John McCain and Lindsey Graham
By John McCain and Lindsey Graham
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki visited Washington last week amid a political and security crisis in Iraq that is as bad as any the country has experienced since the worst days of the insurgency in 2007 and 2008. Iraq is being lost. And while the Obama administration may seek to avoid blame, or shift blame yet again to the Bush administration, it should not be allowed to avoid its own responsibility for the ongoing deterioration of Iraq — or what to do about it now.
By nearly every indicator, the situation in Iraq has worsened dramatically since the beginning of the conflict in Syria and the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq in 2011. An analysis this month by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy captured the depths of the current crisis: “In 2010, the low point for the Al Qaeda effort in Iraq, car bombings declined to an average of 10 a month and multiple location attacks occurred only two or three times a year.
In 2013, so far there has been an average of 68 car bombings a month and a multiple-location strike every 10 days.” The UN estimates that nearly 7,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq this year alone. What’s worse, the deteriorating conflict in Syria has enabled Al Qaeda in Iraq to transform into the larger and more lethal Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham (ISIS), which now has a major base for operations spanning both Iraq and Syria. It may just be a matter of time until Al Qaeda seeks to use its new safe haven in these countries to launch attacks against US interests.
We are prepared to assign blame for failures in today’s Iraq to the Bush administration where they are deserved. Indeed, from 2003-2006, we were among President Bush’s toughest and most outspoken critics on Iraq.
To be sure, most of the blame lies with Iraqis themselves, especially Prime Minister Maliki and his allies, who have too often pursued a sectarian and authoritarian agenda that has alienated Kurdish Iraqis, disenfranchised Sunni Iraqis, and alienated many Shia Iraqis who hold an inclusive, pluralistic and democratic vision for their country.
But the Obama administration cannot escape its own culpability for this enormous failure.
The “blame Bush” approach will not work this time. Whatever the Bush administration got wrong about Iraq, it got one very important thing right: The recognition in early 2007 that the conflict needed a different strategy, more troops and other resources, and different military leadership in the country.
This strategy, known as “the Surge,” helped create the political and security conditions upon which the Iraqi people could build. Additional US troops secured the streets and provided a security mechanism through which the development of Iraq’s own military was accelerated. At the same time, Sunni tribal leaders began to fight back against the most radical elements of the insurgency who had threatened their traditional power structures.
Known as the Awakening, or Sahwa, the Sunni tribal community turned against Al Qaeda and, with the help of US forces, degraded the insurgency. As Al Qaeda was crushed and its attacks against Shia Iraqi communities declined, the Maliki government and the Iraqi Security Forces were empowered to push back on Shia militants groups and play a more constructive role in the country’s security. This is how Iraqis were able to escape the depths of civil war.
In addition to the military successes produced by the surge, an equally important component of this strategy was the political signal sent by President Bush to the Iraqi people that the US was decisively committed to a successful outcome there.
This promise of US support guaranteed the political process and, in so doing, created the necessary political space for dialogue and consensus-building. It reassured Iraqi politicians that they would not be abandoned as they made difficult political decisions and guaranteed a framework by which all parties had a vested interest in building a stable, inclusive, and democratic Iraq.
Thus, as the Bush administration left office, Iraq was at long last heading in a more promising direction. Violence was down significantly; Sunnis were being reintegrated into the political system through a more equitable distribution of power and resources; some of Iraq’s most corrupt leaders have been pushed out; more moderate Shia leadership had been empowered; and there was a real opportunity through continued US support and engagement to strengthen a constitutional order in Iraq that was open to all Iraqis, regardless of sect or ethnicity.
Nowhere was the Obama administration’s failure more pronounced than during the debate over whether to maintain a limited number of US troops in Iraq beyond the 2011 expiration of the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) — a debate in which we were actively involved.
Here, too, the administration is quick to lay blame on others for the fact that they tried, and failed, to keep a limited presence of troops in Iraq. They have blamed the Bush administration, of course, for mandating the withdrawal in the 2008 SOFA.
This does not ring true, however, because as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has made clear, the plan all along was to renegotiate the agreement to allow for a continued presence of US forces in Iraq.
The Obama administration also blames Iraqis for failing to grant the necessary privileges and immunities for a US force presence beyond 2011.
