Out of Iraq: Only 26 shopping days left

The U.S. Embassy
just tightened restrictions on movements of American personnel inside
the Green Zone.

Meanwhile, when
someone is right, I listen. Adam Silverman called Iraq right this year. Here
are his thoughts now.

By Adam L.
Silverman, PhD

Best Defense guest
columnist

A
little over a month ago Tom wrote a column dealing with the US's rapidly
approaching deadline to leave Iraq. 
At the time I sent him some remarks, which he asked me to pull together
for a guest column.  I agreed on the
condition that I would have the time to tone down the tenor, if not the
content, as this topic hits close to home for me - as I'm sure it does for many
Best Defense readers, as well as many other Americans (and our coalition
partners as well). 

As we are within
final month in Iraq, we
are once again beginning to see reports
of new violence.  As I have written
here at Best Defense, as well as other sites, I think this is likely to become
the Iraqi reality once we draw down to just the military personnel assigned to
the Embassy.  Part of the reason for my
take is that the Iraqis have been communicating to us - in words and in deeds --
for several years that this is what is going to happen.  Even as the Sawha/Awakenings was first gathering
press, it was clear in
what little reporting there originally was on the movement, its
leaders, and its
goals that their
long term intention
was to strike at the Shi'a, specifically the exile Shi'a that we had
empowered, once they were able to do so (as in once we were gone).  I interviewed dozens of tribal and religious
leaders, (local) elites, notables, non-elites, and internally displaced
Iraqis.  The vast majority of them, both
Sunni and Shi'a, had grave concerns over the government we helped to empower,
as well as the members of that government and their ties to Iran and how this all
related to the average Iraqi.

The Shi'a exile
dominated government of Iraq, especially Prime Minister Maliki, has made no pretense of
indicating it wanted to roll up the Awakenings' members.  From a
very heavy handed Sons of Iraq (SOI) transition that failed to foster and
promote societal reconciliation and civil society reformation to
cracking down on both the Awakenings and the SOI, Maliki has demonstrated
that his goal is consolidation of power. 
One
of the three Iraqis elected to parliament on the Iraqiyya list earlier in the
year, then suddenly faced with an arrest warrant by Maliki's government in
order to change the electoral outcome was an Awakenings and SOI leader (full
disclosure -- he was also the subject of one of my social history/tribal study
interviews, which you can read at the link).  Add to this the fact that the Kurds still
have plans of their own for Kirkuk, let alone an independent Kurdistan, and
post U.S. presence Iraq looks to be unsettled and unpleasant for a long time to
come. 

When it comes down
to it, and what I think has so many so upset, anxious, and out of sorts
regarding the looming US departure from Iraq, is that it did not necessarily
have to be this way.  To paraphrase the
Best Defense reader and commenter who asked about accountability in regards to
Don't Ask, Don't Tell -- at what point do journalists, let alone the
American people, hold those who made wildly inaccurate assessments,
predictions, estimations, and gave absolutely horrid, hugely uninformed,
gigantically incorrect policy advice responsible for the strategic
failure that is Iraq? [[BREAK]]

While we had many
tactical and operational successes in Iraq, ultimately the failure to leverage
the openings we were presented with as a result of the Awakenings, the Baghdad
ethnic cleansings, and then the consolidation through the Surge to pressure the
Iraqis to do the hardest of things -- societal reconciliation is an act of
strategic malpractice that should be a warning for all future generations.  The national ends that were established, or
reestablished, in 2008 to capitalize on the opportunities we had been presented
with and worked so hard to solidify were so far out of touch with the reality
on the ground, let alone the strategic reality of what needed to be done, that
it makes one wonder if the folks giving advice could actually spell Iraq, let
alone find it on a map!  Provincial
elections and an outsize SOFA agreement, really, that's what we needed to focus
our strategic, government to government efforts on in 2008?  And what is even worse is that the people we
hand picked to run Iraq turned right around and thanked us by running out the
clock and rolling us on these two issues, let alone settling the last election
not in Baghdad, not in DC, but in Tehran and Qom, so that we never got to the
hardest part of any COIN fight: the societal reconstruction.  And all of these failures track back to, or
were cheered on by, the same group of names. 
They still have their think tank positions or their spots doing written
or television commentary and punditry, many are already advising the next batch
of GOP presidential hopefuls or biding their time for a change of party in the
White House to wind up back at the center of the game instead of its
periphery.  Some of them even managed to
get on TV a week or so ago to be expert questioners at a GOP primary debate.  All of them should be examples of who not to
listen to when it comes to foreign, defense, security, and I would argue, any
other policy!

The simple fact of
the matter is that the end game in Iraq was all too obvious to predict.  The planning for what to do after the initial
invasion was virtually non-existent and definitely not a priority for the Bush
(43) administration.  The wise men making
the decisions, the elder statesmen advising them, and the brain trusts cheering
them on from perches at think tanks, TV, radio, and print media knew best.  The
highly qualified individuals we sent to oversee the initial reconstruction
known as the Coalition Provisional Authority had
all the right answers.  They knew all
about Iraq and Iraqis and Arabs.  Not
because they had any particular expertise regarding Iraq, Iraqis, Arabs, and/or
the Middle East, but because they had fancy titles (like Insert Adjective Here
Scholar) or fancy op-ed positions (in which to posit that just six more months
would do the trick) or they had the right connections (always good to carefully
pick one's own parents or colleagues before they get a government appointment)
or because they had drunk their own or other's kool-aid.  And they are back providing the same type of
insightful and courageous analysis of what is going on in Iran and arguing that
once again American men and women, military and civilian, should be put in
harm's way - just as long as none of those American men and women happen to be
them or their relations.  There is a just
and righteous virtue in being a leader in the 101st Chairborne
Division and members of that elite and crack unit never have to say they are
sorry or wrong.

The sad reality is
Iraq might not have had to go down the way it did.  Regardless of what one might think of the
reason, or reasons as they kept growing and evolving, for invading Iraq, once
it was underway some proper planning, a modicum of humility and competency, and
bringing to bear some actual knowledge and understanding of Iraqi identities
(from the micro to the macro), structures and institutions (and how to line
them up with the identities), and how the interactions between these things
produce resiliency to or willingness to accept change might just have allowed
us to achieve better strategic outcomes. 
The strategic failure that Iraq metastasized into does not negate all
the hard tactical and operational work or reduce the successes at those levels,
but it did not have to turn out this way either.

Adam L.
Silverman, PhD is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War
College.  The views expressed here are
his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or
the US Army.