A Cautious Strategy

by Robert J. Romano

January 8th, 2005

Two opposing strains of conventional wisdom hold that, in Iraq, we did not move fast enough to turn over power to the Iraqi people, and that we've moved too fast in helping the Iraqi people to implement national elections which will result in an elected assembly which shall draft the permanent constitution, and that those elections (scheduled for January 30th) should be indefinitely postponed until the security situation is drastically improved.  Both cannot be true, but in the former, the wisdom further informs that we would not have the problems we have today in Iraq, with the competing insurgencies in the north and south, if we had turned over power rapidly, as we did in Afghanistan.  Pretty optimistic.  In the latter, the criticism leans more towards the idea that the Iraqi people will not be ready to commit to and to implement democracy, that elections will be illegitimate without broad participation, and that until the security situation improves, political institutions cannot be constructed.  Quite pessimistic.  In this piece, this author will care to wager that while both alternatives share hints of a more successful strategy, they both fail in realizing that the middle ground between the two is where we presently stand, and that the former would not necessarily have delivered the rosy scenario which is promised, and that the latter would bring an unprecedented tragedy forth.  The test should be if the drawbacks posed by each would be better than the setbacks which we have presently faced.

        In the first wisdom, it is thought that the Coalition Provisional Authority should have moved far more rapidly to transfer sovereignty over to the Iraqi people, and that the June 28th transfer of sovereignty was too late.  In addition, it is further contested in a similar strain that the policy of de-Baathification was a failure, and that the former security forces should have been rehired right away.  This strain, however, underestimates the need that existed in April of 2003 to complete the regime change which had started on March 19th, 2003.  If, as suggested, the former security forces (and undoubtedly former Baathists) were immediately rehired without careful vetting to take care of any post-Hussein insurgency that was to arise, this would have sent entirely the wrong message to the majority Shi'a in the south, and the minority Kurds in the north.  This would have played directly into the hands of the likes of Muqtada al Sadr and the Mahdi militia, who could have perhaps rightly argued to the people that the Americans were just putting Hussein's people back in charge of the country, and that this was not real freedom at all.  This would have undoubtedly led to an uprising in the south far greater than what was seen in 2004.  Furthermore, our friends in the north, the Kurds would have been disenfranchised and perhaps disenchanted from the outset at the prospects of Hussein's former henchmen immediately taking power after the fall of the dictator and his regime.  The enemy's propaganda would have immediately seized on this, and effectively argued that this was not any sort of liberation at all, it was a sham.

        Instead, de-Baathification did take place, and before former security forces could be rehired, there needed to be a careful vetting process in place to deal with the possibility of enemy infiltration, a problem which exists nonetheless, as was seen in the recent bombing in Mosul.  As it turns out, the "uprising" in the south led by al Sadr took place anyway, however it was effectively smited by the careful and cautious efforts of the new Iraqi government, the multinational forces, and new Iraqi security forces.  The wisdom that we did not move fast enough to turn over sovereignty would have hinged on the ability to predict the past and present insurgency taking place, and that the present insurgency is a worse (if not worst) case scenario.  But surely, the CPA did anticipate animosity amongst the majority of the Iraqi people, else why engage in de-Baathification at all? Indeed, why even remove the tyrant from power if the sole goal was to maintain security? In this sense, an insurgency was prepared for, coming from the majority of the Iraqi people.  Inevitably, this criticism assumes that a clean transfer of power, and the subsequent rehiring of the former regime forces immediately after the fall of Hussein would have prevented such an insurgency in the Sunni triangle, and it may well have, but probably at the cost of a much larger uprising in the south.  The choice may well may have been between an insurgency taking place within a distinct minority in Iraq, the Sunnis, and a much larger (and far more deadly) uprising within the majority of Iraq, the Shi'a.  It is this author's belief that CPA did the right and wise thing by cautiously moving to build up the present Iraqi security forces, and vetting those who would be hired to be certain that the enemy did not infiltrate the ranks, that war criminals would not be rehired, and that for propaganda purposes, it was not viewed that the coalition was simply putting the minority Sunnis back into power so soon after the fall of the Hussein regime.  Indeed, with the mixed results of the new Iraqi security forces, it is hard to imagine how speeding up that process would have been favorable.

