embarking on a surer democratic path.
But the challenge remains: Can the U.S., with its limited capacity to shape events in Iraq, help forge a culture of nation in a place that may remain too deeply divided among themselves?
Mr. Maliki’s arrest warrant against Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a longtime critic, for allegedly organizing assassinations leaves the country divided at the upper echelons of government. If the schism reaches down to street level, Iraq risks sliding back toward the civil war-like violence of 2006 and 2007.
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Violence since American forces left illustrates there remains ‘unfinished business’
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Iraq’s troubled start to life without U.S. forces calls into question the Obama administration’s assertion that it has wound down America’s long war responsibly: at least 78 killed in blasts across the country in a single day last week, a protracted political crisis with no end in sight, top political leaders accusing each other of monstrous criminality.
An extension of the costly and unpopular deployment of U.S. troops to Iraq may have only temporarily suppressed some of the tensions, but the heightened violence and political dysfunction illustrate the unfinished business the United States has left behind in Iraq.
Nine years after U.S. proponents of intervention predicted a cakewalk, a welcome mat and Iraqis singing and flying kites in a shining example of democracy for the Arab world, the U.S. is still struggling to finish the job.
It is unclear how much more help Iraq wants. Last month’s send-off of the last U.S. soldiers was followed inauspiciously by Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordering an arrest warrant for the country’s highest-ranking Sunni official, threatening to exclude the rival sect’s main political party from his government and warning of “rivers of blood” if Sunnis seek an autonomous region.
The Obama administration is defending the military withdrawal from Iraq, after the two countries were unable to agree on whether U.S. troops should be granted legal immunity.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said in an interview on Sunday that “periodic acts of violence” in Iraq, like those seen recently, are not new and that the thousands of U.S. civilians working there can be safe under Iraqi protection.
“We’re confident that we have an Iraqi government and an Iraqi security force that is capable of dealing with the security threats that are there now,” Mr. Panetta said on CBS‘ “Face the Nation.”
But President Obama’s decision is being attacked by critics during an election year.
“In all due respect, Iraq is unraveling. It’s unraveling because we did not keep residual forces there,” said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mr. McCain also spoke on CBS.
Leading U.S. efforts, the State Department got $6.2 billion in Iraq funds for the year. Some $3.8 billion is for the department’s operations, including for the deployment of several hundred diplomats, civil service experts and specialists in fields from agriculture and commerce to health and education.
Hundreds more are needed for management, logistics and security support in a land still wracked by violence. Thousands of security contractors also are being employed.
The Defense Department got an additional $11 billion to wrap up military operations and fund a leftover contingent of advisers and officials.
The total is a small amount against the backdrop of $1.3 trillion spent on Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade. Yet it belies any notion that the U.S. and Iraq can easily or cheaply “normalize” a relationship that has more often than not been nonexistent over the last four decades.
In Baghdad, the Vatican-sized U.S. Embassy stands like a city within a city, a reminder of the previous administration’s ambitious vision of an ironclad U.S.-Iraqi alliance based on shared interests, peace and democracy.
By far the biggest such U.S. outpost overseas and costing several hundred million dollars, the danger is it ends up being a symbol of U.S. isolation, its diplomats ensconced safely inside but unable to influence events beyond the fortress walls.
The Obama administration has maintained some of the optimistic Bush-era rhetoric for its vision of the future, while acknowledging that much depends on solving Iraq’s immediate problems.
When Mr. Maliki teamed up with Muqtada al-Sadr’s hard-line Shiite supporters, it guaranteed him the prime minister’s office. The U.S. secured a role for Ayad Allawi’s Sunni-led bloc after it won the most parliamentary seats, but key decisions on the legislation for the power-sharing arrangement were pushed off.
Iraq’s Defense and Interior ministries were similarly left for later. Now is later.
One legacy of the occupation that costs money to maintain but could be a key diplomatic tool is the distribution of U.S. diplomats throughout the country.
Instead of having all U.S. personnel pooled in the capital, and all its engagement efforts directed solely toward the prime minister and other central government leaders, Washington can simultaneously press the Kurds in the North and Sunnis and Shia at the regional level.
While Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. mobilizes his years of personal relationship with Iraq’s political elite at the very top, officials staff consulates in Basra, Irbil and, since Christmas, Kirkuk.
The administration wants to begin lowering costs in Iraq further. The plan envisions local staff replacing Americans in security and logistics, and more food and fuel purchased on local markets. The shift would depend on a more peaceful environment prevailing and the country embarking on a surer democratic path.
But the challenge remains: Can the U.S., with its limited capacity to shape events in Iraq, help forge a culture of nation in a place that may remain too deeply divided among themselves?
Mr. Maliki’s arrest warrant against Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a longtime critic, for allegedly organizing assassinations leaves the country divided at the upper echelons of government. If the schism reaches down to street level, Iraq risks sliding back toward the civil war-like violence of 2006 and 2007.
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