During a visit to Washington last month, I had the feeling I was listening to two quite separate debates about Iraq. While regional experts in the think-tanks worry about Iraq’s future and how this will affect the Middle East, the American domestic political debate is more and more focused on the limits of what America will bear.
In one sense at least, Democrats and Republicans are both concentrating on the same thing – troop numbers. In mid-September two top US officials will travel from Baghdad – the senior military man, General David Petraeus, and the ambassador Ryan Crocker – to deliver a keenly-awaited strategy review to Congress. It seems a virtual certainty they will report some progress on the security front but virtually none on political reconciliation. Since this will do little or nothing to reduce pressure to start withdrawing American troops, there is a general expectation that, not later than the spring, there will be a token drawdown designed to take some of the political heat out of the issue.
Some veteran Middle East-watchers fault both parties for taking as their unspoken premise a military solution, when in reality the central issue is one of Iraqi governance. In this view, contemplating a military withdrawal makes sense only when the outside world has made a concerted push at two levels – regional and international – to buttress Iraq and its government and prevent the state’s complete collapse. Such an aggressive diplomatic initiative was called for by the Baker-Hamilton commission. But so far the diplomacy has been half-hearted and shows no sign of succeeding in corralling Iraq’s reluctant neighbours into a regional framework for its security. An initiative is under way, at American urging, to get the United Nations to play a bigger role in trying to build an internal Iraqi political consensus and an external security framework, but it is too early to tell whether this will have much effect.
There is great disappointment with Nuri al-Maliki’s government in Baghdad, and little expectation it will meet the benchmarks to which in principle it is committed. There are constant rumours in Baghdad and in Washington of efforts to replace him. But for the time being the Iraqi parliament is in summer recess (until early September), which rules out an early no-confidence vote, and in any case it is possible his discredited and now narrowly-based government will stagger on.
Instead of working constructively on a new American consensus (as Baker-Hamilton had urged), the main players in Washington find it easier to point the finger of blame. The Democrats blame the Bush administration for the mess but cannot agree among themselves on what should be done. The president and his remaining supporters castigate the Democrats as defeatist – and seek to deflect the blame onto either Iran or Al-Qaida, whom Mr Bush presents, with some sleight of hand, as the main instigators of the violence.
In the meantime, as the American political clock ticks, Iraq continues on its path of violent self-destruction and regional players step up their efforts to intervene on one side or the other of the Sunni-Shi’ite divide. The most knowledgeable voices in Washington discuss the unpalatable options in the grim knowledge that Iraq may already have passed the point of no return.
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