Another depressing week in the war that won't end got off to a typical start as I read in Saturday's Washington Post that "President Bush plans to begin a series of speeches next week again explaining the administration's strategy for winning the war in Iraq." The repetitiveness of this White House tactic has gotten so absurd that the reporter dropped the press corps typical posture of feigned obtuseness and noted, repeatedly, that we've heard this song before.
Recall such classic headlines as "Bush Seeks to Reassure Nation on Iraq" (5/25/04), "Bush Plans Bid to Rally Iraq Support" (8/22/05), and "Bush Presents Plan to Win Iraq War" (12/1/05) announcing previous speech offensives.
In truth, things have slipped so far downhill in Iraq that it's hard to say what our goals are, much less whether or not we're in a position to meet them. What can be said is that the administration's plans for Iraq seem to owe more to Samuel Beckett than to serious national security policy. On the political front, the administration is trying to put together an Iraqi government that will enjoy more broad-based support. This involves two main prongs. One is to get the Interior Ministry out of the hands of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI) in Iraq, which, of the two main Iran-backed Islamist political parties in Iraq is considered the more Iran-backed and extreme. The other is to replace Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari, a member of the other major Iran-backed Islamist political party, now regarded as corrupt and ineffective, with a more conciliatory figure, Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi.
Al-Mahdi, meanwhile, is a member of SCIRI, the same political party that can't be trusted to run the interior ministry -- the one that, in other contexts, is regarded as the more extreme of the two main options. So where's the evidence that he's a more moderate figure? Who knows? The Kurds like him, seems to be the theory, though Kurds seem scenario for hope in his Friday column. What needs to happen, he says, is for the Kurdish parties to form a coalition with Sunni parties and secularists to boot the Shia from power and form a broad-based national unity government. I have various mathematical quibbles with the notion that this is actually a possible outcome, but even so it misses the point. If today's problem is that a Shiite Islamist government is alienating Kurds and secular Shiites while inspiring violent warfare from Sunni Arabs, simply flipping the scenario around doesn't change anything. Put Shiites in power and Sunnis out, and the Sunnis fight against the Shiite government. If you put the Sunnis back in power, and the Shiites back out then, well, the Shiites will fight against the Sunni government. The problem is the conflict, not the organizational chart.
Even Krauthammer's plan to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, however, is outdone by Donald Rumsfeld's staggering testimony last week in which he assured senators that in the event of civil war, the plan is to have "Iraqi security deal with it to the extent they're able to." General John Abizaid further elaborated that in case of civil war, "it's very clear that the Iraqi forces will handle it, but they'll handle it with our help." The only conclusion to draw from this is that top Pentagon officials don't know what a civil war is. Here's the basic idea: In a civil war, whether in the United States, or Russia, or El Salvador, or what have you, the official state security forces are one side in the conflict, not referees who keep a lid on things. In our Civil War, the U.S. Army fought the war, they didn't "deal with it." The basic nature of the burgeoning conflict in Iraq is that the state, and its security forces, are under Shiite control and they're fighting a Sunni Arab armed insurrection. Civil war is merely the intensification of the conflict already under way.
Some in the government seem to see it this way. The March 6 LA Times reported that "U.S. officials have revamped and expanded training programs for Iraqi police units amid mounting concern that their focus on fighting insurgents, and not protecting citizens, has created an unaccountable force plagued by corruption and rights abuses." Then again, this understanding clearly isn't our only guiding light. As recently as January 18 the Associated Press explained that "the United States is embarking on a revamped training program for Iraq's 80,000 police force in a bid to strengthen local security forces battling the rampant insurgency."
To recap, then, the administration's plan has two elements, one political and one military. On the political side, the plan is to either give SCIRI more power or else less power. On the military side, the plan is either to have Iraqi forces focus more on fighting insurgents, or else to focus less on doing so. If anti-insurgent operations by Iraqi forces become a civil war, then Iraqi forces will handle it. Clear?
Neither am I. Fortunately, I hear there's a series of speeches in the works to straighten us out.
Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer.
