Iraq is Calmer. But For How Long? by Andrew Schneider

Iraq Is Calmer. But For How Long?
There's less violence. U.S. troops are finally getting help from locals in rooting out troublemakers. But things may well turn sour again next year.

By Andrew C. Schneider, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter

December 3, 2007

Iraq's security situation is greatly improved -- really. Sunni tribesmen and erstwhile insurgents have aligned themselves with U.S. forces in the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq, providing roughly 70,000 fighters -- likely rising to as many as 100,000 by spring -- and a flood of intelligence on cell leaders and weapons caches. The result: a dramatic decrease in violence in Baghdad and in the Sunni-majority regions of central Iraq and Anbar province.

Increasing cooperation between Sunnis and Shiites at the local level has been a critical factor. One of the greatest success stories took place in Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad. Back in 2005, al Qaeda in Iraq exploited the tensions between the town's Shiite civil leaders and rural Sunni sheikhs, allowing al Qaeda to move in and take over. After U.S. and Iraqi Army forces cleared out the intruders, the Shiite mayor sought U.S. assistance in hammering out an accord with the tribal sheikhs to get Mahmudiyah back on its feet -- the sheikhs having earlier fled to Oman in the face of al Qaeda death threats. The talks led to a three-year work plan that encompassed everything from economic reconstruction to the rule of law.

"We set up the process, but the Iraqis did it for themselves," says Paul Hughes, a retired U.S. Army colonel, now with the U.S. Institute of Peace, who helped facilitate the negotiations. U.S. and Iraqi deaths in the area have since plummeted. And when a Shiite mosque in the town burned down recently, Mahmudiyah's Sunnis donated supplies to rebuild it.

In addition, the flow of arms from Iran to Iraq's Shiite militias is way down, reducing the fuel for sectarian attacks. Credit goes to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for his efforts to reach out to Tehran and convincing Iranian leaders to tone down their cross-border meddling.

But the calm is most likely temporary, largely because the local political gains aren't being mirrored at the national level. Maliki opposes any truce with Sunni ex-insurgents and resents U.S. cooperation with such forces. The prime minister argues that, instead of helping to secure the country, such actions amount to sanctioning the creation of illegal Sunni militias. For their part, the armed Sunnis tend to view Maliki's government as doing Tehran's bidding at best, and at worst, as an active supporter of sectarian cleansing performed by Shiite militias.

The lack of progress on the political and economic concerns of Iraq's broader Sunni community isn't helping matters. There has been no movement on amending the country's de-Baathification laws, which bar hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs from government employment. An oil revenue sharing agreement, without which oil-poor Sunni regions would remain impoverished and resentful, is still out of reach. And the Kurdistan Regional Government's determination to assert control over Kirkuk and other areas where Sunni Arabs have a strong presence intensifies tensions further in the north of the country.

We see the violence escalating again next year as the U.S. draws down its forces from the surge. The largely Shiite and Kurdish forces of the Iraqi Army and the Shiite-dominated Iraqi Police will greatly outnumber the Sunni Arabs that oppose them. But what they lack in numbers, the Sunnis more than make up for in discipline and skill. Many of the Sunni forces previously served in the Special Republican Guard and elite commando brigades of Saddam Hussein's army. Pro-U.S. Sunni forces already clash with Iraqi Army and Police units whenever U.S. troops aren't present to come between them.

Wayne White, former head of the State Department's Mideast intelligence unit, estimates that the U.S. and Baghdad have until midsummer to match the security gains with political ones. Failing that, civil war is likely to return, deadlier than ever. "And we created the monster," White says, referring to the support the U.S. has provided the Sunni forces.