Brian M Downing
United States President Barack Obama announced on Friday that US troops would be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, little more than two months away.
This date was set three years ago with the Iraqi government’s status of forces agreement, but two US administrations have tried to extend that date. Negotiations with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki have failed and now the US must race to meet the deadline by selling off or giving away large amounts of military hardware to regional allies before heading for Kuwait and beyond.
Washington currently has fewer than 40,000 US troops in Iraq, down from an all-time high of 170,000 in late 2007.
What does the imminent departure of troops mean for US foreign policy and regional stability? It presents the US with the opportunity to shape events in Iraq and the Gulf region through diplomacy and tact – processes that the US may find less fiscally burdensome and more fruitful.
US personnel in Iraq
A small number of military personnel – perhaps a few hundred – will remain in-country to help with arms sales and with the training of Iraqis in their use. Some training will be done in Iraq while other missions will be done in nearby countries such as Kuwait. Much of it will be done by civilians, almost all of whom are recent retirees, as expertise in fighters and armored vehicles is of course not found outside the military. More robust but less above board operations are likely as well.
It will not strain credulity to think that the Iraqi government will secretly authorize the US to keep intelligence and special forces personnel in Iraq. The country is wracked by terrorist bombings that kill scores of people, chiefly Shiites, on an almost weekly basis, and the Maliki government has shown no ability to staunch them.
The Sunni resistance is evolving from the array of tribal, Ba’athist, Salafist, and foreign units that fought the US years ago into a disciplined group with likely ties to foreign Sunni governments – Saudi Arabia foremost among them. Maliki will need US intelligence to counter the emerging Sunni forces, though he will never publicly acknowledge it. The keen observer will likely see drone aircraft overhead for years to come.
The US will likely keep intelligence and special forces personnel in the Kurdish regions to the north. The Kurdish North is practically a separate state with its own army, constitution, and flag, so this can be done without approval from or even the knowledge of the government in Baghdad. At the very least the US will maintain electronic surveillance posts charged with listening in on adjacent Iran. Beyond that, US intelligence may train Kurdish groups to conduct covert operations against Iran, though it could simply observe Saudi and Israeli involvement with such operations.
The US political agenda
Back in Baghdad, however, at the largest US Embassy in the world, the US will coordinate various intelligence, political, and diplomatic activities to reduce Iranian influence in Iraq, manage sectarian conflict inside the country, and contain Saudi-Iranian antagonisms. Daunting undertakings all, though perhaps ones more practically pursued without an overt ground presence.
The ouster of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 led, predictably, to increased Iranian influence. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) Tehran built political movements, militias, and intelligence networks in Iraq’s Shi’ite population – some 60% of the population. After 2003, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) strengthened Tehran’s influence by arming and training Shi’ite militias, funding development projects in Shi’ite communities, and settling disputes within the rancorous Shi’ite parties to help form a viable government.
Iranian influence is formidable but not irreversible. The common adherence to Shi’ite Islam is often pointed to – especially by Saudi Arabia – as evidence of immutable solidarity and common purpose in world affairs. This is reminiscent of the misguided Cold War certainty that the common ideology of the Soviet Union and China made them cheek by jowl in the cause of spreading communism. There were fissures between the two communist powers and there are fissures between the two Shi’ite ones.
Tensions between Arabs and “Persians” persist and offer openings to diplomatic leverages. In the long Iran-Iraq War, most Iraqi Shi’ites fought reliably against Iran and most Iranian Arabs fought reliably against Iraq – despite ample propaganda calling for each group to rally to the other side.
Maliki seeks to build an independent state, one not beholden to the US or Iran, and will not oppose reducing the IRGC presence in his military, state, and nation. This will be the US’s goal: a neutral Iraq whose strength rests on its own national identity and natural resources, and not on the ideologies and causes of regional powers.
The US will try to limit the increasing tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Tensions were greatly heightened in the early days of the Iranian Revolution in 1979 when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for uprisings around the Islamic world, including the Shi’ites of Saudi Arabia. The demise of Saddam Hussein’s regime removed a serious obstacle to Iranian power and from the perspective of Riyadh, opened the gates to Shi’ite expansion. The puzzlingly foolish IRGC plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US has raised tensions further.
In recent months the Saudis, in conjunction with Israel, have been likely complicit in various assassinations, bombings, and insurgencies inside Iran and have added to their mercenary force of Pakistani and Iraqi Sunnis. They have also coalesced disparate Sunni groups in central Iraq, parts of which have been waging the deadly bombing campaign in Shi’ite areas. Thus far, the Shi’ite government in Baghdad has acted with restraint, but the US departure in just two months might trigger a brutal crackdown in Sunni regions leading to regional conflict.
The US would do well to urge Iraq to continue its general restraint and to act surgically against Sunni militant groups, bring the Sunnis into the political process, and avoid the internecine fighting of a few years ago. Looking longer term, the US can encourage a neutral Iraq to work with smaller Gulf states to moderate animosities between the two Gulf powers.
US prestige and influence
The Obama administration’s failure to obtain an extended troops presence in Iraq is a disappointment in Washington. It should not be seen as a serious one. Indeed, given the complexities and fissures in Iraq, it may well be a blessing.
The US will continue to have bases or port access in Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. (There may also be secret bases in Saudi Arabia.) Bases in Iraq would hardly add to US or Gulf security. US troops in Iraq would be drawn into direct peacekeeping between Sunni and Shi’ite groups and by extension between Saudi Arabia and Iran – difficult and open-ended undertakings at a time when the US must be more frugal and thoughtful in foreign policy. Those missions, as noted, can be better pursued through diplomacy in conjunction with smaller Gulf states.
Leaving Iraq will ease the US of the burdensome image of invader and occupier of a Muslim country, which of course has strengthened al-Qaeda and like-minded groups from the Maghreb to Indonesia. The departure will also weaken the foreign jihadi presence in Iraq, which was likely important in Maliki’s decision to deny the US troop extension.
Iraq, though beset by sectarian conflict and situated between two antagonistic regional powers, can steer a neutral course. It can play off the US, Saudi Arabia, and Iran and become a critical balancer in a vital and volatile part of the world. Combined with oil wealth, Iraq can become an influential democracy, cordial to Sunni powers and independent of Iran. The US should assist Iraq in this strategy, from offshore.