This, too, is misleading because as we saw firsthand, the administration never undertook the necessary diplomatic effort to reach such an agreement. We travelled to Iraq in May 2011, only several months away from the deadline that our commanders had set for the beginning of the withdrawal.
Such a strategy should unite Iraqis of every sect and ethnicity in a reformed constitutional order based on the rule of law, which can give Iraqis a real stake in their nation’s progress, marginalise Al Qaeda in Iraq and other violent extremists, and bring lasting peace to the country.
To be effective, an Iraqi political strategy should involve sharing greater national power and revenue with Sunni Iraqis, reconciling with Sunni leaders, and ending de-Baathification and other policies of blanket retribution.
It should include agreements with the Kurdistan Regional Government to share hydrocarbon revenues and resolve territorial disputes. And it requires a clear commitment that the elections scheduled for next year will happen freely, fairly, and inclusively in all parts of Iraq, and that the necessary preparations will be taken. While President Obama’s policies have certainly curtailed US influence in Iraq, our nation has enduring national security interests in Iraq that cannot be diminished.
The Obama administration inherited a policy in Iraq that was succeeding in driving down levels of violence, significantly degrading Al Qaeda in Iraq, and building a constitutional order in which differences could be resolved peacefully and politically.
Five years later, Iraq is beset by escalating levels of violence, growing political polarisation, and a resurgent Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria that now possesses a base of operations in the heart of the Middle East.
The current failure in Iraq has unfolded on the Obama administration’s watch, and it is the president’s responsibility to devise a strategy to address these serious national security challenges — for it is folly to believe that the growing failure in Iraq will not ultimately impact the US.
One only need look at US policy toward Afghanistan in the 1990s to understand the problems inherent to such wishful thinking.
The US fought too hard and sacrificed and invested too much to allow Iraq to descend into violence once again. We owe it to the brave Americans who fought and lost their lives to do everything we can to ensure the realisation of the goals in Iraq that they fought so hard to achieve.
No one wants the Obama administration’s legacy in Iraq to be one of squandering our many hard-won gains there but, at present, that is the unfortunate reality it is facing.WP-BLOOMBERG
By John McCain and Lindsey Graham
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki visited Washington last week amid a political and security crisis in Iraq that is as bad as any the country has experienced since the worst days of the insurgency in 2007 and 2008. Iraq is being lost. And while the Obama administration may seek to avoid blame, or shift blame yet again to the Bush administration, it should not be allowed to avoid its own responsibility for the ongoing deterioration of Iraq — or what to do about it now.
By nearly every indicator, the situation in Iraq has worsened dramatically since the beginning of the conflict in Syria and the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq in 2011. An analysis this month by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy captured the depths of the current crisis: “In 2010, the low point for the Al Qaeda effort in Iraq, car bombings declined to an average of 10 a month and multiple location attacks occurred only two or three times a year.
In 2013, so far there has been an average of 68 car bombings a month and a multiple-location strike every 10 days.” The UN estimates that nearly 7,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq this year alone. What’s worse, the deteriorating conflict in Syria has enabled Al Qaeda in Iraq to transform into the larger and more lethal Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham (ISIS), which now has a major base for operations spanning both Iraq and Syria. It may just be a matter of time until Al Qaeda seeks to use its new safe haven in these countries to launch attacks against US interests.
We are prepared to assign blame for failures in today’s Iraq to the Bush administration where they are deserved. Indeed, from 2003-2006, we were among President Bush’s toughest and most outspoken critics on Iraq.
To be sure, most of the blame lies with Iraqis themselves, especially Prime Minister Maliki and his allies, who have too often pursued a sectarian and authoritarian agenda that has alienated Kurdish Iraqis, disenfranchised Sunni Iraqis, and alienated many Shia Iraqis who hold an inclusive, pluralistic and democratic vision for their country.
But the Obama administration cannot escape its own culpability for this enormous failure.
The “blame Bush” approach will not work this time. Whatever the Bush administration got wrong about Iraq, it got one very important thing right: The recognition in early 2007 that the conflict needed a different strategy, more troops and other resources, and different military leadership in the country.
