Sunday, December 30, 2007

'Surge' in mindset will yield solutions

Dec.30, 2007


'Surge' in mindset will yield solutions


A CLOSE look at the elements in play in Iraq would show that the US declaration that its "surge" in troops since early this year has worked well in Baghdad and surrounding areas is an exaggeration. But then, the US could not be expected to admit that the relative calm has more to do with Iraqis themselves than the "surge."
In Baghdad itself, the number of suicide attacks and bombings has gone down. The main reason is that Baghdad is now a city of communal enclaves zealously guarded by sectarian militiamen who trust no one but their own.
However, this does not bode well for the future because of the communal division of the Iraqi capital that pre-empts interaction among its residents as fellow citizens of Iraq. The sectarian split should not be allowed to take such deep and physical roots if there is any hope of the country returning to normal at any point in time.
The order issued by firebrand Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr to his Mahdi Army militiamen to keep a low profile and cease attacks in the wake of the US "surge" was another factor that contributed to reducing violence in Baghdad.
However, the Mahdi Army remains one of the potent forces that could spring back to action when they feel the time is opportune for them to resume implementing their sectarian agenda.
The decline in violence in areas neighbouring Baghdad is mainly because of the alienation between the Sunnis and Al Qaeda and the emergence of neighbourhood groups backed by the US military. The US military started nurturing the Sunni groups months before the "surge" and gave them vehicles, uniforms, bullet-proof jackets and $300 a month.
Now the Sunni groups are said to number about 70,000, and they are demanding that they be incorporated into the country's regular security forces, something that the Iraqi government is not really interested in doing. A major crisis is brewing there, with the US finding itself unable to work out a compromise.
In general, the relative calm in western Iraq could be attributed to the fact that most areas there have been "ethnically cleansed" — accounting for the two million Iraqis who have been internally displaced.
In southern Iraq, tension runs high between the Mahdi Army and its main Shiite challenger, the Badr Brigade of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, both vying for dominance despite having signed an agreement to end fighting and to co-operate. The US does not have a large military presence in the south and the relative calm there could be attributed to the agreement signed by Sadr and Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council leader Abdul Aziz Hakim.
Notwithstanding any of these arguments, the US could indeed assert what matters is that there has been a marked drop in violence in Iraq. What the US would not want to admit is the fact that there are real and serious crises simmering just below the surface almost everywhere in Iraq. Washington on its own does not have any effective means to solve them because the crises are rooted in the very ethnic make-up of Iraq and the history of the country in the last century. The only way out perhaps is through a US acceptance that the strategic goals of its invasion and occupation of Iraq could never be achieved. If and when the US accepts this as a reality, then solutions for the Iraq crisis would materialise themselves.