How to beat Iraq's Shiite extremists.

[thedrifter]

Give Sadr the Treatment
How to beat Iraq's Shiite extremists.

BY OMAR FADHIL
Tuesday, December 26, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

[AD] BAGHDAD--Understanding the question is half of the answer: That's what we used to say back in school. Then when we became dentists and doctors, we changed that to "diagnosis is half the treatment," and it looks that's where we're standing right now.

Everyone now seems to agree that any plan to fix the situation in Iraq has to have a military component along with a political one. The latter, as I understood, is supposed to bring together or facilitate a set of compromises and mutual concessions among the political powers in Iraq in order to achieve an acceptable level of stability and allow for sustained progress.

But why has it been that difficult to advance this political path despite all the time and effort spent in this direction?

There's a problem we should address and do something about if we want a political solution to see the light, and that is that some of the key political players in Iraq who are interested in finding a solution cannot move in that direction because they have their hands tied by former deals or affiliations with current or former extremist allies of the same sect as theirs, and those extremists have taken the entire political process in Iraq hostage.

What I'm trying to say here is that the military component we need at this particular stage should be different from the routine military operations that U.S. and Iraqi military had been conducting so far.

The new military component should be designed to create a friendly climate where politicians can strike deals and reach compromise without coercion from radical extremists.

And so if more boots are to be added on the ground then the mission will have to include freeing politicians and parties such as Nouri al-Maliki and Tariq al-Hashimi (of the Dawa and the Islamic party respectively) from the ropes that bind them to Muqtada al-Sadr and harmful elements in the Sunni political scene.

Right now is a good time, perhaps the best time we have, to launch this effort since there's already a large front forming from the parties that are willing to talk against the extremists' camp.

If the way forward requires maintaining the basic course of the political process and empowering (and cleaning) the current government and its head then the only way to do this is to relieve Mr. Maliki, his party and the rest of the Shia alliance from the dominance and influence of Sadr, and there are two ways to accomplish this: either persuade Mr. Maliki and his team and promise them great support and protection from Sadr's reach, or deal a lethal blow to Sadr and his militia in order to render him unable to inflict harm on Mr. Maliki and other members of the United Iraqi Alliance.

Now really, it shouldn't be that difficult to figure out that the first way isn't working out right, what's needed now is to take the decision to try the second way and deal with the biggest threat to stability in Iraq in the way we should.

If claims that the militia is fragmented and not entirely under Sadr's control are true (and it's actually hard to believe that one man can control a militia of dozens of thousands spread over 11 provinces) then this must be an advantage for us, because if that's the case there would be little reason to believe those renegade units would fight for Sadr. Many have reached financial independence from the center leadership, and let's not forget that money and fear are the main weapons militia leaders use to expand their power and maintain control over the militia members and the population.

The members were recruited by either fear or persuasion, and these bonds that still keep some units highly loyal will fall apart once the head is taken. Ideological fighters constitute a minority in my opinion and those, along with presumed Iranian and Hezbollah fighters who are assisting Sadr will represent the bulk of the remaining actual force that U.S. and Iraqi troops would have to fight and eliminate. Those are highly organized, but they are not invincible.

Together we succeeded in reducing the threat posed by al Qaeda when it was identified as the biggest threat to Iraq's stability and security. Now together we can do the same with Sadr and other thugs. We understand the question, and we have a diagnosis that seems sound; it's time to proceed with the treatment.

Mr. Fadhil, along with his brother Mohammed, runs Iraq the Model, a blog based in Baghdad.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Winning in Iraq
By Frederick W. Kagan
The Sunday Times | December 26, 2006

A decisive moment in world history is at hand. If the United States, Britain and their allies fail in Iraq the result will almost certainly be a regional maelstrom. If the coalition succeeds, then the West will regain the initiative against radical Islam in Iran and throughout the Muslim world.

The current trajectory in Iraq is poor: rising sectarian violence threatens to rend Iraqi society and destroy America’s will to continue the struggle.

The choices are bleak: nobody has yet developed a convincing plan to resolve this conflict through diplomacy, politics or any other form of soft power. Hopes for success now rest on the coalition’s willingness to adopt a strategy of bringing security to the Iraqi population and confronting the sectarian violence directly as the prerequisite for subsequent political, economic and social development.

Embracing such a strategy would mark a dramatic change from the approach that the US military has pursued since April 2003. Since the beginning of the counter-insurgency effort US central command has focused on training Iraqi soldiers and police to establish and maintain security on their own. America’s own military efforts to establish security have been reactive, sporadic, under-resourced and ephemeral.

The creation of an Iraqi army that now numbers more than 130,000 troops is an impressive accomplishment, but that army has proved unable to stem the violence on its own. On the contrary, as its size and quality have increased the violence has grown even more.

Those well versed in the art of counter-insurgency will not be surprised by this phenomenon, since providing security to the population is a core task for any counter-insurgent force — as the recently released US military doctrinal manual on the subject emphasises.

