Between Iraq and a hard place

Phillip Carter at Intel Dump:

Speaking to reporters today while traveling in Egypt, Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed grave concern over the potential collapse of Iraq's government. According to the Times, Gates said that a failed state in Iraq “will be felt in the capitals and communities of the Middle East well before they are felt in Washington or New York . . . The forces that would be unleashed -- of sectarian strife, of an emboldened extremist movement with access to sanctuaries -- do not recognize national boundaries.” Which leaves America, well, stuck between Iraq and a hard place. What do we do now?

In another article, Carter explains:

This, then, is a story about when and how — not if — the Washington clock runs down. If Bush is successful, the time on that clock will expire after the November 2008 election, when he passes the Iraq problem to the next president and surrenders his legacy to history. Democrats are determined to make the sands run out on Bush's "surge" strategy much sooner — the better to begin the long homeward march of U.S. troops on the watch of the president who sent them to Iraq in the first place.

What U.S. military experts know about those discordant timelines, but what many of their fellow Americans seem to hardly grasp, is that regardless of when it occurs, the expiration of the political clock will not be the end. Rather, it will mark the beginning of the most challenging and potentially calamitous phase of the Iraq war.

"There's an old military adage that the most dangerous and hazardous of all military maneuvers is a withdrawal of forces while in contact with the enemy. That's the operation all of us soldiers fear the most," retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, a former commandant of the Army War College, told National Journal.

Some experts argue that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq will remove a major irritant and thus facilitate a resolution to the conflict, Scales noted, and others believe that a U.S. pullout could prompt chaos, massive bloodletting, and even genocide. "And if anyone insists that they know which it will be," he said, "they are lying. The truth is, we don't have enough understanding or insight into the thousands of intangibles to know what forces will drive the dynamic inside Iraq once we begin pulling out."As I see it, there are three questions open for discussion:

1) How much time does Gen. Petraeus and his team have left on the clock? (And in this case, the time is a function of domestic political calculus here in the U.S.)

2) What does Plan G look like? Is it (a) a transition to an advisory model, as a step towards withdrawal; (b) a slow withdrawal via the unit rotation process; or (c) a rapid withdrawal where everyone walks/drives/flies to the nearest border?

3) What happens to Iraq after we leave?

The presidential candidate who answers these three questions — and sells the answer to the American public — will win in 2008.

It also means that al-Maliki could be dumped (so much for free elections) and Allawi will be brought back in. Quoting the Asia Times via this post:

Ultimately, what unites Muqtada and Maliki is much more than what divides them. Both want a theocracy in Iraq. Both want the Americans to leave - although with different degrees of urgency. And both would dread a post-Maliki regime because most probably it would mean the return of former premier Iyad Allawi, who has promised to launch a deadly war against sectarianism, militias and Muqtada.

His record speaks for itself; he launched a bloody war against the Sadrists when he serving as prime minister in 2004. Sectarian politicians like Muqtada and Maliki dread the coming of the secular Allawi, who has frantically been trying to put together a coalition and convince both Arab regimes and the US administration to give him another go.

Muqtada, who has referred to Allawi as "the unbeliever who will soon succeed Maliki", sees Allawi as waiting for an opportune moment to strike at him and Maliki. He said, "We represent the majority of the country that does not want Iraq turned into a secular state and a slave of the Western powers, as Allawi dreams to the contrary."

As far as Muqtada and Maliki are concerned, they are willing to work with the devil - or each other - to defeat Allawi.