IRAQ: Awakenings Awakening - Abu Aardvark

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Awakenings Awakening
March Lynch

March 24, 2008

"Of the roughly 80,000 concerned local citizens currently working
alongside U.S. forces, only 25 per cent can be absorbed into the army
and police. For the rest, there must be jobs, or they risk becoming
disillusioned, frustrated, and perhaps returning to their old ways.
Gen. Petraeus told CBS News a week ago that this, above all else, was
the thing that kept him awake at night. " -- CBS News, March 19.

I'm glad that General Petraeus has said this on the record. I've been
banging the drum for many long months trying to draw attention to the
growing signs that the Awakenings program was jumping the tracks.
These problems have been getting more attention of late, what with the
alleged accidental bombing of an Awakenings checkpoint; the Anbar
Salvation Council's threat to use force to expel their elected Islamic
Party rivals from Anbar (the first deadline passed without incident
last week after US mediation, the second deadline is today); the
campaign of attacks against the Awakenings forces (blamed, at various
times, on AQI, the government, and Iranian-back Shia militias); and
their widespread threats to go on strike over late payments and
insufficient support from the US (I'm not sure how seriously to take
this Guardian report that "out of 49 Sahwa councils four with more
than 1,400 men have already quit, 38 are threatening to go on strike
and two already have", but this is certainly the trend). And there's
much, much more across multiple Iraqi neighborhoods and regions that
I've been tracking in detail over the last few months. Arab and
Iraqi media coverage of the Awakenings over the last few months has
been dominated by their escalating complaints about the Iraqi
government and about the Americans, their fulminations against the
"Iranian occupation" of Iraq, and their warnings to return to the
insurgency or allow AQI back in.

Because I've written so very much about this I'm not going to belabor
the point, other than to repeat that this isn't just an unfortunate
development in an otherwise sound approach. It's structural, and
gets to the essence of the strategic failure of the surge. The
Awakenings strategy was a smart, tactically successful adaptation to
developments on the ground, and Petraeus's team has done the best it
could with the hand it was dealt. But it has always been the case
that the Awakenings strategy built up military power outside of the
Iraqi state, and has never had a plausible theory of how that power
would be harnessed into a unified, legitimate state. It achieved some
of its short-term tactical ends, but worked against the strategic goal
of creating an effectively sovereign Iraqi state with a security
architecture sustainable without US forces.

Combine Petraeus's surprising public complaint a couple of weeks ago
about the disappointing levels of political reconciliation with the
one he made to CBS about his worries about the Awakenings. It seems
likely that his main concern is not the legislative benchmarks but the
Iraqi government's refusal to deal seriously with the need to
integrate the Awakenings into the national security forces. Despite
Maliki's occasional rhetorical gambits, their integration has been
painfully slow, grudging, and far too limited. Even if Maliki's
government fully delivered on its current promises (which is
unlikely), some three quarters of the Awakenings fighters would still
be left in the cold (with "left in the cold" here meaning "left in a
heavily armed militia with a deep grudge against the state."). And
so, deadlock: no lasting political accommodation or sustainable
security without the integration of the Awakenings, but no way to get
the Iraqi government to integrate the Awakenings.

So what to do? Brian Katulis and Ian Moss over the weekend argued
that "the United States must signal that it will stop its independent
funding of the Sunni militias that are part of the sahwa movement,
providing ample time for Iraq's Ministries of Defense and Interior to
assume financial responsibility. With the price of oil hovering around
$110 a barrel, the Iraqi government does not lack the resources to
fund these groups on its own." Over the last two weeks I had been
privately circulating a similar proposal along these lines, though I
had suggested sweetening the pot by offering to compensate the Iraqi
government for the expense of hiring the Awakening fighters in order
to remove any financial incentives.

The argument basically goes like this. If the Awakenings are not
integrated into the national security forces, then there is little
hope for political accommodation or for lasting security and the US is
effectively trapped. Since all other forms of persuasion seem to have
failed, it's time to give Maliki an ultimatum: in two months,
payments to the Awakenings will cease. If Maliki gives in, then there
may finally be some hope for political accommodation and for
overcoming the strategic problems created by the surge - think of it
as cashing in the Awakenings chip before it loses its value.

The downside is that if Maliki doesn't go along, dragging his feet and
ignoring American advice as usual, then things may well get ugly. But
all signs suggest that they will get ugly anyway - and better that
they get ugly while the US is at the highest troop levels it will ever
have. If Maliki won't do this now, when US troop levels are high and
security is relatively better, with the shadow of a new President who
likely will not continue to offer an open-ended commitment, then he
never will... and everyone should know this. The upside is that if it
works, then the next President - whoever it is - will be dealing with
a more competent and more effectively sovereign Iraqi state in which
the weight of Sunni arms is more vested rather than with an uneasy,
violent standoff between heavily armed and mistrustful militias
seperated only by American troops.

There are three main objections that I can see.

First, there's the argument that the current situation is going well,
so why rock the boat? While I can understand where those more
impressed with the status quo are coming from, I disagree strongly. I
don't see the Awakenings situation right now as a stable situation to
be maintained, but as a slowly crumbling situation which could quickly
cascade into chaos. If the move is made now, before Sunni attitudes
irrevocably turn back to hostility, there's an opportunity which might
well not exist nine months from now.

Second, there's the argument that this should be an Iraqi sovereign
decision, not something imposed by the US. Well, sure, but the
Awakenings are currently being paid by the US so by the same argument
it is perfectly justified in walking away. The Maliki government
currently is simply free-riding on the US, using our open ended
commitment to avoid making any hard decisions. That has to end.

Third, there's the argument (which few make publicly but I suspect
many privately believe) that the only thing that matters is keeping
the Iraqi scene relatively quiet until November in support of McCain's
candidacy, at which point Bush, Cheney, Petraeus and Crocker will all
be moving on to other jobs and someone else can be blamed when things
go south. I would like to believe that the latter two, at least, are
well above such considerations and would put the demands of long-term
strategic objectives in Iraq first.

OK, tell me why this is a terrible idea...