Not Hopeless?

General David Petraus took over as the U. S. military commander in Iraq emphasizing at a Baghdad ceremony that the situation is "not hopeless."

But it's not exactly hopeful either.

Here's some of the extremely difficult taks that have to be accomplished for the surge to be successful.

1. The Iraqi Army. Getting the Iraqi Army to lead the effort to control Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods will be extremely difficult. Perhaps not completely hopeless, but there is no reason to be optimistic either. The Iraqi Army is riddled with militia members and militia sympathizers, corrupt, and poorly motivated for fighting anywhere but in their home provinces. Even if Petraus can transform the Iraqi Army from a glorified militia into an effective offensive force, the chances of success appear negligible. If Petraus can't do this, there's no chance whatsoever.

2. Avoiding Shiite Insurrection. The consensus seems to be that any success in stabilizing Baghdad means that Shiite militias have to be neutralized. However, there is a strong possibility that attacking the Mahdi Army, Badr Brigade, and other militias will trigger a general Shiite revolt to match the Sunni revolt in Anbar. The American military has to resist the temptation to arrest or kill Moqtada al-Sadr, avoid torturing the suspects they round up, not have any incidents where women and children are killed, not bomb innocent events like wedding celebrations or funerals, not manhandle any Shiite religious leaders, and not desecrate Shiite religious symbols. In other words, the American military has to stop doing all of the things it's been doing in Iraq. A tall order indeed.

3. Avoid Collapse of Iraqi Government. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the al-Sadr faction are the two biggest elements in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's governing coalition. If the American military is successful in attacking the militias connected to these political parties, there is a chance that the Iraqi government could collapse for lack of support among the majority Shiite population. The Bush administration has shown little understanding of the functioning significance of the Shiite militias for the government in Iraq. This might be another case of the Bush administration's commitment to ignorance coming back to bite them.

4. Creating Political Compromise. The Bush administration believes that the surge can only be successful if Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish politicians can make the compromises necessary to form a national unity government. Leaving aside the fact that the Bush administration has been extremely disdainful of negotiation, compromise, and cooperation itself, the Bush administration is expecting Shiite politicians to be willing to compromise at the same time that their communities are under enormous pressure from the American military. That seems extremely doubtful as well.

5. Jump-Starting Economic Reconstruction. The third leg of the "clear, control, build" strategy of General Petraus is economic reconstruction. However, there's little money for reconstruction on any scale, little incentive for Iraqi officials to be honest, and little patience with the inevitable corruption. There's also the problem that economic reconstruction projects are like schools, hospitals, and marketplaces in being extremely vulnerable targets to terror attacks.
Perhaps the surge is not completely hopeless, but I don't think it would be too pessimistic to say that the siege is almost completely hopeless.