The Beginning of the End?

In the last few months the following has occurred in the Iraq theatre:

• Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has recently admitted that attacks have fallen 94%.
  
• Recent Iraqi Army operations have detained over 800 suspected combatants.
  
• Foreign Fighters that traveled to Iraq are beginning to return home.
  
• U.S. military surge units have been withdrawn – Gen. Petraeus will recommend further cuts in September.
  
• Moqtada Al-Sadr (a.k.a. “Mookie”) has been maligned by Iran and much of the Shiite community.

All this information sounds good but, we should all refrain from pulling out the party hats and bubbly for time being. Iraq is on course to become a viable nation if, and only if, these trends continue. The counterinsurgency operations run by the U.S. and Iraqi militaries can only continue to be successful if the Iraqi political establishment does not become dominated by one ethnic or religious faction and if economic stability manifests and proves conducive to foreign investment. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here, let begin with the above headlines one by one.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has recently admitted that attacks have fallen 94%.

This information didn’t come out via an al-Qaeda press conference, but instead was revealed through captured documents in recent raids conducted by the Iraqi military. What this means is, one counterinsurgency methods are working, and two many foreign fighters have chosen to return home because its no longer worth fighting if local support for the mujahedeen has dried up. Terrorist groups fall flat on their face without local support regardless of amounts of money and weapons. It appears that al-Qaeda has learned this the hard way.

While these successes can be sustained they will not ultimately remove al-Qaeda from Iraq. On the contrary AQI will instead try to use Iraq as a transient training ground and also as a route to move money and weapons for attacks elsewhere in the world against western interests. Unfortunately we haven’t heard the last of this group. I fully suspect that AQI will become the future of the jihadist movement only they will be a flatter organization with more global capabilities.

Recent Iraqi Army operations have detained over 800 suspected combatants.

While the number of individuals detained may look impressive it is of limited importance. The real story lies in the capability of the Iraqi military to carry out this operation with limited U.S. support and the desire of the Iraqi government to exercise power through force and political maneuver. Both of these very important elements of the new Iraq have been maligned by the western press and have been given very little chance for success; especially following the Basra debacle. But the battle of Basra was not a failure for the al-Maliki government and certainly was not a success for the Shiite rebels, but instead has proven to a be incident that has allowed the political powers to negotiate with nationalistic Shiites that want to be included in the democratic government and has isolated the more radical Shiite militias. The Iraqi army is slowly proving itself to be a viable entity in the new Iraq and should continue to be sustained by western training and funding.

Foreign Fighters that traveled to Iraq are beginning to return home.

The exodus of foreign fighters out of Iraq is not a phenomenon without precedence. The last time such a movement of well trained terrorists took place was after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in which the world witnessed the birth of al-Qaeda and other associated terror groups. The contemporary exodus is very similar to the one of the 1980’s in that most foreign fighters are returning to their home countries of Libya and Saudi Arabia, the same two nations that produced most of the former Arab-Afghans. Further compounding the problem is the return of fighters to another country that has played an unwilling host to an al-Qaeda movement – Algeria.

The problems associated with returning jihadists are already playing out in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Algeria. As with the 1980’s exodus, these terrorists are still filled with the spirit of jihad and are looking to take on the government regimes of their home nations and looking to replace them with more fundamentalist governments. What does appear to be slightly different this time is the immediate willingness to cooperate with other groups in a more regional manner, as opposed to solely national cooperation, and the desire to target western interests abroad. The Algerian al-Qaeda (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb [AQIM]) component has managed to pull off more spectacular attacks, but this will only lead to harsh counterinsurgency methods employed by the Algerian government to curb the violence. Like al-Qaeda prime (bin Laden’s al-Qaeda apparatus) AQIM seems overly fixated on large spectacular events that provide short term success at the expense of long term strategy that is necessary for guerilla groups to gain ground. This short sighted approach will force the group to constantly relocate to Mali and other havens in Northern Africa.

The recent violence in Yemen on the other hand is low intensity basic guerilla combat employed to exploit divisions in the government and along sectarian lines. Recently Kataib Jund al-Yaman, a subgroup of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) that operates in both Yemen and Saudi Arabia, threatened to target all visitors that enter the region. While these threats are far from new, the return of foreign fighters to Saudi Arabia that have trained in Iraq is enough to take this threat a little more seriously. It is this violence in Yemen that is likely to become the norm for the new generation of jihadists.

U.S. military surge units have been withdrawn – Gen. Petraeus will recommend further cuts in September.

The purpose of the surge was to improve security in Iraq. As you can probably tell by the al-Qaeda admission that their operations have decrease significantly the surge has worked well, but these gains can be undone over night. General Petraeus obviously knows this and is waiting out to summer before he recommends troop reductions. It is doubtful that he will simply state that troops will be substantially withdrawn come September, but I suspect that he will instead order a realignment of forces and a change in mission. What this means in laymen’s terms is that the Iraqi government and military must continue to step forward and take charge of their country. As I stated previously this is already happening in many parts of the country and looks to be viable and sustainable.

