Academic

Just How Good Was 2007 in Iraq?

By Robert Justin Lipkin

I think it's fair to say that the surge has been somewhat effective.  But the real question is effective to do what.  2007 has seen the death of American soldiers in higher numbers than any year of the war. Although, violence is down in Baghdad, the city has become fractionated. Neighborhoods defined in religious and ethnic terms are barricaded preventing the free flow of people, news, and products necessary to any thriving metropolis. Sunni insurgents have turned on Al-Qaeda but still refuse to swear allegiance to the central government. The "central government"! That's a laugh. The Maliki regime has not come an inch closer to making the hard decisions about security, unifying the country, the problem of homelessness and refugees, and the appropriate distribution of oil revenues. Is that Mr. Maliki's fault? Well sure, in part. But before we castigate Mr. Maliki consider this: "Blaming the prime minister of Iraq, rather than the president of the United States, for the spectacular failure of American policy, is cynical politics, pure and simple. It is neither fair nor helpful in figuring out how to end America's biggest foreign policy fiasco since Vietnam. That, of course, does not get Mr. Maliki off the hook.  Indeed, "Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has been catastrophic for Iraq ever since he took over from the equally disastrous Ibrahim al-Jaafari more than a year ago." But Mr. Bush refuses to acknowledge that Iraq is a failed nation-state.  Hoping for authentic democracy in Iraq is a pipe dream that only someone who insists that if he believes and hopes for something strongly enough, it will come to pass. The surge would have worked if it enabled Iraqi politicians to create the semblance of a free and viable government.  There's no chance of that happening as long as the United States plays an active role in Iraq.

Full post as published by Essentially Contested America on January 12, 2008 (boomark / email).