The Foreign Service Journal, March 2008

of the Iraq conflict and focuses on issues that appear easier to control. In its first core recommendation, the “New Diplomatic Initiative,” the ISG tries to impose a regional formula on the gritty, street-level issues of political stability inside Iraq. But Iraq will defy this kind of solution, assuming regional players agree to play their assigned role in the first place. The second core recommendation, to embed large numbers of American advisers inside the Iraqi security forces, is similarly flawed if done in isolation from a larger political arrangement. Even if the security forces improved significantly, they would still be fighting for a political order that pits Sunni against Shiite against Kurd; their improved capability will quick- ly fall into fighting for confessional groupings, not the Iraqi nation. Engaging regional players and transitioning to Iraqi security forces are supporting pillars in stabiliz- ing the nation, but they are not the central pillar. A third proposal is simply to empower the Shiites and encourage them to crush the Sunnis, establishing a Shiite variant of the Saddamist state. Desperation, it would seem, leads to desperate proposals. The Sunnis may be only 15 percent of the Iraqi populace, but they are the most capable 15 percent, the most violent 15 percent and the most militarily experienced 15 percent. They will not go quietly. A Shiite-Kurdish alliance to gain forcible control over the Sunnis would require the level of violence that Saddam used to control the Shiites and Kurds, with the same negative impact on the country, the region and, now, on U.S. credibility, as well. The fourth proposal centers on the troop surge. As posited by AEI resident scholar Frederick Kagan and defense analyst Jack Keane, the political piece is too complicated and the reconstruction piece too uncertain, so we should focus on what we can control — security. To date, the troop surge appears to have produced a fair- ly dramatic turnaround in conditions in Baghdad and its environs. Coupled with positive development in Anbar, it has bought some breathing space. But it would be a mistake to look at the surge in iso- lation: it will only yield fruit if it produces a viable politi- cal structure. In this light recent developments are less encouraging. While there has been some reconciliatory progress of late, it does not appear deep-seated or lasting. Of per- haps more importance, the troop surge has created greater depend- ence on outside forces by a gov- ernment that will only survive if it can burnish its nationalistic cre- dentials. Moreover, the nature of our counterinsurgency operations perpetuates a degree of anger toward the coalition that empow- ers religious nationalists, who are one of the most significant pieces of the political puzzle. In this sense, stability is a ques- tion of fewer, not more, troops. De-Baathification: The CPA’s Original Sin The real locus of stability is in how the Iraqi govern- ment facilitates political interaction and identification among Iraqis. In this regard, the current political struc- ture is seriously flawed. Although it is doubtful it can be made to work in its present form, it can possibly be fixed. The political process, which first the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority administered and then the U.N. oversaw through elections, created the condi- tions for Iraqis to identify with their confessional group- ings rather than with the nation. It marginalized the Sunnis, empowered the Shiites, and allowed the Kurds their independence. This was the result, first, of the deep de-Baathification program administered by Ahmed Chalabi in 2003 and 2004 and continued under the new government, which included the disbanding of the army and intelligence services and the dismissal of most senior and mid-level Sunni officials. The message to Sunnis was not just that their dominance of Iraq was over, but that they would now be dominated by the other groups. The confessional structure was perpetuated by Ambassador Jerry Bremer’s concession to the Kurds, allowing them to form a subregional grouping as part of the Transitional Administrative Law — something the Shiites also took advantage of to a lesser degree in the south. Finally, Iraq’s de facto tri-state confessional division was given formal structure when the electoral process was conducted through the use of national lists, around which Iraqis naturally rallied to their respective ethnic groupings, rather than a locally based system that would F O C U S 24 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 8 Given the downsides of partition in any configuration, it would seem to be a last resort, not something to be proactively sought.