[Originally published in The Herald of Randolph.]
National Council of US-Arab Relations (NCUSAR) activities are sponsored by major US corporations, largely energy (oil) and defense firms, all of which have major direct and indirect stakes in the Middle East.
For the past 19 years, NCUSAR has sponsored and annual “U.S. Policymakers Conference”. One of this year’s presenters was Ambassador Ryan Crocker who was US Ambassador to Iraq from 2007–09 during the US “Surge” and has been a vocal supporter of US policy in Iraq under President George W. Bush.
Crocker said, inter alia, that it is “quite likely that the Iraqi government is going to ask for an extension of our deployed (military) presence (there)” past our now stipulated 2011 withdrawal. Although the last of our “combat” forces were said to have been withdrawn this past August, there remain roughly 50,000 “advisors” in Iraq as a part of “Operation New Dawn” which is scheduled to end at the end of 2011
During his presentation to the NCUSAR conference, he also predicted that the U.S. will be asked by the Iraqi government to provide them with heavy material and military weaponry and that this effort will probably start after 2013.
Iraq is our first, but not only, American tarbaby in the Middle East. We are watching here the first salvo in the upcoming internal US political battle over our future course of action in Iraq and the greater the Middle East.
On the heels of the Crocker pronouncements we have seen a rash of sectarian bombings, almost certainly carried out by Iraqi Sunnis against the Shia population. In addition, despite the recent announcement of the “solution” to the months-long political impasse between Maliki, whose political base is within the Shia community and includes the militant Sadrists, and his rival, Allawi, who represents secular Shia, anti-Iran nationalists and most Sunnis, the potential for it to fall apart always present.
All of these tensions are reflective of the one reality that our current policy refuses to acknowledge , that without repressive management, Iraq is not a viable state. In fact, it is a patchwork of competing secular, religious, tribal, ethnic and political interests created over a century ago by Imperial Britain to suit its own needs and interests. In addition, lurking in the background are the Kurds whose sole interest, as it has been for millennia, is survival, and the Iranians who seek to establish regional hegemony at the expense of the Iraqis.
It is difficult for Americans to acknowledge that we are facing a frightfully expensive activity in a region where our military presence and activities unite peoples against us.
It matters not when our troops leave Iraq. Until we do leave, we will represent a damping factor, replacing the despotic and violent hand of Saddam Hussein. But once we do leave, whether that is tomorrow or in twenty years, Iraq will likely devolve into its component parts. That devolution may be violent or, with luck and good planning, almost peaceful. There will be some sort of Kurdish area, a Sunni area and a Shia area. They may end up as separate entities or in some sort of confederation, but they will not be a “state” as we know states today.
What seems increasingly hopeful about this miserable situation is that there seems to be little appetite in the region for a broader conflict. The neighbors show no inclination to precipitate a wider blood bath. Turkey has its issues with the Kurds, Iran has its ties with the Shia and Saudi Arabia, and Jordan with the Sunnis. But there is no future for any of them in a broader conflict. Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait and the Gulf States are praying that this too will pass!
There is a very clear choice here. As realists, we can get out of Iraq as planned and let political, religious, tribal determinism take over while we do everything we possibly can to insure that any conflict within Iraq not get any broader. If we are going to take this course, we need to do it fast, before our military presence and activities in the region turn the entire region against us, which is where we are heading now.
Or as dreamers, we can hang in for 5, 10 or 20 years in the hope that things will get better, only to find that whatever would happen if we were to withdraw tomorrow, inevitably will happen in 5, 10 or 20 years.
Dreaming is one gigantic gamble. Given our own current domestic and international realities, it is one we can ill afford.
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as Chief of the counterterrorism staff. A longtime resident of Brookfield, he now lives in Williston.
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