Winning In Iraq - Finally, but is it in time?

Great WSJ editorial forwarded to me by Jimbo:

Iraq and the Election
June 6, 2008; Page A14

This spring, the Iraqi army routed insurgents in three of their most important urban strongholds. These gains follow the success of the surge in crushing al Qaeda in the Sunni triangle, meaning that we are at last on the verge of winning in Iraq and securing a strategic victory in the Middle East. Question: Is this emerging victory – achieved at a cost of more than 4,000 American lives – something we are prepared to abandon after November?

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The good news in Iraq is increasingly undeniable, even to the media. In March, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered Iraqi troops to retake the southern Shiite city of Basra from Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. After a shaky start, the city has now been liberated from Sadrist goon squads, and it is mostly peaceful. "The presence of the Iraqi army has made people safe, not 100%, but 90%," a Basra barber told the Washington Post. The army is pursuing the Sadrists in their last redoubt, Amarah, while other radicals have followed Moqtada to Iran.

Mr. Maliki then repeated the exercise in Sadr City, the Mahdi Army's Baghdad stronghold. Mr. Sadr backed down from a full-scale confrontation, following an Iranian-brokered "truce" that had all the hallmarks of a de facto surrender. Meanwhile, Iraqi army operations in the northern city of Mosul recently netted more than 1,000 suspected Sunni insurgents in al Qaeda's last major urban sanctuary. The remaining terrorists were forced to scatter to the countryside or flee for Syria. "They've never been closer to defeat than they are now," says U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who is not given to claims of premature progress.

For three consecutive weeks, the number of violent incidents have been at their lowest level since the spring of 2004. The number of U.S. combat fatalities last month, 19, was the lowest of the entire war, and Iraqi military and civilian deaths are also sharply down. In the first five months of this year, 4,500 insurgent weapons caches were found, compared to 6,900 for all of 2007. These numbers have sometimes moved in the wrong direction and may do so again, particularly during major combat operations. But the trend is unmistakably positive.

The military gains have, in turn, had salutary political consequences. Mr. Maliki's decision to take Basra forced Iraq's political class to take sides – either with the government, or the Sadrist militias. All but the Sadrists chose Mr. Maliki, even some who had thought of trying to topple the government. The prime minister has emerged stronger and with more support from all ethnic groups, not merely from fellow Shiites. Insofar as "political reconciliation" is supposed to be the acid test of progress in Iraq, it is happening.

The Iraqi military is also improving, partly from the confidence gained from its recent successes. The government now counts more than half a million men under arms, and the army is emerging as a reliable and multiethnic national institution. The lead division that took Basra in March was largely led by Sunni officers, who were nonetheless welcomed by the city's Shiites.

All of this means that it is now possible to foresee not merely a stable Iraq, but also one that can achieve our original strategic goals in the region. The strategist Frederick Kagan – an architect of the surge – makes the analogy to West Germany during the Cold War. A secure and pro-American Iraq would be crucial to expanding U.S. influence in the Arab heart of the Middle East, and especially to containing Iran. A democratic Iraq can serve as an alternative pole of Shiite power in the region, as well as an alternative political model to theocratic, radical Tehran.

All of this depends, however, on securing the progress of the last 18 months, and this means not departing too soon. The gains of recent weeks mean that the five surge brigades can return home this summer without sacrificing security. But both al Qaeda and Iranian-backed Special Groups are likely to stage some kind of offensive in the fall – not least to influence the Iraqi provincial and U.S. elections.

The insurgents know they've lost militarily, so their goal will be to make enough violent noise to prevail politically. Inside Iraq, the Sadrists will try to intimidate Iraqis from supporting competing Shiite groups. But the bigger immediate prize will be in the U.S., where they hope that a President Barack Obama would follow through on his pledge to abandon Iraq.

That kind of withdrawal is the only way we can now lose in Iraq. The minute it is announced, the Iraqis who have allied themselves with us would have to recalculate their prospects in a post-U.S. era. Iran and its proxies would immediately leap in influence – precisely the kind of outcome that Mr. Obama now claims to want to prevent. Progress toward political reconciliation might well stop, as the various Iraq factions worry about their own security without America's mediating presence.

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By contrast, a permanent U.S. military presence – albeit one reduced over time – would give Iraqis the confidence to continue their political maturation. Another Iraq national election is scheduled for next year, and it is an opportunity for democracy to put down even deeper roots. It's crucial for Americans to understand that, apart from the Sadrists, all factions of Iraqi politics now support some kind of U.S.-Iraq status of forces agreement to succeed the U.N. mandate that expires later this year.

We are winning in Iraq. Indeed, we can now say with certainty that we will win, as long as we don't repeat our earlier mistakes and seek to draw down too soon. This is the improving Iraq that the next U.S. President will inherit, and it is the heart of the Iraq debate Americans should have in November.