Heckuva Job Surgie

by Eric Martin

I have been warning for at least the past six months that The Surge has, in effect, consolidated Prime Minister Maliki’s position of power to such an extent that the underlying goal of The Surge, political reconciliation, has been made less likely.  To put it simply, Maliki feels less of a need to offer political compromises because of his growing confidence in the strength of his political position. 

During Bush’s stewardship of Iraq, many progressive foreign policy thinkers (myself included) have argued that the Bush administration’s position with respect to maintaining a troop presence in Iraq (indefinitely, regardless of the situation on the ground) has diminished the likelihood that the ruling Shiite coalition (most recently headed by Maliki) would offer concessions deemed necessary to bring about political reconciliation.  Since our forces would be around for the foreseeable future as a bulwark to insulate the Iraqi government from the costs of its intransigence, we were disincentivizing compromise – or so the argument goes. 

It has been asserted by some of the brighter lights in the progressive foreign policy firmament that, due to this dynamic, the US must begin to remove forces (and threaten, credibly, a complete withdrawal) in order to focus the mind of Iraq’s leadership on addressing grievances of minority groups that it could previously afford to ignore – by virute of the presence of those US forces.  However, Reidar Visser argues that The Surge may have rendered even this bit of hoped-for leverage impotent.  Maliki might not view the threat of withdrawal with the same sense of urgency that he would have at some point in the past:

What appears to be missing in these assumptions is an appreciation of some of what happened in Iraq in 2007. This is not to suggest that “the surge” was such a wonderful success. So far, no significant political institutional reform has materialised as a result of the decline in violence; without this kind of political reform “the surge” in itself is worthless because it is based on temporary stop-gap measures like an infusion of US troops and the bribing of armed militants. However, Nuri al-Maliki the person has been enormously strengthened by the surge. A year and a half ago, any suggestion that Maliki would be the next strongman of Iraq would be met by ridicule. Today, his emergence as a powerful figure with an increasingly independent position vis-à-vis his political coalition partners is an undeniable fact. The Iraqi army is stronger than at any point since 2003 and is becoming a potential tool of repression that many other authoritarian rulers in the region are envious of. And Maliki has rediscovered an ideological superstructure that is making him increasingly immune against criticism at home: using the language of centralism, Iraqi nationalism and at times anti-federalism, he has become independent enough to challenge even some of his longstanding coalition partners such as the Kurds and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). [ed: Visser discusses the increasing antagonism between Maliki and ISCI in a previous post for any interested in reading up on this further] 

Iraqi public opinion and attitudes toward prolonged US involvement make it increasingly likely that Maliki would not respond as desired to pressure deriving from the threat of withdrawal:

When it comes to the leverage of the next US administration in Iraq the question is not so much about the “objective” strength of the Iraqi army but rather about what Nuri al-Maliki perceives to be his room for manoeuvre. In that regard, he seems increasingly tied to a nationalist discourse of Iraqi sovereignty that takes a critical line with regard to foreign interference. Hence, it seems more and more likely that if faced with an Obama offer of “conditional engagement” Maliki’s most likely response would be essentially that Iraq is an independent country which is not willing to be bullied into constitutional reforms at the behest of foreigners. He would be thankful to the Americans for their support their support so far in making him a strong ruler, but he would feel strong enough to decline the offer of extended support if this comes with too many strings attached: a SOFA, maybe, but no more than that. He might hope to see his electoral base boosted in local and parliamentary elections, or he could turn to the army and other security forces where he has an increasing number of friends. Failing that, he could always turn to Iran – it may be symptomatic in this regard that the pro-Iranian Daawa/Tanzim al-Iraq is part of Maliki’s new coalition for the local elections even if ISCI apparently plans to run separately.

Maliki’s potential resort to even greater levels of Iranian patronage is troublesome, as is the prospect of Maliki continuing to ignore the grievances of substantial segments of the Iraqi population.  There are fault lines along which a full scale resumption of violence could erupt, and Maliki may have decided (for now at least, and perhaps erroneously) that he can withstand such an outbreak.  The solution then – at least in terms of weening the Iraqi government off of its dependence on Tehran and encouraging a more inclusive government that would ensure greater stability – might involve, in some way, weakening Maliki.

To be clear, this is not a call for a coup or any other such crude, undemocratic measure that would only swap one problem for another, meet with stiff resistance, further tarnish our image and, thus, hamper our ability to play a constructive role in Iraq in any way going forward.  Nor is this a call for prolonging the deployment of US troops against the wishes of the Maliki government.

On the contrary, the wisest course would be to do what we can to open up the Iraqi democratic process in such a manner as to permit nationalist forces to exert an influence, in conjunction with the plan to withdraw troops.  The influence of these nationalist elements would, hopefully, limit Iran’s ability to interfere in Iraq’s affairs (and ours to be clear), and provide for a broader consensus in terms of Iraq’s government.  Visser discusses this, and another more extreme approach:

There are two other Iraq alternatives that have received only limited attention by Democratic policy-makers. The first one is exceedingly straightforward and would consist of singling out the 2009 parliamentary elections as the key to reform and Iraq’s last chance to repair itself (the new parliament would then appoint a more representative constitutional revision committee than the current one). The United States could focus all its energies on making those elections as inclusive and free and fair as possible, and in doing so would be quite immune against accusations of meddling in Iraqi affairs. The second alternative is more radical, and builds on the idea of an externally induced shock as well as exploiting US leverage where it still exists: Kurdistan. Political scientist Liam Anderson has earlier proposed an internationally guaranteed “autonomy plus” status for Kurdistan along the lines of the Åland Islands in Finland; by building on this idea one might also create a corollary involving Kurdish withdrawal from the constitutional process in the rest of Iraq, where much of the problem has been artificial alliances between the two biggest Kurdish parties and pro-federal Shiite politicians that enjoy only limited backing in the constituencies they purport to represent, and where what is needed is radical recalibration and constitutional reform directed by Iraqis who are more representative and who can offer resistance to the attempt by the Kurds to impose a pro-federal agenda on all of Iraq. Both these approaches come with the advantage that they are much more difficult for Nuri al-Maliki to simply reject and therefore also involve a greater degree of real US leverage.

That second option would have big-time regional reverberations, and would likely meet with stiff resistance from both Turkey and Iran, which might render it DOA.  Yet removing the Kurds from the equation does have its virtues (it’s an awkward marriage to say the least) if the other costs could be minimized.

But the first option is one that I have been pushing for some time, and don’t see any reason to stop now.  Quite the contrary.  Bush-era resistance to encouraging the opening up of the electoral process centered around the risk of empowering the Sadrists and other nationalist-minded political movements that would be hostile to a prolonged US presence (both militarily and, perhaps, in terms of oil sector exploitation).  So, instead, the Bush administration assisted in Maliki’s anti-democratic crackdowns of such groups.

But since the empowerment of Maliki has setback the cause of political reconciliation, and Maliki himself is likely to usher us to the exits regardless, what purpose does thwarting a fuller democratic participation my such nationalist elements serve?  Unless the Bush and, soon to be, Obama administrations still hold out hope that Maliki would be more open to sweeter deals on extraction of the sweet crude.  But that’s a dangerous game to play and, as The Surge has taught us, controlling would-be vassals ain’t what it used to be.