by John M. Curtis
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Copyright July 28, 2008
All Rights Reserved.

raq Commander Gen. David H. Petreus won't sign-on to a definite withdrawal timetable viewing the situation as uncertain. Petraeus' reluctance to heed calls from the Iraqi government to consider returning sovereignty by a coherent U.S. withdrawal, suggests a different set of facts. By all objective measures, violence—including U.S. casualty rates—has dropped dramatically. Yet Iraq's top U.S. general isn't buying the ostensible breakthrough on the ground. GOP presumptive nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won't declare “victory,” taking credit for the Jan. '07, 28,500-troop “surge,” he claims salvaged a hopeless situation. McCain blasted Democratic presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il.) for opposing the surge, seeing the situation as hopeless and failing to admit the surge “worked.” McCain can't define “victory” or account for the drop in violence.

      Petraeus' reluctance to sign onto an orderly withdrawal plan suggests that he doesn't believe the lowered violence will last. President George W. Bush and McCain have resisted a timetable, preferring instead to base such plans on verifiable changes in Iraq security. Sen. McCain, speaking July 27 on CNN's “Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer, achknowledged that he had no problem Barack's 16-month timetable, as long at it was contingent on security arrangements. With out setting a date-certain for withdrawal, there's the very real possibility that the security situation in Iraq will never be exactly right. Petraeus wants any timetable to have “a heck of a lot more granularity than the kind of very short-hand statements that have been put out,” referring obliquely to Obama's commitment to end the war. With no date-certain, intervening events would almost certainly stall the withdrawal.

      Since taking over for Gen. George Casey Jan 23, 2007, Petraeus has watched his forces mauled by a determined enemy. On many occasions, just when he thought al-Qaida, Saddam loyalists and Shiite insurgents were on the ropes, they'd stage spectacular attacks on U.S. forces. “We occasionally have commanders who have so many good weeks (they think) it's won. We've got this thing. Well we don't. We've had so many good weeks. Right now, for example, we've had two-and-a-half months of levels of violence no since March 2004,” said Petraeus, reluctant to approve any withdrawal plan. Bush says he's taken his cues from Petraeus, a most skeptical critic of optimistic forecasts of U.S. military progress. Petraeus' reluctance to acknowledge progress indicates that he's not taking credit for the lowered violence. Other factors might account for lowered U.S. death rates.

      When radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called off his militia March 27, it changed the war with U.S. forces and Sunni insurgents. Before Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki cracked down on Shiite militias, al-Sadr's al-Mahdi army ran amok. He fled Iraq to Iran a month before he ordered his militia to stop battling Sunnis and U.S. troops. Al-Sadr's militia was in sync Iran's al-Qud's guerrilla force, battling U.S. occupation by arming Shiite militias to fight a proxy war. While Iran finds itself battling the U.N. over its uranium enrichment program, it knows that the U.S. is mired in Iraq and less willing to gamble on new military adventures. Petraeus knows the Iranians, al-Qaida and Shiite militias are acutely aware of upcoming U.S. elections. Democratic presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il.), who just completed a nine-day Mideast and European tour, promised to withdraw U.S. forces in 16 months.

      Petraeus sees the situation on the ground in Iraq as fragile because he knows the current lull is strategic, not caused by a U.S. or Iraqi military victory. While he opposes a definite timetable, Petraeus can't say with any certainty when the military could safely leave Iraq. Because so many relatives of Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents are also in al-Maliki's army and security services, there's not going to be a time in which there's stability until al-Maliki reaches a political settlement. McCain blasted Obama for setting an arbitrary withdrawal plan. “Sen. Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a campaign,” McCain has repeated countless times, despite knowing he has no plan or definition for victory. Based on McCain and Petraeus' criteria, the U.S. could never leave Iraq because the country will remain unstable. Iraq's instability predates and post-dates U.S. involvement.

      Iraq's once flamboyant dictator Saddam Hussein held Iraq together by brute force. When the U.S. toppled Saddam April 9, 2003, five weeks after the war began, the genie came out of the bottle, unleashing an endless torrent of ethnic strife. Petraeus can't assure that the U.S. military can resolve age-old hatreds and forge a pluralistic society. He knows that his troops have been in the middle of “sectarian strife” or less euphemistically civil war. Whether McCain or Petraeus want to admit it or not, the U.S. military shouldn't be sacrificed mending fences between rival factions. Obama has it right: The U.S. has paid an unthinkable price trying to resolve Iraq's warring factions and must set a date-certain for getting out. No counterinsurgency program can resolve Iraq's political differences. McCain knows it's not about winning a war in Iraq: It's about facing reality and letting Iraqis solve their own problems.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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