Iraq: 'How the Surge Fails By Succeeding'

The much-debated surge may have reduced violence and American casualties in Iraq. But any short-term progress has come at the price of the country's long-term stability, according to Steven Simon, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In a new article (.pdf) in Foreign Affairs, which the magazine is touting with the tagline, "How the Surge Fails By Succeeding," Simon calls out those who say the surge has gone so far as to end the civil war in Iraq. He contends that "such claims misconstrue the causes of the recent fall in violence and, more important, ignore a fatal flaw in the strategy."

The surge has changed the situation not by itself but only in conjunction with several other developments: the grim successes of ethnic cleansing, the tactical quiescence of the Shiite militias, and a series of deals between U.S. forces and Sunni tribes that constitute a new bottom-up approach to pacifying Iraq. The problem is that this strategy to reduce violence is not linked to any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state. If anything, it has made such an outcome less likely, by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni Arab tribes and pitting them against the central government and against one another. In other words, the recent short-term gains have come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq.

Noah warned about this last year, after he got back from Iraq:

In local newspaper articles, in radio and loudspeaker broadcasts – and in talks on the street – [U.S. pyschological operations teams in Sunni Fallujah] started playing up "operations against Shi'a militia." [They spread the word about] how the U.S. troop "surge" was silencing Shi'a leader Moktada "al-Sadr's yipping and yapping."

The successes of the American counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq have, so far, been hyperlocal: local watchmen, patrolling their mini-neighborhoods; local tribal and political leaders, making deals with American commanders. And in that context, playing on fears on Shi'ite boogeymen in Sunni regions makes a ton of sense.

The question, though, is what are the national consequences of this local strategy. How can the U.S. encourage country-wide reconciliation
– while riding a wave of sectarian hate?

Simon also offers some thoughts on how to get out, among them:

The only alternative is a return to a top-down strategy. To be more effective this time around, Washington must return to the kind of diplomacy that the Bush administration has largely neglected. Even with
160,000 troops in Iraq, Washington lacks the leverage on its own to push the Maliki government to take meaningful steps to accommodate
Sunni concerns and thereby empower Sunni moderates...

Finally, the tribes feeding off the surge must be weaned from U.S. assistance and linked firmly to Baghdad as their source of support. Intertwining the tribes with Baghdad in this way, as the Iraq specialist Charles
Tripp has noted, would yield something very much like the imperial protectorates in the Middle East of the first half of the twentieth century. The “club of patrons” in the capital would dole out goods to tribes through favored conduits. At this juncture, the U.S. military is performing the role of the patrons—creating an unhealthy dependency and driving a dangerous wedge between the tribes and the state.

Gen.
Petraeus is testifying before Congress today – and is expected to call for a continuation of the tactics of the last year. Things in Iraq have certainly improved under Petraeus' watch. But is Simon right, that many of his Petraeus' moves have to be essentially flipped on their heads, to succeed in the long term? Sound off in the comments.

But whatever you do, just don't send this guy back over there (– video here).

(Illustration: Foreign Affairs)