I just got back from DC where I attended two days of hearings with the Senate Foreign Relations committee. Senator Biden and Senator Lugar have set up a series of hearings bringing in members of the Administration, policy experts, academics, former State foreign officers and retired military generals to present comments and produce discussion on Iraq. On the whole, I believe it’s a laudable exercise, although the questions most members asked seemed to be directed at reinforcing their existing political bias, and not necessarily seeking out further understanding of the issues. Last week Secretary Rice and Secretary Gates spoke before the committee. This week, some of their views and statements were challenged by new witnesses.
On Wednesday, the guests included Richard Haass - currently President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dennis Ross – long-serving State Department official in the Middle East, and Vali Nasr – author of the recent book The Shia Revival. Present were about 6-8 Senators, including new members Webb (D-VA) and Casey (D-PA). (Members popped in and out throughout the day.)
Wednesday’s discussion remained fairly academic; the speakers warned of all the dangers present in the region, and the obvious mistakes they believed were made in US diplomatic actions, but were hard-pressed to state an actual course forward other that demanding that ‘open discussions’ had to be held with everyone in the region. I have found that this is a common mantra chanted by nearly everyone, yet I am waiting to hear what anybody suggests saying once they’ve got themselves seated at a table with Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and whoever else they deem necessary to ‘talk to.’ The most reasonable suggestion about those hypothetical talks came from Haass, who said that we needed to clearly establish an agenda before going into the room, and make sure that the Iraq situation stays separate from the Israel/Palestine issue, restricting efforts to make progress in Iraq conditional on that situation.
The highlight of Senator Biden’s day had to be the moment when Barack Obama entered late and took his seat. For almost twenty minutes straight, the sound of camera shutters threatened to overwhelm the proceedings. The press photographers sitting on the floor of the chamber crawled all over each other, fighting for a better angle. There seemed to be several moments when I was sure that Biden was just going to tell them to ‘just knock it off…’
Thursday I found far more interesting. A panel of retired Generals offered their views on the situation and their understanding of the US national security interests at stake. GEN Hoar and LTG Odom offered particularly gloomy assessments and were solidly behind immediate withdrawal of US forces.
GEN McCaffrey believed that the best thing the US could do at this point was ensure that the Iraqi forces at least had the appropriate equipment and training to fight an insurgency, acknowledging that that process would take about 24-36 months.
GEN Keane offered what I thought to be the most accurate assessment of the Iraqi situation and what we can hope to achieve there. He is the co-author of a recent paper with Frederick Kagan that supports an escalation of forces to Iraq. This paper has been considered by many to be the intellectual basis for President Bush’s ‘surge’ policy, however there are significant, but not obvious, differences that Keane pointed out.
In his testimony, and in a private conversation I had with GEN Keane after the hearing, he candidly stated that the eventual effectiveness of a ‘surge’ was dependent upon a number of factors that we cannot control at this point, significantly – the willingness of the Maliki government to use any potential security improvements in Baghdad to strengthen his hand against the many factions arrayed against his government. I’ll talk more on that later, but for now let me state one point. The key distinction between his original plan for a ‘surge’, and how the Administration may be intending to execute their plan, is to what extent that “securing Baghdad” is an American mission in itself – or is an Iraqi mission that we are in support of. That distinction is critical, and requires us to think both ‘politically’ and ‘militarily’. Politically, of course we want to say that we are ‘helping the Iraqis secure their own country’. But militarily, that mission will fail. The only way a ‘surge’ can succeed, as both GEN Keane and myself believe, is if US forces remain in the lead and take on the mission of securing Baghdad as their primary task – with Iraqi security units in support of our mission. Only after that ‘military’ mission is successful can the ‘political’ mission of ensuring Iraqi security forces are capable of serving their new government, be achieved.
I need to state something that many Americans may not fully appreciate. Since the fall of the Saddam regime, securing the Iraqi population from harm has never been a primary American military mission in itself. Our primary missions have been 1) fighting an insurgency and 2) training Iraqi security forces. It was assumed that achieving both of those objectives would have the second-order effect of enhancing Iraqi security. [This is not to say that US forces have not acted to defend Iraqis or sought to protect them from harm - I am describing the order of our strategic imperatives.] With the increase in sectarian violence (which has major implications for the political environment) it becomes necessary to reverse this order. Establishing positive security in Baghdad will dampen the sectarian strife and permit the political progress that will enable the legitimate Iraqi security forces to quell the insurgency. Security is the key - everything else follows. This should be the primary mission of any ‘surge’, or it is wasted effort.
I fear that political objectives will obscure the military necessity of this ‘surge’ mission. However I have hope that General Petreus, soon to arrive in theater, will do his utmost to ensure that the objectives of our forces in Iraq are clear, essential and achievable.
