The moment of truth in Iraq is at hand. On 7 March a crucial and long-awaited parliamentary election will take place which will pave the way for the withdrawal of American combat troops by the end of August. Some 50,000 US troops will remain – about half the present number – but in a supporting role, training Iraqi forces and carrying out counter-terror operations against remaining Al-Qaeda elements in the country. The “transition” in Iraq – as it is euphemistically called in Washington – is of great importance to Iraq, to the region, and to the United States. But there is little sign that its implications have been fully worked out.
The withdrawal is likely to take place on time – even though the Americans have said they have a contingency plan to delay it, should circumstances require them to. For President Obama, disengagement from Iraq is quite simply a necessity. He promised American voters he would shift his focus from the ‘wrong’ war (Iraq) to the ‘right’ one (Afghanistan). Moreover the American military are reluctant to go on fighting two difficult and unpopular wars at the same time. And, for their part, Iraqi politicians, playing on nationalist sentiment, are outbidding one another in urging the foreigners to go (even if privately they have serious concerns about the country’s ability to stand on its own two feet). The one thing that might upset the American timetable is a return to the levels of sectarian violence in 2006, when the country was on the verge of civil war – but that is unlikely to happen.
So the endgame is only six months away, and there will be nervous apprehension in both Washington and Baghdad as the deadline approaches. The run-up to the Iraqi parliamentary election has been marked by an upsurge of violence designed to undermine the political process – and weaken the chances of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki securing another term in office, since his claim to be the strongman who has restored security is looking increasingly hollow. There has also been a return, at the political level, of Sunni-Shi’a polarisation. The decision to disqualify candidates with alleged links to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party has been particularly damaging. One of the main Sunni Arab parties – the National Dialogue Front of Saleh al-Mutlak – has said it will boycott the election, and this may damage the poll’s legitimacy.
Despite the violence and the political in-fighting, the election is likely to go ahead, and go ahead on time. The notion, however, that it will be a milestone on the Iraqi road to democracy, and thus an implicit vindication of the American role in Iraq, is wishful thinking. The country is still struggling on every level ? the political, the economic, and on issues of security – to achieve some kind of normalcy. Still unresolved are the acute tensions between the Kurds of the north and the government in Baghdad over a set of contentious issues including control over oil resources and over the disputed multi-ethnic northern city of Kirkuk. The country’s oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani, has embarked on a highly ambitious plan to boost oil exports to levels comparable with – or even exceeding – those of neighbouring Saudi Arabia, but there are serious doubts as to how feasible the plan is, given the poor state of the country’s oil infrastructure.
Meanwhile a number of commentators are asking whether the Obama administration has a strategy for the Middle East as a whole – and how a post-withdrawal Iraq would fit into the bigger regional picture. Getting out and hoping for the best may be an understandable state of mind. But it is not a strategy.
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