This strategy, known as “the Surge,” helped create the political and security conditions upon which the Iraqi people could build. Additional US troops secured the streets and provided a security mechanism through which the development of Iraq’s own military was accelerated. At the same time, Sunni tribal leaders began to fight back against the most radical elements of the insurgency who had threatened their traditional power structures.
Known as the Awakening, or Sahwa, the Sunni tribal community turned against Al Qaeda and, with the help of US forces, degraded the insurgency. As Al Qaeda was crushed and its attacks against Shia Iraqi communities declined, the Maliki government and the Iraqi Security Forces were empowered to push back on Shia militants groups and play a more constructive role in the country’s security. This is how Iraqis were able to escape the depths of civil war.
In addition to the military successes produced by the surge, an equally important component of this strategy was the political signal sent by President Bush to the Iraqi people that the US was decisively committed to a successful outcome there.
This promise of US support guaranteed the political process and, in so doing, created the necessary political space for dialogue and consensus-building. It reassured Iraqi politicians that they would not be abandoned as they made difficult political decisions and guaranteed a framework by which all parties had a vested interest in building a stable, inclusive, and democratic Iraq.
Thus, as the Bush administration left office, Iraq was at long last heading in a more promising direction. Violence was down significantly; Sunnis were being reintegrated into the political system through a more equitable distribution of power and resources; some of Iraq’s most corrupt leaders have been pushed out; more moderate Shia leadership had been empowered; and there was a real opportunity through continued US support and engagement to strengthen a constitutional order in Iraq that was open to all Iraqis, regardless of sect or ethnicity.
Nowhere was the Obama administration’s failure more pronounced than during the debate over whether to maintain a limited number of US troops in Iraq beyond the 2011 expiration of the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) — a debate in which we were actively involved.
Here, too, the administration is quick to lay blame on others for the fact that they tried, and failed, to keep a limited presence of troops in Iraq. They have blamed the Bush administration, of course, for mandating the withdrawal in the 2008 SOFA.
This does not ring true, however, because as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has made clear, the plan all along was to renegotiate the agreement to allow for a continued presence of US forces in Iraq.
The Obama administration also blames Iraqis for failing to grant the necessary privileges and immunities for a US force presence beyond 2011.
This, too, is misleading because as we saw firsthand, the administration never undertook the necessary diplomatic effort to reach such an agreement. We travelled to Iraq in May 2011, only several months away from the deadline that our commanders had set for the beginning of the withdrawal.
Such a strategy should unite Iraqis of every sect and ethnicity in a reformed constitutional order based on the rule of law, which can give Iraqis a real stake in their nation’s progress, marginalise Al Qaeda in Iraq and other violent extremists, and bring lasting peace to the country.
To be effective, an Iraqi political strategy should involve sharing greater national power and revenue with Sunni Iraqis, reconciling with Sunni leaders, and ending de-Baathification and other policies of blanket retribution.
It should include agreements with the Kurdistan Regional Government to share hydrocarbon revenues and resolve territorial disputes. And it requires a clear commitment that the elections scheduled for next year will happen freely, fairly, and inclusively in all parts of Iraq, and that the necessary preparations will be taken. While President Obama’s policies have certainly curtailed US influence in Iraq, our nation has enduring national security interests in Iraq that cannot be diminished.
The Obama administration inherited a policy in Iraq that was succeeding in driving down levels of violence, significantly degrading Al Qaeda in Iraq, and building a constitutional order in which differences could be resolved peacefully and politically.
Five years later, Iraq is beset by escalating levels of violence, growing political polarisation, and a resurgent Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria that now possesses a base of operations in the heart of the Middle East.
The current failure in Iraq has unfolded on the Obama administration’s watch, and it is the president’s responsibility to devise a strategy to address these serious national security challenges — for it is folly to believe that the growing failure in Iraq will not ultimately impact the US.
One only need look at US policy toward Afghanistan in the 1990s to understand the problems inherent to such wishful thinking.
The US fought too hard and sacrificed and invested too much to allow Iraq to descend into violence once again. We owe it to the brave Americans who fought and lost their lives to do everything we can to ensure the realisation of the goals in Iraq that they fought so hard to achieve.
No one wants the Obama administration’s legacy in Iraq to be one of squandering our many hard-won gains there but, at present, that is the unfortunate reality it is facing.WP-BLOOMBERG
