Cordesman's "Strategic Patience:" Another Prescription for Failure (Revised, Linked)

INTRODUCTION. The liberal blogs treat Anthony Cordesman's report as a pessimistic counter-point to last week's O'Hanlan/Pollack optimistic New York Times op-ed on the Iraq War. That's a mistake for two reasons. Most importantly, the O'Hanlan/Pollack article was an embarrassing collection of big gestures and vague allusions that was difficult to argue against O'Hanlan and Pollack because they do so little to substantiate their views. That's not the case with Cordesman.

Moreover, there's a decent chance that Cordesman's concept of "strategic patience" will be a talking point for the right-wing blogs and talk show hosts after the O'Hanlon/Pollack piece is forgotten. Austin Bay has an article on strategic patience up on TownHall.com today. Certainly, there will be more to come.

CORDESMAN ON WEAKNESS, FAILURE, AND INCOMPETENCE
Cordesman articulates his argument for strategic patience against a background of the many weaknesses and failures of the war to date. In fact, Cordesman believes that the surge strategy has been a failure because American forces could not count on the Iraqi military to "hold" areas after they had been cleared (15) and the deteriorating Iraqi government has not been able to forge compromise (10).

In this context of overall failure, Cordesman attempts to argue that the American military can make enough progress by spring 2008 to justify keeping 160,000 American troops in Iraq for another six months or so. Given his emphasis on the destructiveness of the war for the Iraqis, the steep decline in American credibility throughout the world, and the cost in American lives and money, Cordesman has to bear a very heavy burden in order to be at all convincing. To justify the continued military commitment in light of the enormous difficulties, Cordesman needs both to project success for "strategic patience" and portray that success as crucially important to Iraqi and American interests. I don't believe that Cordesman meets that burden and want to illustrate my point first with a schematic summary of Cordesman's view of the weaknesses and failures of the American effort in Iraq.

AMERICAN WEAKNESSES
Bush national security team--"clearly ineffective and lacking in core competence" (25)
Economic aid apparatus--

--The aid process is still a mess, with no effective leadership in Washington. . . neither the top level leadership of USAID, nor of the Corps of Engineers, has been able to provide honest reporting, meaningful measures of effectiveness, fully staff efforts in Iraq, develop meaningfuloverall aid plans and priorities, control corruption, coordinate the different elements of the JUS aid effort in Iraq, and ensure the successful transfer of major projects to Iraq.

Former American military command in Iraq (Casey and Abizaid)--"the F troop." (22)

IRAQI WEAKNESSES:
Prime Minister Noury al-Maliki-- (13, 15)
Oriented toward Shiite sectarianism
Supportive of Shiite ethnic cleansing in Baghdad
Frees Shiite detainees
Unwilling to cooperate with Sunnis
Weakening of al-Maliki's own Dawa Party

Central government ministries--
"The structure of the central government is so horribly inefficient, and its ministries so
vulnerable to power brokering, corruption, and ethnic and sectarian manipulation thatmeaningful reform is impossible."--(14)

Sunni politicians--Have no base of popular support in Sunni areas. (15)

Encroaching anarchy in Shiite areas-- (15-16)
The Shiite political coalition behind the Maliki government is falling apart and Shiite militias are fighting over the city of Basra and holy sites like Karbala. Within encroaching anarchy, the Mahdi Army militia of Moqtada al-Sadr has emerged as the strongest force by far.

Iraqi Army--
"--The Iraqi army has some truly national units, but others have ties to sectarian cleansing in the areas where there is serious fighting or sectarian pressure . . . There was a broad consensus that the Army is far less actively involved in sectarian cleansing than the National Police or regular police. However, senior and other Iraqi army officers and units either support or tolerate sectarian cleansing in Northwest Baghdad and south of Baghdad, particularly to the east of the river in the areas near the arch of Cestiphon." (17)

Iraqi Police----
"The regular police remain a mess at the national level, and there are no prospects of creating a truly national police force --except for some specialized elements -- or one that can both perform regular police duties and deal effectively with militias and insurgents." (18)

Persistence of al-Qaeda:
"Al Qa’ida is far from defeated, it still has major support from some tribes, and significantAl Qa’ida operating areas exist in the Al Qaim, Hysaybah, Rawah, Anah, Haditha Triad, Sakran, Upper Lake Thar Thar, Hit, Baghdadi, Kubaysah, Ramadi, Karmah, Fallujah, and Zaidon areas. Many other Sunni Islamist extremist groups are still operating in parts of Iraq and have suffered only limited losses." (7)

"Iraq may not be Darfur, but to talk about what is happening as something that does not involve immense suffering, that does not involve immense future risk, and for which the US does not have direct moral and ethical responsibility is absurd." (4-5)

CORDESMAN'S ARGUMENT FOR STRATEGIC
PATIENCE.
Iraq may not be the Darfur region of Sudan, but Cordesman's picture of Iraq indicates that conditions range from disastrous to horrific and Iraq is thus much more like Sudan than the "stable democracy" so foolishly projected by the Bush administration at the beginning of the invasion adventure.

Cordesman's argument for "strategic patience" is that there there are a sufficient forces who are both competent and committed to the welfare of the Iraqi nation to bring about improvements if the current force levels are maintained long enough.

These forces include the American military command under Gen. Petraeus, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, some Sunni politicians in the Iraqi government, much of the Sunni tribal leadership, their militias, and some Iraqi Army units.

Cordesman believes that the "Anbar Awakening" in which many (not all) of the Sunni tribes switched allegiance from al-Qaeda to the Americans was the event that gave the American military command something to build on. He admits that the "Anbar Awakening" was a stroke of luck (9) for the American side but stresses that American commanders have been quick to take advantage of the opening and have succeeded in reducing resistance in Sunni areas like Ramadi and Haditha.

