The Obama administration is under some pressure to do something about Iraq--notwithstanding the brilliant responsible ending of that war:
As Al Qaeda-aligned insurgents make unprecedented post-war gains in Iraq, U.S. military officials and others in the Obama administration are keeping their distance -- despite mounting calls to ratchet up involvement amid fears the country is teetering on the brink of civil war.
Administration officials are now trying to find some middle ground, which so far includes sending additional shipments of Hellfire missiles to Baghdad, as well as surveillance drones. Lawmakers, though, claim it's clear the administration could be doing more.
Back at the end of 2006, when the Syrian- and Iranian-fomented sectarian violence threatened to dissolve into civil war, my main fear was the Iraq Study Group providing cover for a too-fast retreat from Iraq before the Iraqis were ready to fight the war.
I didn't think we needed to turn over a pacified Iraq to the Iraqis. Just turn over an Iraqi military strong enough to beat the insurgencies and terrorism. For that, I still thought we'd need to remain in a diminishing capacity for years to come.
When the surge proposal came out, I recoiled from supporting it because I thought it could interfere with remaining long enough to prepare the Iraqis for the fight on their own.
I worried because I was skeptical that it could bring results fast enough to counter the effect of increased American casualties as a surge of forces and going on offense would create.
Better to hang on, stretching out a withdrawal as long as possible, I thought, rather than risk the surge and too subtle progress that would accelerate withdrawal in reaction.
But the surge worked. And despite my worries, by summer 2007 I could see real results and I did not have to willingly suspend disbelief to see that reality unfolding. I was happily wrong about the ability of the surge (coupled with the Anbar Awakening that took off in fall 2006) to rapidly change the situation on the ground.
But the point is, if in spring 2007 before we had decided on the surge that an alternative to the surge would be an Iraq that in 2013 had 8,000 casualties with al Qaeda under siege in Ramadi and Fallujah by combined national forces and Anbar tribal militias, I'd say that things were working out just fine.
Granted, I'd be stunned if you told me that in 2011 violence was much lower yet we left completely anyway. But let's overlook that and focus on working the problems.
Let's not use this setback to justify giving up.
With Maliki belatedly mending fences with the Sunni Arabs, I don't assume this won't be enough.
Iraqi forces are also much stronger than al Qaeda, now.
Al Qaeda is split between the Iraq and Syria front.
And the al Qaeda occupation of Fallujah and Ramadi does expose the terrorists to conventional military power if the terrorists can be pinned in place rather than allowing them to escape, disperse, and go underground again:
As violence escalates in the western Iraq province of Anbar – the site of one-third of all US troop deaths during America’s war there – some US military officials are arguing that perhaps Al Qaeda's return to the region offers a valuable opportunity for US-trained fighters to take on the terrorist group.
This is the counter-narrative emerging from analysts who say that Al Qaeda’s decision to take the battle to the streets of western Iraq represents what could turn out to be a damaging strategic blunder for the organization.
“Al Qaeda made a big mistake in coming out of the shadows,” says retired Col. Douglas Ollivant, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and former director for Iraq at the National Security Council during both the Bush and Obama administrations.
I agree. It looked like an opportunity to me. If the government can exploit this, al Qaeda could be dealt both a battlefield defeat and a political defeat by restoring the Anbar tribal alliance with the national government.