The future of the U.S. mission in Iraq will begin to change in the near term. The training and supplying of arms will of course continue, but the patrolling and support by the U.S. military must begin to diminish. In areas such as close air support the U.S. obviously cannot step away quite yet, but then again air power is much less visible than a soldier or Marine patrolling the streets of Baghdad. If the current trend holds this could significantly diminish in the next twelve months as capable Iraqi forces take over control. All told I expect the U.S. military direct operational involvement to be cut back drastically over the next 12 to 18 months. By this time the U.S. will have reassessed its long term mission in Iraq.

Moqtada al-Sadr (a.k.a. “Mookie”) has been maligned by Iran and much of the Shiite community.

I seriously doubt al-Sadr’s buddies refer to him as Mookie, but that won’t stop me from doing so. My personal assessment of Mookie is that he is not as important as the western media makes him out to be, in fact western media is almost single handedly responsible for many of the myths that have been continuously propagated about the chubby cleric. Here are a few of the myths:

• Al-Sadr controls the whims of the majority of Iraqi Shiites.
• Iran has complete control over al-Sadr and plays puppet master when it serves Tehran’s interest.
• Shiites often follow al-Sadr’s fatwas.
• Mookie has agreed to work with the Jenny Craig program to become more photogenic.

Alright, I made the last one up. First let’s clear up some of these myths before we discuss Mookie’s future. Al-Sadr’s following is relatively small when compared to other Shiite movements. What makes Mookie appear important is his militia known as the Mahdi army, a military movement that Mookie had no business forming since he doesn’t have the religious authority to do so.

Iran and Mookie do not get along at all and more than likely will not in the future either. Iran gambled that they could use Mookie and his militia as a means of extending influence in Iraq, but failed to consider that the Sadr family hatred of Tehran could not be overcome. Mookie’s father, Mohammed al-Sadr, worked against Iranian hegemony in the Shiite world – a position that was taken up by Mookie upon his father’s death.

The final myth that we have to contend with concerns Mookie’s fatwa’s. The problem with this myth is that al-Sadr does not have the religious authority that comes with education to issue any religious edicts. Mookie is currently a student at a Shiite hawza in Qom at the invite of Iran. Again, this does not mean that Mookie is working with the Iranians; on the contrary it means that al-Sadr understands that education in the Shiite system is the only way to gain the authority he desires in Iraq.

The current problem in Iraq, with regards to Mookie, is that the U.S. wants to see him brought into the mainstream political system while the Iraqi government wants to pull his turban all the way down to his ankles. In essence most Iraqi’s are sick of Mookie as the recent assassination of al-Sadr’s closest aide shows. Mookie is not the last, or even the most pressing problem in Iraq, but he is a problem that must be dealt with by the Iraqi’s.

Conclusion – The Final Phase in Iraq

Iraq has the potential to become a viable nation and an economic and political leader in the Middle East, but potential does not always turn into reality. As I stated previously, the counterinsurgency operations run by the U.S. and Iraqi militaries can only continue to be successful if the Iraqi political establishment does not become dominated by one ethnic or religious faction and if economic stability manifests and proves conducive to foreign investment. Parliamentary elections have been postponed one month and will take place in November. These elections should be a good indicator of the political environment in Iraq since many of the Sunni’s that boycotted previous elections are expected to participate this time.

Another wild card many are expecting to see complicate the Iraq rebuilding process is the U.S. presidential election. Barring any strange political twists it appears that the Republican nominee will be John McCain and the Democratic nominee will be Barack Obama. As best as I can tell, McCain’s approach is inline with President Bush’s current strategy – wait until the general’s report back. Obama on the other hand favors an immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces. What may sound strange is that both strategies could result in the same outcome because of the current situation on the ground and other strategic challenges to the U.S. global hegemony that are occurring because of the massive amount of military involvement in Iraq. In the end McCain will not wait too long and Obama couldn’t move too fast. An immediate withdrawal of troops is not possible, military movements across continents take time – sometimes over a year – which would fit my assessment of when the U.S. military will want to move on anyway. Waiting to long for Iraqi developments is not an option either. In response to the U.S. recognition of Kosovo independence Russia has made aggressive moves in Georgia – a U.S. ally. Russia is taking the opportunity presented by U.S. involvement in Iraq as a means to further influence former Soviet bloc countries – a problem since the U.S. invested 50 years in the form of a cold war to free these nations.

The bottom line is we are witnessing the beginning of the end of U.S. military operations in Iraq not only because the situation on the ground has improved, but also because we cannot continue operations there for much longer.