An Iraq Roundtable

Foreign Affairs contributes a roundtable discussion of Iraq to the stack of summer reading.  The participants included Larry Diamond, James Dobbins, Chaim Kaufmann, Leslie H. Gelb, and Stephen Biddle, and the focal point was "Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon," March/April 2006 by Stephen Biddle.

Some excerpts after the break:

Larry Diamond, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, is the author of Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq:

First, Iraq is already in the midst of a very violent civil conflict, which claims 500 to 1,000 lives or more every month. Second, this internal conflict has become primarily communal in nature; as Biddle writes, it is a fight "about group survival." ... the United States cannot in good conscience withdraw from Iraq abruptly -- and doing so would not even be in the United States' national interest -- because that would remove the last significant barrier to a total conflagration.

Although the war in Iraq is mainly a communal conflict, it is not only that. It also contains an important element of nationalist insurgency. One misses an essential piece of the puzzle -- and a reason the conflict is so difficult to contain -- if one does not grasp that many Iraqis (mostly Sunnis) are fighting in some significant measure because they believe they are waging a war of resistance against American occupiers and the Iraqi "traitors" who cooperate with them.

...A combined diplomatic effort by the United States, the un, and the eu, working in close coordination and speaking with one voice, might well engage all the relevant actors and gain the leverage to extract concessions from them on key issues.

...A truly international mediation process in Iraq would need to be carefully planned, designed, and coordinated. And there is relatively little time to do this. But there is no better option for achieving the political compromise necessary to stabilize Iraq and prevent it from descending into all-out civil war.

James Dobbins directs the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation and is the lead author of The RAND History of Nation-Building.

Stephen Biddle has provided a very useful reminder that history teaches a variety of relevant lessons -- even if official Washington often has difficulty absorbing more than one at a time. In 2003, the Bush administration based its plans for the reconstruction of Iraq on the U.S. occupations of Germany and Japan. Its critics have increasingly compared the results to Vietnam. Biddle suggests that the better analogy may be post-Cold War Yugoslavia.

...Had the Bush administration used Bosnia or Kosovo as the model for Iraq, it would have realized that the stabilization and reconstruction of that country was going to require a lot more time, money, and manpower than it had planned.

...But it did none of these things. Instead, a faulty historical analogy led to faulty policy choices. When Baghdad fell, the Bush administration initially seemed to view Iraq as a prize won rather than as a burden acquired.

...It seems unlikely, however, that the United States at this late stage will deploy a force in Iraq large enough to successfully execute either Balkan-style peace enforcement or Vietnam-style pacification. The United States put 500,000 troops into South Vietnam, a country that in 1970 had a population that was little more than half the size of the population of Iraq today. Nato put over 100,000 troops into Bosnia and Kosovo, societies that in combination are around a fifth of the size of Iraq's. Coalition forces are currently not numerous enough even to suppress the Sunni insurgency; they are certainly insufficient to take on the much more powerful Shiite and Kurdish militias as well.

...Neither the American nor the Iraqi people are likely to support a larger, longer U.S. military role in Iraq. Neither the Balkan model of peace enforcement nor the Vietnamese model of pacification is open to the United States. Insofar as a future U.S. military role in Iraq is concerned, the more apt analogy would be the counterinsurgency campaigns of Central America in the 1980s, where U.S. military involvement was largely limited to advice and training. In Iraq, however, this reduced military engagement will have to be paired with a much more active U.S. campaign of regional diplomacy if the slide toward wider civil war is to be averted.

Chaim Kaufmann is Associate Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University.

Three different civil wars are now raging in Iraq: the first between U.S.-led coalition forces and antigovernment insurgents, the second between the Kurds and other communities in northern Iraq, and the third between Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs in the center of the country. The last is the most important because it represents the greatest potential for humanitarian disaster as well as for long-term instability in Iraq and in the region.

Stephen Biddle offers the right diagnosis of the situation but the wrong prescription for treating it.

...Iraq will eventually develop internal communal borders with a few heavily guarded crossing points. Since the ethnic makeup of Baghdad is far too complex for the city to be divided into just two parts, some of its neighborhoods will become isolated enclaves surrounded by barbed wire. This ugly solution has worked before: in Jerusalem, Mount Scopus was a Jewish island from 1948 to 1967. Any such partition of Iraq would likely be de facto, because many Shiite leaders still hope that a unified country can emerge, and no regime in the Middle East would tolerate formal independence for the Kurds.

