The Iraq war has tumbled to the front of the Washington agenda in an unexpected and intense manner. The publication of an interim report on 12 July 2007 assessing the Iraqi government’s record in meeting US benchmarks for progress in security was accompanied by a White House press conference in which President Bush declared that some of its findings gave him “cause for optimism”. This is in the wake of the defection of some key Republicans to the "bring-the-troops-home" cause and the stalling of John McCain's election ambitions because of his pro-war stance have exposed domestic political fractures over Iraq (see Martha Raddatz, "'Crack in the Dike': White House in 'Panic Mode' Over GOP Revolt on Iraq", ABC News, 9 July 2007). The ferment has produced an immediate reaction from the neo-conservatives, including the latest Iraq report from Kimberley Kagan bravely making the case that the surge is working, and Bill Kristol condemning the lack of political nerve (both in the leading neocon journal the Weekly Standard.
The core significance of Iraq for the war's last-ditch supporters means that these views and the overall worldview they reflect will continue to be promoted. Indeed, the significance of this mindset goes far beyond any narrow political perspective. In 2003, just after the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, the prominent commentator Thomas Friedman highlighted the point: "...America's opponents know just what is at stake in the postwar struggle for Iraq, which is why they flock there: beat America's ideas in Iraq and you beat them out of the whole region; lose to America there, lose everywhere" (see "Fighting 'The Big One'", New York Times, 25 August 2003).
Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since 26 September 2001Washington's meagre hand
The scale of the domestic pressures now being exerted on the George W Bush administration as a result of the difficult situation in Iraq leaves Washington with three options.
The first is to persist with the surge, maintaining United States forces at their current levels - or even increasing them, in the hope that the current more intensive counterinsurgency operations will work. The Weekly Standard's optimism notwithstanding, this expectation simply does not square with what is actually happening - US casualties have risen, the number of attacks on US forces has escalated markedly between June and July 2007, and sectarian violence in Baghdad has returned with a vengeance.
This has created the extraordinary situation that some of the keenest supporters of the war are now speaking in what can only be described as Orwellian terms. The renewed intensity of the insurgency is seen as born of desperation: every major attack is further proof that the terrorists are in retreat. Yet even the US commander, General David Petraeus, is (in advance of his already much anticipated public report, scheduled for September 2007) markedly cautious, talking of years of endeavour being necessary for success. Such a period, however is now becoming unacceptable to US domestic opinion - irrespective of whether any objective evidence is available suggesting that "staying the course" would work.
The second option is an early, rapid and full-scale withdrawal. The Bush administration's official response to this proposal is that it will leave Iraq in a condition of utter civil war, leading to a collapsed state that will be a focus for al-Qaida's regional ambitions. There are, however, strong counter-arguments to this. The occupation itself is a massive focus for the violence; and a withdrawal could make a Shi'a/Sunni political accommodation more likely, for both domestic and international reasons.
Neither confessional group can dominate the whole of Iraq, and may be readier to acknowledge the need to reconcile under conditions free of external influence. Moreover, Iraq's major neighbours Iran and Saudi Arabia have no interest in a raging civil war on their borders - the Saudis have concerns about their own large Shi'a minority and the Iranians (themselves in a confessional minority in the region as a whole) recognise that they could not control even a Shi'a-dominated Iraq.
In any case, the persistence of the US presence in Iraq has much more to do with the country's place in the wider regional architecture than with Iraq in its own right. It is simply impossible for the Bush administration to conceive of a Persian Gulf, with all its massive oil and gas reserves, in which Iraq is outside of US influence and Iran is in explicit opposition. To withdraw troops to (for example) Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman is militarily feasible, but the loss of leverage that this would imply is just unacceptable.
The third option is a redeployment of US forces in Iraq to a handful of major fortified bases away from the main centres of population, leaving the cities largely to fend for themselves (see "After failure in Iraq", 26 October 2006). The US would, in effect, preside over further sectarian violence which may well serve to weaken opposition to the US presence. Washington might (in classic divide-and-conquer tactics) even aid one side or the other in particular circumstances, and would also use its huge airpower advantage to ensure that the nominal government in Baghdad does not fall.
The relative attractions of this option make it the best bet of the three.
In addition to his weekly openDemocracy column, Paul Rogers writes an international security monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group; for details, click here
Paul Rogers's latest book is Global Security and the War on Terror: Elite Power and the Illusion of Control (Routledge, July 2007). This is a collection of papers and essays written over the last twenty years, with two new essays on the current global predicamenThe prospect for 2008
A "staged pullback" of United States troops might appear deeply cynical, though election-year is approaching and there is little room for niceties. It could be done with a reduction in troop numbers by several tens of thousands of troops and a probable decrease in US casualties because of the need for fewer ground patrols and exposed forward operating bases. In political terms, it could be depicted - just in time for the decisive phase of the 2008 election campaign - as evidence of the slow easing of the war. If this is combined with a credible Republican candidate and the likelihood of many voters' doubts over Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and all might not be lost for the current White House incumbents.
There is still one piece of the jigsaw missing. As long as there is a substantial US presence in Iraq, even if it is lower-profile, it will remain a hugely valuable jihadist combat-training zone for the wider al-Qaida movement. Even more, since that movement measures its aims (including the violent termination of elite middle-east regimes) in decades, Iraq remains an absolute gift. A new generation of paramilitaries is, after all, currently being trained to a high degree of sophistication against the world's best equipped and most powerful army.
The only situation that will bring that "gift" to an end is a complete US withdrawal. That is not going to happen on President Bush's watch. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri can, at least for the moment, rest content.
