When Will the Mission be Accomplished?

The GOP chorus has been incessant in response to recent calls for a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. That chorus has chanted “Whether you were for or against the war isn’t important today. The important issue is that our men and women in uniform accomplish the mission in Iraq.” Does that translate into the absence of an exit strategy in the Iraq engagement? If it is so, what are the potential consequences of a protracted large scale US presence in Iraq on politics at home and within the Middle East region?

The murky field of counter-insurgency places a premium on the availability of human intelligence sources to weed out insurgent actors from populations. Hence the reason why defeating the insurgency movement would need to be taken on more seriously by the nascent post-Saddam military and intel establishment. While some US policy advocates propose a presence in Iraq until the elusive “Mission Accomplished” is satisfied, this evidently is the road to even longer confrontation. For a number of reasons:

• The rationale for democratization is going to polarize the Iraqi society for a long time. This polarization is harnessed by the primacy of ethnicity in the interpretation of the post-Saddam political evolution in Iraq. In the attempt to create a post-Saddam nation, Iraq’s political class has devolved to the same methods which maintained Saddam in power – seeking support from and forming coalitions along ethnic lines.
• So long as a dominant American military presence is seen as propping a puppet regime in Baghdad, the insurgency would linger on. The newly elected Iraqi leadership needs to redefine the meaning of Iraqi national security.
• The redefinition of Iraqi national security needs to emphasize the threats from neighboring states, the government’s right to protect the Iraqi people from foreign fighters and the need to develop a well-trained and capable fighting force.
• The new elite Iraqi military unit would be the visible abrasive weapon against the insurgency. Meanwhile a newly well-trained intelligence operation would have to cultivate human intelligence within all of Iraq’s highly polarized ethnic communities.
• It need be noted that most of the insurgents are foreign fighters, who have crossed the border to make of Iraq, the new battleground in the war on terror. Like the Al Qaeda movement has shown in its resiliency, such fundamentalists never give up. Hence there is a bull’s eye on every US military convoy in Iraq and on military personnel. It is time for the Iraqi government to announce that the party is over and it is time for the insurgents to go home.
  
  Listening to the Deputy Iraqi Ambassador to the UN yesterday on NPR, I sensed a lack of confidence in the ability of Iraqis to cater to Iraq’s own security. While some are quick to contend that only a political solution can bring an end to the insurgency in Iraq, it is evident that only a concerted political and military effort spearheaded by the new Iraqi government will dowse the flame of the insurgency in Iraq.
  
  So you must get my drift by now – the mission has been accomplished. Saddam is gone, a new Iraqi government was elected in January and the US can work with Iraqis as partners in the reconstruction effort...or is there some other reason to stay? The Iraqis should be able to deal with mopping up the insurgency.