In the meantime, the United States will remain the strongest military force in Iraq. As such, it will have one remaining duty: the moral obligation to minimize the damage, human and otherwise, caused by ethnic cleansing. This is also a U.S. national security interest: the U.S. government is -- and will continue to be -- blamed by most of the world for all of the harm that befalls the people of Iraq. The shorter that bill of indictment, the better.

Leslie H. Gelb is President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The United States' way forward and out of Iraq now comes down to a fatal choice between President George W. Bush's policy of simply staying the course even as security in Iraq slowly deteriorates and his critics' policy of quickly withdrawing U.S. forces even with civil war looming....

There is a third way: for the United States to stop its futile resistance to the inevitable sectarian tides now rolling over Iraq and help the Iraqis channel these forces into a viable political settlement -- uniting Iraq by decentralizing it...

There is, in fact, a way to keep Iraq whole and make it politically stable: rather than continue to tear the country apart with futile efforts at centralization, decentralize it...

This policy has five elements. The first is to establish, consistent with the current constitution, three strong regions with a limited but effective central government in a federally united Iraq. Doing so would build the post-Saddam Hussein Iraq around Kurdish, Sunni Arab, and Shiite Arab regions, each largely responsible for its own legislation and administration....The central government would have the deciding responsibility for foreign affairs, border defense, oil and gas production and revenues, and other countrywide matters, as agreed to by the regions. Its writ would be limited and restricted to areas of clear common interests, which would allow Baghdad to meet its responsibilities effectively. The oil provision, in particular, would strengthen the central government beyond its present powers.

...Big cities with highly mixed sectarian populations, such as Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Mosul, pose a huge problem now and would continue to do so under a federal solution -- or any other solution. To fix this, the Iraqis will have to make special security arrangements, such as ensuring that the police forces in these cities are composed of members from all the sectarian groups and backed by international police. The factor that will most determine the fate of these cities, however, will be whether the sectarian groups find the overall political settlement fair and viable.

...The second element of this policy is to bring the Sunnis on board with regionalism with an offer they cannot reasonably refuse. The carrot will have to be very sweet, namely, control of their own region in the center of the country and a constitutionally guaranteed share of oil revenues.

...The third element of this third way would be protecting the rights of minorities and women by linking U.S. aid to regional governments to their respect for the politically and culturally vulnerable people in their regions.

...Fourth, the U.S. military should prepare a plan for the orderly and safe withdrawal and redeployment of U.S. forces, to be carried out before the end of 2008. It should also provide for a residual force that would deter and fight any large-scale military disruptions by insurgents or others and continue training Iraqis for the Iraqi military and police forces.

...Finally, Iraq's territorial integrity should be reinforced through a regional nonaggression pact, which must be achieved through active international diplomacy.

Comments

[Laddy]

Are all these guys part of the Democrat Party? I know Gelb is. They all seem incapable of seeing anything other than gloom and doom.

[Rick Ballard]

I doubt that they are all Dems. They are, however, professional handwringers, and they are singing for their supper. A death rate of 1K per month isn't really much of a civil war. The round table members might want to take a glance at the casualty figures for the Iran/Iraq conflict in order to better form an opinion as to what might be acceptable to the Iraqi people as their elected officials sort this out.

Eventually there will be a Middle Eastern solution to this and the sooner the US allows it to happen, the sooner that the Iraqis will have security.

[Tollhouse]

Jeez, "Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon" ? How perfectly banal and boring.

How about, "Seeking Peace with Honor, Thinking Abject Surrender"

[danking70]

Careful that Table's about to tip over...

"Seeking Peace with Honor, Thinking Abject Surrender"

Much better, Tollhouse

[Buck Smith]

There is an interesting commentary on this same discussion at Belmont Club - "Vietnam as Mental Quagmire" ;)

http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2006/07/vietnam-as-mental-quagmire.html#links

People in the Mid-East have been killing each other over religion and enthnicity for thousands of years. The idea that the sectarian conflicts in Iraq or the Mid-East region are the result of American mistakes, let alone Bush's mistakes, is just comically stupid.

[Carol Herman]

Saigon had better whorehouses. Besides, there will NEVER be a musical about Iraq. Though a comedy show, starring Baghdad Bob might not be bad? I think he'd be an improvement on Malarky. Oh, to think the opportunities we had in the beginning.

Meanwhile, hidden away in the successful IDF operations now on-going in ga/za is something some notice as quick "in and out." It's absolutely exhausting the terrorists. And, frightening the civilian population. (To say nothing about their chickens refusing to lay eggs). And, all that noise from the overhead low, low flights.

