While we've achieved much, more needs to be done to cement the progress we've made.
As I've long argued, the Arab-Kurdish divide is a potential source of instability. General Ray Odierno is thinking ahead:
The top U.S. military commander in Iraq says U.N. peacekeepers may be needed after American troops leave in 2011 if tensions between Kurds and Arabs aren't resolved.
I'd rather have our guys up there as they are now. And maybe we could stay under a new UN mandate. I don't think non-US troops under the UN flag could do the job. The main point is to understand that this job won't be finished by the end of 2011. So what do we do?
Remember that part of the job in northern Iraq is al Qaeda related. Couldn't we address this, too, with a unique suggestion by Hitchens?
Might it be salutary to ask Gen. McChrystal for one more mission? Send him back to Baghdad to help oversee the drawdown and also to continue the trouncing of those who are trying to disrupt the transition. Help pass on to the Iraqi army a cadre of battle-tested fighters, Arab and Kurdish, who have learned to take the measure of the enemy. Make it plain that further help from over the horizon is available if they ask for it. This would be a much more fitting career conclusion than the one currently offered, which has something small and dishonorable about it.
Iraq also needs help with external defense. We've helped Iraq build a good counter-insurgency and internal security force, but it can't handle external threats. Their air force is the clearest example of what Iraq cannot yet do:
U.S. troops are conducting training exercises with Iraqi divisions, emphasizing teaching the Iraqis to work with air power. The U.S. is using F-16s, which the Iraqis are negotiating to buy. In the meantime, the U.S. Air Force will apparently stand by (possibly in Kuwait, but perhaps in Iraqi air bases) to provide air defense and ground support capabilities.
We could handle some of the job outside Iraq, but it wouldn't be ideal for all missions. It would be nice if we could pair a US fighter wing with only a squadron of actual fighters and a beefed up ground support contingent to pair it with Iraqi squadrons for training and maintenance purposes inside Iraq. Other support missions could be flown from Kuwait, carriers at sea, or Gulf bases further south.
Naval support is obviously a mission we can support from outside Iraq, but the ground mission of external defense is one that needs more inside-Iraq forces and fewer outside-Iraq forces. We can help with some Kuwait-based and afloat prepositioned equipment sites as well as afloat Marines, but we could still use at least 3 or 4 combat brigades inside Iraq, no matter what we call them to make them palatable to local sensitivieis.
Such a ground presence will help keep Iraqi politicians in line, too, as well as deter external threats, by making our commitment concrete with boots on the ground who have call on many more boots on call.
We have missions to kill terrorists, deter foreign invasion, train Iraqi security forces, and build rule of law that will extend into 2012 and beyond.
When the mid-term elections this year are over, I hope the Obama administration seriously gets to work on what our presence in Iraq will look like after 2011.
