Iraq's answer lies in allied withdrawal

Amin Saikal

February 27, 2007

Iraq is lost for the US and its allies, but the challenge is how to disentangle themselves with a degree of "honour" from the fiasco they have created. The US President, George Bush, and two of his close supporters, prime ministers Tony Blair and John Howard, have warned that a withdrawal before the "task is completed" - whatever that might mean - will result in a "victory for terrorism", with disastrous consequences for Iraq, the region and the world.

But to the contrary, a withdrawal might prove to be the best way to stabilise Iraq and shrink the menace of terrorism.

The US can no longer hope to "win" the Iraq conflict, or democratise the country and the region as it had once envisioned. Such a vision is disconnected from reality: Iraq is now deep in a sectarian civil war and a proxy conflict between Iran and many Arab states.

Neither a majority of the Iraqis, nor the regional states, view the US as capable of shaping their future. They see the continued military operations by the US and its allies as part of a desperate effort to "Iraqise" the war as an exit strategy. This was a strategy the US used to exit from Vietnam and the Soviet Union deployed to withdraw from Afghanistan. However, they also know the strategy did not work in Vietnam and Afghanistan, and is equally doomed in Iraq.

If the US decides to pull out of Iraq, a regional solution to the Iraq problem is likely to emerge.

The US and its allies are not the only actors in Iraq. Others with high stakes are its neighbours, especially Iran, Syria, Turkey and the Gulf Co-operation Council countries, led by Saudi Arabia. These all have cross-border sectarian and ethnic ties with various segments of Iraqi society, and will have every reason, once the coalition forces are leaving, to do their best to stabilise Iraq rapidly.

Although the US has touted Iran and Syria as dangerous predators, these two actors, more than any others, will probably want to see the end of the Iraq conflict sooner rather than later.

Iran and Syria, which are regional strategic partners, have strong leverage with some of the powerful elements among Iraq's Shia majority and the Sunni-dominated resistance respectively. They will feel it imperative to use all their influence to move these elements down the path of reconciliation and power sharing as quickly as manageable.

Meanwhile, they are fully aware of the complexity of Iraq in terms of a majority of its population being of Arab origin and Iraq's national identity historically being forged as an Arab state, but with a substantial non-Arab Sunni Kurdish minority.

To stabilise Iraq, they will have to bring Turkey and Saudi Arabia and possibly several other members of the Arab League on board by meeting their concerns. Turkey would want Iraq's Kurdish minority not to have anything more than limited autonomy and the Arab neighbours would be keen to see Iraq's identity as an Arab state preserved. Tehran and Damascus will have no difficulty in meeting the Turkish demand. Like Turkey, Iran has it own Kurdish minority, and remains opposed to any development in Iraq that could possibly become a source of encouragement for its own Kurds.

As for the Arab identity of Iraq, this is a compromise that Iran will ultimately have to make to avoid becoming entangled in a costly drawn-out conflict in Iraq, and at the same time preserve its strategic partnership with Syria, influence through Hezbollah in Lebanon and good relations with the rest of the Arab world.

The biggest casualty of all these developments is most likely to be al-Qaeda in Iraq. It is a force that is tolerated by various Iraqi groups and Iran because of its anti-American operations. However, once the occupation is ended, it will be of no use to the other actors, as they view it as a threat to them. The likely outcome would be that al-Qaeda will simply be squeezed out of Iraq and substantially weakened in the region.

This could also have a positive spin-off for Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda and its Taliban supporters have rebuilt their strength.

The question is: can the Bush Administration swallow its pride and give grounds to regional actors to achieve what the US and its allies are no longer in a position to do?


Amin Saikal is a professor of political science and the director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University.