        Also, comparing the transfer of power in Afghanistan to the transfer of power in Iraq is akin to comparing apples and oranges.  What worked in Afghanistan would not necessarily work in Iraq, and vice versa.  For instance, Iraq is a far more urbanized and industrialized country than Afghanistan, its terrains are vastly different, and its politics too are much different.  While the Taliban in Afghanistan were a theocratic tyranny, Hussein's regime was a secular totalitarian state which was a remnant of the old Soviet satellite system.  Assuming that the strategy which had worked well in rural Afghanistan would have worked similarly in the more cosmopolitan Iraq is akin to a "one-size-fits-all" strategy.  Indeed, it would be a wonder that we did not use the same exact strategy for every regime change that has taken place since the fall of the Kaiser's Germany at the end of World War I (never mind innovations that have been made in modern warfare, differences in politics, terrain, population, etc.)!

        In the second strain of wisdom, it is thought that the June 30th, 2004 deadline for the transfer of sovereignty was far too soon after the fall of Hussein's Iraq, and that the occupational authority should have perhaps continued indefinitely.  And now, that the January 31st, 2005 deadline for elections is far too soon in light of the present security situation, and that those elections should be arbitrarily postponed for an indefinite period of time.  Also, in a similar strain, it is argued that the force strength in Iraq needed to have been much larger in order to cope with the insurgency after the fall of Hussein's regime.  This too is fallacy, as postponing the transfer of sovereignty would have also played directly into the hands of the enemy, who would have similarly seized on the lack of a transfer of sovereignty as a show of bad faith by the coalition.  A much larger coalition presence, coupled with a far slower transfer of authority, would have also scored a series of propaganda victories for the enemy, who would have argued that this was no liberation at all, it was the makings of a permanent occupation.  Furthermore, the idea of arbitrarily postponing the January 30th elections until the security situation is completely in hand is a recipe for never having elections.  If all the terrorists, insurgents, and extremists, with the help of former Baathists and foreign fighters, need to do to prevent freedom and democracy from taking hold in Iraq is to keep up their present string of suicide-homicide attacks, ambushes, improvised explosive devices, assassinations, and mercenary bounty killings, then postponing, either the transfer of sovereignty in the past, or the elections at present, would hand the enemy a significant victory.

        Such a heavy-handed approach seems very "50 years ago," to be frank.  Instead, Secretary Rumsfeld, in keeping with transforming the military into a lighter, more mobile force, has too avoided the drawbacks of an immense occupational force which does the bulk of the fighting.  Nobody wants an army in their backyard, and the newly freed people of Iraq have a right to expect that we will only stay there for every day that is necessary, and not a day longer.  It is this author's belief that the larger the force that is there, the longer we will have to remain to repair the damage that such an immense undertaking would reap.  By steadily and yet cautiously moving to transfer sovereignty in Iraq, and now with the process of constitutionalization, democratization, and Iraqization taking root, the Iraqi people are taking more and more control over their country on a daily basis, and their forces, which still need our help with training and direction, can only become more equipped in the future to deal with the dangers posed to a democratic Iraq.

        Indeed, there are forces at play which were well beyond the control of either the CPA or the Iraqi people, which may be chiefly responsible for the present insurgency.  It is this author's belief that due to these factors, namely the state sponsorship of terrorism that is taking place in Iraq, chiefly by Baathist Syria (fueling the insurgency in the Sunni triangle) and Islamist Iran (which fueled the Mahdi milita's "uprising"), and perhaps coordination amongst the two, that what we presently see in Iraq may in actuality be the best that could be hoped for given the circumstances.  As the Iraqi people take even more control over their destiny by electing their constitutional assembly on January 30th, the newly elected representatives will need to look more regionally for the source of their present tribulations and tragedies.  They will need to assess for themselves, based on their own intelligence, and the wisdom of their policy makers, what is causing the insurgency for certain.  It is clear that Prime Minister Allawi is not blaming us for the insurgency, rather he holds the killers themselves responsible, and rightly so.  While Stateside it may be comfortable to assume that this or that strategic tinkering could have prevented the setbacks we are currently facing, it must be processed that no war is without setbacks.  No war is without its share of tragedies.  And no policy is without wisdom.  In place presently is a cautious strategy, and one which will be more clear once the January 30th elections take place, and the Iraqi people assert their sovereign right to self-defense on the world stage.  These killers will not succeed, because of the rock-solid commitment of the free world to the nations we liberate, and most especially because of the Iraqi people's unique desire never to return to a tyrannical regime, nor to be obstructed by her neighbors.  The Iraqi people must clearly and distinctly know who their enemies are, and act accordingly.