January 8, 2007
Waiting for the surge
If everything goes according to plan, President Bush will announce his new plan for Iraq on January 10th. It is already clear that he is going to say that he plans to send more troops to Iraq - the famous "surge". But beyond that, there are some big questions that remain.
There are five issues that I will be particularly interested in: troop numbers - how big will the surge be?; duration - how long will the troops be there?; enemies - are they going to take on the Sunnis or the Shia, or both at the same time?: Iraqisation - will the new security strategy still aim at handing over to the Iraqis as fast as possible? And finally - regional negotiations - is Bush going to try and sugar the pill by launching some new diplomatic initiative?
It’s clear that the inspiration for the "surge" came from the Kagan-Keane plan, issued by the neocon think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. Bush met General Jack Keane early in December and was apparently very taken with what he had to say. But the trouble is that if you look at the details of what Bush is probably going to propose, on Wednesday its clear that it falls some way short of what Kagan-Keane recommend. In other words, even the advocates of the "surge" are going to have difficulty endorsing Bush’s plan.
Take the question of troop numbers. Kagan and Keane argued on December 27 that: "It is difficult to imagine a responsible plan for getting the violence in and around Baghdad under control that could succeed with fewer than 30,000 combat troops beyond the forces already in Iraq." But British diplomats reckon that Bush is going to announce a surge of just 20,000 extra troops. And - as I pointed out in my column last week - in November Fred Kagan was arguing that at least 50,000 extra troops would be needed to improve the security situation in Baghdad alone.
Then there is the question of duration. Again Kagan and Keane are pretty unequivocal. They argue that a short surge will fail, since the insurgents will simply wait the Americans out - they reckon that the extra troops will have to stay at least another 18 months. Some argue that even this is a gross under-estimate, and the United States needs to accept it will take many years to restore order. But my guess is that Bush may be tempted to tell his fellow Americans that the surge will be temporary - one last push to stabilise the situation, and then we’re outta here.
In order to convince Americans that he is not making an open-ended committment, Mr Bush may stress the policy of "Iraqisation" - the idea that the Americans are training up Iraqi security forces, who will - fairly swiftly - take over the policing of Iraq. This is already American policy. And it is one aspect of the Baker-Hamilton report, which the president apparently dismissed as a "flaming turd", that Mr Bush may be prepared to accept, The trouble is that, once again, the intellectual architects of the "surge" do not believe in "Iraqisation". In fact, Kagan-Keane call for "abandoning the failed attempt to hand responsibility over to the Iraqis prematurely."
Then there is the question of exactly who the new American troops are meant to take on? Here the neoconservative advocates of the "surge" are divided. In a seminar at the American Enterprise Institute last month, Fred Kagan made it fairly clear that his preferred strategy was to take on the Sunni insurgents first. The Shia militias of Moqtada al Sadr could wait. The theory is that the Shia militias have grown in power as a defensive response to Sunni militancy - so you can break the vicious circle of inter-communal violence by first taking on the Sunnis. But not all the neocons accept this argument. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Bing West and Eliot Cohen argue that "Sadr City cannot remain off limits." What will President Bush have to say about this? My guess is that he will remain studiously vague. But it is a crucial question nonetheless.
Finally, will the president announce some sort of new Middle East peace initiative? The neocons and the president hated Baker-Hamilton’s suggestion of talks with Iran and Syria. But Mr Bush may be preparing to send poor old Condi Rice off to Israel and Palestine.
The speech on Wednesday will make fascinating viewing. It is shaping up to be the most important policy statement that Bush has made since he took the first - fateful - decision to invade Iraq.