It is now time to abandon the failed strategy of “transition” and return to the basics of counter-insurgency and stability operations by bringing peace to the Iraqi people.

Baghdad is the centre of gravity of the struggle in Iraq today. The United States, the government of Iraq and the insurgents have all identified it as the place they intend to win or lose. It is also the largest mixed community in Iraq.

Any hope for keeping Iraq together as a unitary state — thereby avoiding a genocidal civil and probably regional war — rests on keeping Baghdad mixed.

However, sectarian strife is leading rapidly to sectarian cleansing and many of Baghdad’s mixed communities are being forcibly purified. Bringing peace to those areas and ending the violence must be the primary task of coalition strategy.

Establishing security is a military task in the first instance. Troops must move through Baghdad’s neighbourhoods, examining every house and building, finding weapons caches and capturing insurgents and armed militias.

American forces have conducted many such operations in the past, including Operation Together Forward II as recently as the autumn.

In all previous operations the clearing of embattled neighbourhoods was followed by a rapid withdrawal of US forces. Insurgents of both sects then swarmed back in to the cleared areas to demonstrate the failure of the exercise by victimising the helpless inhabitants.

Success in such operations requires persistence. Once a neighbourhood has been cleared, US and Iraqi forces must remain to maintain security.

Partnered at the platoon or company level, they must live in the neighbourhoods and man permanent checkpoints. This approach was used with great success in Tal Afar in September 2005 and thereafter and is being used even now in some districts of Baghdad.

Units that remain in neighbourhoods rapidly gain the trust of the locals, who volunteer more information about troublemakers from within the neighbourhood and interlopers from outside.

The presence of US and Iraqi troops brings greater security, which enables the start of economic and political development. It is unfortunate that this basic counter-insurgency approach has been neglected so far, but it is not too late to undertake it.

Clearing and holding the critical mixed and Sunni neighbourhoods in Baghdad would require approximately nine American combat brigades, or about 45,000 soldiers. There are now five brigades operating in Baghdad, so America would have to add four more — about 20,000 soldiers.

In the past, central command generated surges in security in parts of Iraq by drawing forces from elsewhere. This approach created opportunities for the insurgents in the denuded areas. It would be wiser instead to couple a surge in Baghdad with an increase of troops in the other key hotbed of the insurgency, Anbar province.

There are now the equivalent of three brigades of US troops in Anbar. An additional two (about 10,000 troops) there would not allow the United States to clear and hold the province but would prevent insurgents fleeing the fight in Baghdad from destabilising Anbar further.

It would also place greater pressure on Al-Qaeda and the Sunni Arab insurgency, whose violent assaults on Shi’ite areas are a principal cause of the growth of Shi’ite militias.

Military action by itself will not lead to success, of course. The clearing of neighbourhoods must be accompanied by immediate reconstruction efforts.

These efforts should take two forms. All cleared neighbourhoods should receive a basic reconstruction package aimed at restoring essential services. But reconstruction can also be used as a form of incentive.

Neighbourhoods that co-operate with coalition efforts to maintain security could be rewarded with additional reconstruction efforts to improve their overall quality of life. These efforts should be channelled through Iraqi local (not central) government structures as much as possible.

The insurgents, particularly the Shi’ite Mahdi army, have begun imitating Hezbollah by providing services to the population of Baghdad in return for loyalty and support.

By offering reconstruction assistance through local Iraqi leaders, the coalition would get Iraqis used to looking to their own government for essential services.

Combining these efforts with the establishment and maintenance of real security would reduce the strongest recruiting tools that the Sunni and Shi’ite militias now have and would make possible future reconciliation and political progress.

The coalition forces can succeed in the end only if they can turn the responsibility for maintaining security over to the Iraqi forces; the training of the Iraqi army must also continue.

If a plan of this variety were adopted, in fact, the training of the Iraqis would improve dramatically. Embedding trainers in Iraqi units is a good start, but it is not as effective as partnering Iraqi units with coalition troops in planning and conducting missions.

This plan would also solve another critical problem: instead of presenting the growing Iraqi army with an ever-increasing security challenge, this strategy would lower the level of violence even as it expanded the Iraqis’ capabilities. Such an approach is the only way to make a successful transition to an independent and secure Iraq.

The increase in US troops cannot be short-term. Clearing and holding the critical areas of Baghdad will require all of 2007. Expanding the secured areas into Anbar, up the Diyala River valley, north to Mosul and beyond will take part of 2008.

It is unlikely that the Iraqi army and police will be able to assume full responsibility for security for at least 18 to 24 months after the beginning of this operation.

This strategy will place a greater burden on the already overstrained American ground forces, but the risk is worth taking.

Defeat will break the American army and marines more surely and more disastrously than extending combat tours. And the price of defeat for Iraq, the region and the world in any case is far too high to bear.

Ellie