Politics First

Stephen Biddle, Michael O'Hanlon, and Kenneth Pollack ("How to Leave a Stable Iraq," September/October 2008) argue that the situation in Iraq has improved but that progress could be jeopardized by withdrawing U.S. troops too rapidly. They propose a policy of strategic patience that would delay major troop withdrawals for several years, until after the next round of Iraqi provincial and national elections. Although Biddle, O'Hanlon, and Pollack are right about the tenuous but real security gains in Iraq, they are wrong about the effects this military progress has had on the political realm and about the likely consequences of their recommendation. Their approach would almost certainly mean that troops would remain at high levels for far longer than they suggest, because the kind of political progress they anticipate -- and which would, they argue, allow U.S. troops to withdraw from an Iraq that has achieved "sustained stability" -- will likely not materialize.

The problem lies in the fundamentally flawed belief that providing more security is the key to achieving political compromise. Restoring basic levels of security from the low point of 2006 was indeed essential. But now, contrary to what the authors argue, improved security is making the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki less likely to make meaningful compromises, since Maliki currently sees little downside to not doing so. The Iraqi government simply does not share American assessments of the negative consequences that would result from failing to achieve reconciliation. And as long as the U.S. military protects Iraqi leaders from the consequences of their choices, they are probably correct. Ironically, their feeling of security has led them to insist that a security agreement with the United States include a commitment to withdraw combat troops by the end of 2011, likely rendering the policy Biddle, O'Hanlon, and Pollack advocate no longer viable.

Today, a credible commitment to a more rapid withdrawal, which the authors view as a potential disaster, is more likely to facilitate Iraqi political accommodation than to endanger it. There are no guarantees, of course. Iraq is currently a house of cards, with a plethora of unresolved issues of contention threatening to undermine stability at any moment. But a carefully managed, responsible drawdown of U.S. forces is more likely to produce meaningful political accommodation than is an endless store of strategic patience.

There are three key areas in which Biddle, O'Hanlon, and Pollack fail to grapple with the political logic, rather than the security logic, that drives events in today's Iraq. First, they argue that troop drawdowns should be minimal until after the Iraqi provincial and national elections, the latter of which are currently due in 2010, after having been postponed. These elections are extremely important to Iraq's future, but they are a deeply unconvincing pivot for U.S. strategy. Why assume that these elections will be a magic bullet, solving Iraq's political problems? After all, in 2005 a series of elections were similarly sold as pivotal moments; at the time, U.S. troop levels were comparable to those today and the violence had yet to spike to the horrifying levels that followed the February 2006 Samarra mosque bombing. Yet the outcome was sectarian voting, six months of political paralysis over the selection of an acceptable prime minister, and then descent into civil war. What if elections this time simply produce a new political standoff: a different but equally contentious parliament, new resentments at the local level, and worse governance as less experienced politicians take the reins?

There is little reason to think that the U.S. presence will empower nonsectarian or more pro-U.S. actors in the elections. Indeed, if the United States has not begun significant withdrawals by the time they are held, it will likely give a major electoral boost to nationalists, who will use the continuing U.S. "occupation" to win votes. In 2005, voting was driven not by security concerns but by an electoral law that favored sectarian parties. Improving the representativeness of elections would require changing the electoral law and guaranteeing effective international supervision, and that would require precisely the kind of political accommodation that continues to elude Iraqi politics -- and which no amount of U.S. prodding has been able to deliver. In fact, the current power holders will use the fragmentation of Iraqi politics and the state's growing resources to their electoral advantage. For example, many Iraqis see the Shiite-led government's military campaigns in Basra, Sadr City, and Maysan as "shaping operations" meant to weaken the rival Shiite movement of Muqtada al-Sadr before the provincial elections; others view Maliki's tough line in negotiations with the United States as an attempt to seize the mantle of Iraqi nationalism for the elections. On the Sunni side, the return of the Iraqi Accord Front to Maliki's government likely represents a bid to gain controlof state patronage and resources ahead of the elections. Already, the Iraqi electoral commission is sounding the alarm about its inability to guarantee fair elections.

The United States should of course push for fair, internationally supervised elections and help provide security on election day. But U.S. grand strategy cannot be held hostage to elections that are unlikely to fundamentally change Iraqi politics for the better.