“We have to be as careful getting out as George Bush was careless getting in.” The sound-bite from the Obama camp – repeated on 1 July by one the Illinois Senator’s senior foreign-policy advisers, Susan Rice – tries to temper principle with pragmatism. Commentators may legitimately interpret it to mean, “Once in office, we will start the process of withdrawal from Iraq – but we can’t guarantee we will complete it in sixteen months, as the Senator originally promised.”
In an election campaign, candidates’ promises need not be taken at face value. But what is interesting about this campaign, at the current juncture, is that the two front-runners are moving to the centre-ground on some important and sensitive issues, of which Iraq is one. While Senator Obama is quietly diluting his commitment to a swift withdrawal, Senator McCain is subtly qualifying his commitment to stay for as long as it takes. Accused by his Democratic rivals of being ready to stay for “a hundred years” – a reference to his off-the-cuff reply to a journalist’s hypothetical question -- Mr McCain now says he thinks success can be achieved by 2013. In other words, without tying himself to a hard-and-fast deadline, he hopes most US troops can come home in five years’ time.
The younger candidate is afraid of looking weak and irresponsible; hence his plan to visit both Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming weeks. His older rival is afraid of seeming a hawkish George Bush look-a-like. Each wants to mould his image to appeal to the (perceived) middle ground. What is clear is that the Iraq issue is not going to go away during the rest of the campaign. Quite the contrary; beginning this month, as US forces drop to about 140,000 – their pre-surge level – the question of whether the surge has achieved durable (as opposed to short-term) success will be put to the test.
The improvement in security cannot be denied, but whether it is sustained and built on depends on the performance of Iraqi security forces and Iraqi political leaders. And here question-marks remain. Prime Minister Maliki’s standing has improved as a result of his readiness to take on Shi’ite as well as Sunni militias. But national reconciliation – which has to mean within as well as between the different communities – remains extremely limited. Indeed the promised provincial elections, seen by all factions as an important means of winning power at the grass roots, may bring simmering rivalries and tensions to the boil.
For communities to be reconciled, it must first be clear who represents them. Only in the case of the Kurds has this question been answered more or less definitively (and even in the Kurdish north there is a degree of resentment over the long monopoly of power by the two main factions). The two related questions -- Who speaks for the Sunni Arabs? Who speaks for the Shi’ite Arabs? -- are hotly contested and likely to remain so at least into the medium term.
The local elections are due in October, but it is uncertain if they can be organised in time. Beyond the elections and Iraq’s multiple power struggles, there is the issue of whether the Americans can with confidence relinquish control of security to Iraqi forces. Even though most of the country’s eighteen provinces have been formally handed over to the Iraqis, that remains an open question.
For the two senators battling it out in the race for the White House, Iraq – and for that matter Al-Qai’da – are issues as inescapable as the weather. Either or both could yet spring an unwelcome surprise.
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