In other words, we could actually be winning, but it won't show up in the press. And, what's at stake, really, is wiping out the press' ability to affect outcomes.

It looks like we're pretty close to target. Maybe, the test comes in November? When the single possible victory for the donks, for instance, would be joe lieberman elected as an independent?

For anything successful to be declared, ahead, it might be good to notice that not only aren't we in Vietnam, anymore; our President is not being drummed out of office by journalists. Do you know what this means? No Bob Woodward millionaires ahead. No lottery ticket that's gonna get cashed in. Even if Bill Keller's job goes up for grabs? Or the donks form circles and keep shooting each other?

While Iraq festers in the heat of the summer sun. And, in Vietnam, the Vietnamese, today, have no one to blame but themselves. Heck, they came "this close" to having the benefits the Japanese got after WW2. I'd bet every time the Vietnamese hear the word "journalist," they cringe.

[clarice]

HEH!!Maybe the Vietnamese should make a tardy tactical surrender.

[Seven Machos]

When I saw the headline "Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon," I thought for sure it was going to be about the way Western elites have come to falsely view this war as the last war. Turns out it isn't about that. It IS that.

[Semanticleo]

Methinks Maguire doth probe his ranks for signs of denialism's decline.

Perhaps in a few decades the osmosis which
causes even stone to sweat shall penetrate
the more rock-headed among us.

Until then, the wisdom displayed by the Father
in heeding the words of those who understand
the complexity of culture, will continue to
fall upon the deaf ears of the Son, and perhaps thousands more young americans will
die for little more than the principle, "into the valley of death rode the six hundred."

[SunnyDay]

I believe the left, and the MSM would love to see helicopters lifting off from the Baghdad embassy.

*This* war is not being run by the politicians and the press, as Viet Name was. Fortunately, we have leaders who dare to lead. We have to make sure it stays that way.

[Les Nessman]

"A death rate of 1K per month isn't really much of a civil war."

True. What is America's murder rate per month?
Does America's murder rate 'prove' that we are in a 'civil war' quagmire?
How many of those Iraqi 1K/month deaths are just plain old crime deaths?

[maryrose]

cleo:
Show some respect; As they round the potential Holland Tunnel perpetrators you are safe in your bed thanks to the fact that President Bush has got your back. Can't say the same for your party's sorry roster of losers who don't know a winner{Lieberman} until it comes up and bites them on the a#@

[ajacksonian]

4/12/1861 to 4/9/1865 - Total deaths (minimum) 618,000 including those dead due to disease running through prison camps and the military. Rate of being wounded varied between 11% and 15% per 1,000. Total service base: 3.2 million to 4.0 million soldiers over that period. (1458 days)

Daily toll on average: 420 dead, 210 wounded approximate low end calculations.

Total population: 31 million.

Iraq - Casualties Police/Military: 4,887
Civilian: 10,540
Figures compiled from news sources.

Daily toll, on average, Pol/Mil: 4.1
Civilian: 8.7
(1206 days)

Total Population: 28.9 Million

US Civil War most likely had a higher per capita weapon's ownership rate, but Iraq has an unknown number of automatic weapons and RPG's distributed by Saddam and many brought into the country covertly. This would also balance out the lack of sanitation in the US and, most especially, its prisons in 1861-65 as the majority of dead were from disease, not battlefield fatalities which only comes out 204,000 on the low side, getting you 140 battlefield deaths/day out of the 420 total.

In Iraq the single largest source of fatalities was, for a number of months, 'Revenge Killings' of Ba'athist regime members by those that they had ruled over. I believe Strategypage covered this and that started in Nov/Dec 2005 and continued at least until Feb 2006.

A strange sort of Civil War that employs more people in legitimate jobs as it continues (starting to get close to European levels), raises the standard of living, boosts the economy by the sales of goods for the home, increases agricultural output until Iraq is now an agricultural exporting Nation, has gone over any pre-war production of oil per month for a number of months and is hitting hard limits on equipment capacity, has required new electrical generators as so many people now have electrical appliances that it is causing problems, and, in general, seems to be stabilizing the Nation. If *that* is a Civil War, then the world could use a few more of those...

[John]

These smart guys are quick to bring up Vietnam, without any mention of how the US strategy adapted (painfully slowly) over time. From Westmoreland's abortive attempts to combat VC and NVA units directly, to Abram's strategy to build up the ARVN and defeat the VC through local forces. Abram's strategy was mostly successful, although too late for wavering US resolve. I'm very optimistic, since we applied the Abrams lesson (almost) from the very beginning in Iraq.