With the marginalization of al-Qaeda in many Sunni areas, Cordesman believes it then becomes possible for American officers, Iraqi army units, and Sunni elites to work out local acommodations that provide increased security against an al-Qaida resurgence. (11-13-14) As more Iraqi localities rely on the security provided by the American military to work out these kinds of accommodations, there will come a point where the American government can reduce
its military commitment to Iraq.

Cordesman also gestures toward an idea that "moderate" Shiites will come into this array of forces from fear of the growing strength of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. (13)

Cordesman strives to be realistic. He emphasizes several times that the Bush administration is a negative, and also views the al-Maliki government, Iraqi ministries, and the Iraqi police as negatives. Cordesman also acknowledges that there are hostile military forces, including al-Qaeda, radical Sunni militias, and Shiite militias, spread throughout the country.

Cordesman also acknowledges that the local accommodations themselves would be fairly fragile.

"No one can deny that “strategic patience” means relying on a still undefined set of hopes and taking first steps, not implementing a coherent plan or making rapid progress. The timing of strategic patience also cannot be open ended. The present combination of Sunni tribal efforts, US military action, and limits to Sunni insurgency and Shi’ite militia action is too fragile to survive long delay, even if US domestic political demands were not so critical a factor."

CRITIQUE.

There are essentially three problems with Cordesman's proposal.

1. Cordesman over-relies on local accommodations. The only non-local force
that Cordesman views as a plus for "strategic patience" is the American military and
everything depends on the ability of the American military to neutralize al-Qaeda, the extremist Sunni militias, and the Shiite militias while preventing the blundering Bush administration and the fragmented, incompetent, and corrupt Iraqi government from doing more harm than they've already done. However, keeping a lid on all the other large-scale structures harmfully impacting the local situations in Iraq is too much of a burden for the American military. In other words, the local accommodations on which Cordesman relies are too susceptible to the toxic influence of larger structures to be successful. Cordesman claims that his strategy of creating local islands of stability within the general chaos of Iraq might have a 50-50 chance of working. That's as unrealistically optimistic as the "Panglossian statements" made by the Bush administration. Claiming that "strategic patience" has a one in ten chance of working would be overly optimistic as well.

2. Lack of Progress on the National Level. The only way that local gains could be secured is if there is progress on the national level. Cordesman half-heartedly claims that there will be
legislative progress on oil revenues and re-Baathification after the Iraqi parliament comes back
in September, but provides no reason to expect these things to happen. The Maliki government in Baghdad is falling apart as a result of departures by the Sadr bloc, the Sunni alliance, and secular Shiites. Cordesman's report provides even more reason to think that the central government in Baghdad is falling apart at the same time that the majority Shiite population is decomposing into smaller factions. Iraq is much more like Somalia or Liberia in the decline of central authority and the only thing seeming to hold the central authority together is the American military.

Without any progress on the national level, the chances of local gains being sustained fall even further. Given the actual regression of the situation on the national level, the chances of sustaining local progress are slim indeed.

3. There's also reason to believe that Cordesman's proposal ultimately will be counter-productive. Given the fragility of Cordesman's projected coalition of the American military, local Sunni officials, some Iraqi Army units, and some Sunni politicians, any possibility of success depends on the ability of the American military to suppress other forces. That's the case with non-reliable Iraqi Army units, the Iraqi police, and Shiite militias like the Mahdi army and Badr Organization.

But there is a problem here. Just suppressing these destabilizing forces allows them to get stronger. That's what's happened with the Mahdi Army in Baghdad. Sadr took the Mahdi Army underground after the announcement of the surge and they've used the breathing room to recruit new fighters, train those new fighters in American tactics, and acquire new military technology from Iran. Because the Mahdi Army has been a source of resistance to the U. S., they've also become more popular. When the U. S. takes the pressure off, the Mahdi Army will be stronger than ever.

That's also what happened in Basra. The British managed to suppress the various Shiite militias for a significant period. But the Shiite militias improved on the opportunity and now have the remaining British troops bottled up in their bases and commentators like Cordesman talking about the defeat of the British in Basra.

Bottling up opposing forces doesn't work in the long run because it gives those forces an opportunity to strengthen themselves.

CONCLUSION. Unlike the clowns in the Bush administration and the right-wing media, Anthony Cordesman makes an honest case for maintaining current levels of troops in Iraq through the spring of 2008. Almost entirely giving up on the surge strategy of securing Baghdad and creating compromise in the Iraqi government, Cordesman focuses on the U. S. military forging local coalitions of like-minded actors to create more stability. This strategy has the virtue of building on the changing loyalties of many Sunni tribes in Anbar province and the local political acumen of American officers while providing a realistic assessment of the limitations of the Bush administration, Prime Minister al-Maliki, the Iraqi armed forces, and the general situation in Iraq.

Ultimately, however, "strategic patience" is another recipe for failure in Iraq. Cordesman's strategy depends on local actors being free enough from sectarianism, government corruption, and ideologically induced competence to create stable conditions in their areas. However, the chances of isolating local areas from the reach of al-Qaeda, extremist Sunni militias, government sectarianism, and the Sunni militias over the long-term are slim to non-existent. Likewise, any gains made by American forces would always be at a high risk of being reversed because of the instability of Iraqi national institutions. There's also a strong risk of making future conflictsmore destructive by giving the militias and global jihadis time to recruit new members, raise money, and acquire new equipment.

In the final analysis, it's no more likely that gains would be consolidated under "strategic patience" than it was for other war strategies. The U. S. occupation has unleashed forces in Iraq that the Bush administration can neither control nor productively influence.