Coitus Interruptus in Iraq

Well its pull out day in Iraq. In accordance with the SoFA, US forces had until today to withdrawal from urban areas (in fact it was announced that Iraqi and US forces were prepared for the change over early). The recent upsurge in violence has many concerned about what the ramification of the agreement, negotiated last year, will be. There have also been some last minute adjustments, including allowing the US forces to continued to utilize MRAPs while on daylight patrol, instead of limiting forces to the use of more lightly armored Humvees as had been agree to originally.

Below is a list of predictions, and explanations of why this is a important (or unimportant) milestone from a range of sources, offering various levels of reassurance that though the sky may be falling, it isnt going to today:

Tom Ricks may be the most depressing of the lot, arguing:

Yes, Iraqi units are better trained and equipped than in the past. But that was never the problem. Rather, the point of failure was political. Sunni death squads and Shiite militias knew what they were fighting for, while an Iraqi soldier didn't necessarily. My worry is that I don't see the political situation as being much different than it has in the past.

While hes right to point out the current political weakness, as well as the possibility for increased corruption with the withdrawal of the Americans from the cities, its just not clear what he thinks would have been a viable alternative, given the fact we couldnt negotiate a slower time table into the SoFA, either last fall when it was written or in the previous alterations.

Peter Feaver at Shadow Government has more specific concerns in the same vein, particularly that the SoFA is overly ambitious, and that the upsurge in violence could be the trigger for a wave of violence that "at least in 2006, the terrorists were able to use... to seize the initiative".

He is particularly concerned by many of the points raised by Stephen Biddle in this piece, who strongly advocates a slower withdrawal than that provided for in the SoFA timetable, but in the end is cautiously reassured by Odierno's faith in the timetable, given his previous skepticism (this piece is a few days old so it isnt clear whether the complement of the withdrawal ahead of deadline would have further cemented this view).

A fairly similar view has also been expressed by Anthony Cordesman, and the gang at CNAS, both of whom still thinks we'll need a long term presence in the region. However both these pieces as well as the Biddle piece are taking a much longer view then Feaver is giving them credit for when he claims that pulling out from the cities may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

There also a good critic of their long term assessment over at Musings on Iraq, though I think he simplifies their position in unfair ways. but thats for another post.

Ibn Muqawama (subing in for Exum) at Abu Muqawama responds to concerns over the uptick by noting that there has not (as yet) been any sign that the attacks are triggering the type of sectarian reprisals that were so problematic 3 years ago.

Instead, he says we should focus on helping efforts to better integrate the sects into the government, particularly the Kurds which he thinks is the more likely fault line for the next round of violence. I've been holding for the last 5 years that the "next" round of conflict was going to involve the Kurds, and, with a few exceptions, I've been wrong over and over again, so Im withholding judgment on this one. At any rate, this issues arent ones that US military strength can do much to solve so he doesnt see a need to slow the withdrawal plan.

Marc Lynch at Abu Aardvark seems to think that this is actually a false marker, seeing as how we've been drawing down our troops for months now. While he applauds the effort Obama and the commanders in the field have made to honor the deadline, its for symbolic rather than practical reasons.

There's a lot of anecdotal evidence of mounting popular anxiety, but very little evidence of those kinds of conflict dynamics kicking in. For what it's worth, both Iraqi and American officials seem confident... I'm not particularly an optimist on these matters, any more than I was in the past -- but I also see a rapidly declining ability or need for the U.S. to manage these issues.

Instead, he points to a multitude of problems with the intigration of Sunnis, particularly former members of the SoI and Kurds, who have never felt as strong a sense of connection to the central government. He also points out the there has been little done to improve the situation facing Iraqi refugees/IDPs. Like Ibn M, his conclusion is that "slowing down the American drawdown would not materially improve any of these issues."

Chris Dierkes at the Atlantic Council basically agrees with Lynch, but adds that much of the negative analysis is not willing enough to ascribe agency to Iraqis (on the academic end of things, this echos compelling arguments that Libby Wood has made). He instead argues:

In the absence of the US filling the void left in the wake of the destruction of the Baath dictatorship, civil war raged. That civil war was a political war... But nature abhors a vacuum. That vacuum was filled by the ensuing conflagration, which was purely predictable given sufficient knowledge of how these things play out–the Iraqi local circumstances filled in the details of that otherwise recognizable general pattern.

And that Civil War was won by the Shia. Definitively.

and then moves on to discuss the realities of dealing with this newly reveled Shia victory in similar terms to Ibn M and Lynch.

However, even this view fail to really capture the weight of the "symbolic" deadline for many Iraqis. Attackerman quotes sources describing the scene as:

It's a "carnival" in Baghdad, according to the Post's Ernesto Londono, filled with Iraqi troops grinning as they take their lives into their own hands and graffitti writers further south demanding, "Pull your troops from our Basra, we are its sons and want its sovereignty." Don't tell them tomorrow is just another day.

At the end of the day though, the biggest difference seems to be not in the analysis of what Iraqs future problems will be, but rather weather a continued American military presence could reasonably be expected to do anything to help prevent another wave of conflict. I generally tend to side with the school of thought that military forces arent going to do much to help with the next generation of problems, however (and this is a substantial caveat) I have a distinct feeling that the Iraqi Army and Police have underestimated the level of training they require, and our "training and advisory" mission is going to need to be scaled up from the current timetable at later stages of the withdrawal plan.