October 17, 2006
A change of course in Iraq?
These days I have to force myself to read the news from Iraq. Developments there are so unremittingly bleak, and the details of the conflict are so horrifying, that it is tempting just to start tuning it out. That, I suspect, is the option that most of the American and British public have already chosen.
The debate about whether Iraq is "sliding towards civil war" seems almost academic. I would say that it has already got there, as Tuesday’s reports of Sunni-Shia warfare make clear.
Yes - it may be true that there are large parts of the country where things are relatively peaceful. But the numbers of people being killed in inter-communal violence is now well over 100 a day - some put it much higher than that.
The death toll in Iraq is, of course, a highly controversial issue. Last week’s headlines were dominated by reports that the number of people killed since the start of the war may now be over 600,000.
If you are searching for a straw to clutch at, take a look at this excellent column by William Arkin, in the Washington Post, which submits this figure to a proper examination. As Arkin points out, the new study puts the number of violent deaths in Iraq at over ten times the level of studies by groups, generally regarded as anti-war - such as the British NGO, "Iraq Body Count". It is also based on comparing survey evidence with reported mortality rates in Saddam-era Iraq. The latter are clearly unreliable, since they suggest that Iraq under Saddam had the best mortality rate of anywhere in the Middle East, including Israel - and this despite the much discussed impact of UN sanctions.
But there is no denying that the current levels of violence are appalling. It is Iraqis who are clearly paying the heaviest price. But the Americans are also taking high and rising casualties.
There were 13 American troops killed in just three days in Baghdad last week - and the number of American wounded is at its highest level since the assault on Fallujah in 2004.
Given all this, how long can America "stay the course"? Rumours of an impending change in policy are growing. Indeed President Bush has just rung the Iraqi leadership to assure them that the US will not "cut and run". Well, clearly no policy is going to be presented in that light. But something has got to change.
The likeliest occasion for a change in policy may be the impending report of the Iraq study group headed by James Baker, the former secretary of state, and including a number of America’s "great and good" - among them, Lee Hamilton, a Democrat and the former head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The most recent leaks from the group suggest that they are considering two options - which might be combined. The first is to open talks with Syria and Iran. The second is to pull out American troops more rapidly and to re-deploy to elsewhere in the region while keeping a close eye on terrorist groups in Iraq.
Both options are unattractive. They suggest a big increase in the regional influence of countries in Mr Bush’s "axis of evil". And they offer no guarantee that Iraq’s incipient civil war will be damped down; indeed it might well get more violent. Perhaps even worse from President Bush’s point of view, the Baker group’s options involve a massive loss of face for the United States. The president will find it very hard to swallow the kind of medicine that Mr Baker may prescribe. So it is still possible that - as long as President Bush is in office - the US will continue to plug away on its present, grim path in Iraq.
