What Will Happen in Iraq When America Elects a New
President?
Inheriting Iraq
James Denselow
January 7, 2008
The Guardian
What will happen in Iraq when America elects a new president? Pollsters have
revealed that the candidates' policy towards Iraq is one of the three major
issues affecting voter choice, with the relative importance varying according to
the demographics of each state. So what is likely to change in 2009, when the
new president takes over?
At first glance the difference may seem simple: the Democratic candidates
support what they claim to be significant changes in policy while the Republican
candidates largely argue for fine-tuning of the existing strategy.
Clinton, Biden and Edwards are all Democrat converts who supported the call for
war in 2002 but have since fallen in step with the American electorate's
disillusionment. Obama has the advantage of being against the war throughout.
Richardson called the war "a disaster", while Dodd outlined how there will be
"no military victory in Iraq". In policy terms, while supporting continuing to
fight al-Qaida, most Democrat candidates argue for a quickening of the pace of
troop withdrawal and no permanent bases left in the country, with rapid reaction
forces potentially operating from Kuwait as an insurance policy. Most agree on
regional engagement, with political capital invested in a regional conference
and a beefed-up UN role in the country.
So what will the new president inherit? George Bush's line is likely to be: "Why
snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? The surge is working, al-Qaida".
The reality is somewhat different. Firstly, any stability in Iraq is precarious
at best, with no guarantee which direction it will go in 2008. Turkish forces
are engaged in regular attacks into the north. Kirkuk simmers following the
postponement of its referendum and the surge is increasingly squeezing violence
into previously safer parts of Iraq. Barham Salih, the Kurdish Iraqi deputy
prime minister, departed from his traditional toeing of the US line late last
year when he warned that the impact of the surge was "more of a ceasefire than a
peace".
In Baghdad, partition continues with a patchwork of security walls, checkpoints,
segregated neighbourhoods, vehicle bans and curfew. Residents of separate Shia
and Sunni districts recently protested against plans to reopen the Tigris Bridge
that used to connect them. Islamic conservatism is the order of the day.
Plans to move forward on constitutional reform, oil and federalism laws continue
in limbo, despite the space for politics that the surge was designed to create.
Electricity, water, health and education provision is wretched and despite the
return of some refugees more than a million are still externally displaced with
more than two million estimated to be internally displaced.
The irony over Democratic proposed changes in policy is that most of their
recommendations and those of the Iraq Study Group are currently being
implemented in some form or other. US officials have sat at the same table as
their Syrian and Iranian counterparts at somewhat ephemeral multilateral
meetings. the UN is bolstering its presence in the country and General Petraeus
has shown that pragmatic recognition of local realities in a bottom-up approach
is far more successful than Bremer's top-down method that proved a catalyst for
so much violence in the country.
The main difference is that in 2009 Bush will no longer be the leader of the US.
That in itself may have a huge impact. The stubborn regimes in Iran and Syria
will be glad to have outlived a man who placed them as greater and lesser
members of the Axis of Evil, so their potential to cooperate in Iraq may well
increase. The UN, affronted by the manipulation and bugging of its members in
the run-up to war, may be able to act as an effective honest broker to the
myriad of challenges that Iraq faces. Bush will be gone but Petraeus may remain.
The general has promised to reduce troops to pre-surge level by the middle of
the year. Similarly to how prime minister Brown found it easier to disengage
than his predecessor, the next US president may be able to inherit a similar
timetable that combines reduced expectations with leaving Iraqis to deal with
Iraqi problems.
The single biggest threat to potential improvements in Iraq comes from the
spectre of victory for John McCain, who seems more Bush than Bush, arguing for a
bigger troop surge and that any bad news coming out of Iraq is a communication
strategy failure. America be warned.
