The Kansas City Star March 19, 2006
What will happen in Iraq?
By Darryl Levings
We Americans are about to enter our senior year in the Iraqi School of Hard Lessons.
To review what has been learned so far:
■ Our freshman experience should have been memorable for pulling down statues of a dictator, not for pulling down the drawers of prisoners in Abu Ghraib.
■ Our second-year curriculum included democracy building, watching the writing of a constitution, the joyful, purple-thumbed voting and the bitter deadlocks over leadership that followed. Like eating a Dove Bar pulled from a sand dune, we hope it will taste sweet in the end, but meantime it’s a gritty, tiresome process.
■ Last year, President Bush repeatedly lectured about patience, that he had a plan. But polls show Americans are growing restless about the coffins flying home — more than 2,300 overall. To compare, that’s more than the enrollment at Shawnee Mission East High School.
What else have we figured out? To beware of initials, such as the WMDs that lured us there, or those IEDs (improvised explosive devices) that so bedevil our troops.
That our army, while brave, is only so big and its armor never thick enough. That we will never know how many innocent Iraqis have perished. That reconstructing Iraq right now is a Sisyphean task — build it, and they will come blow it up. That they are never going to make a “Law & Order” episode off the Saddam Hussein trial.
And the bitterest understanding of all: There is no bottom to the barbarity and cruelty of the enemy.
Now, new critical tests are coming this fourth year: A working coalition government or civil war? A 230,000-strong Iraqi security force that prevails or that disintegrates into sectarian militias? A significantly downsized U.S. military presence or ever-increasing insurgent violence — or both?
Whatever the answers, we know this by now: They will not come easy for the Iraqis or for us.
What will happen next in Iraq?
On the third anniversary of the Iraq war, The Kansas City Star asked six experts with varying views and backgrounds to predict what will happen over the next 12 months. Here are their replies, edited for brevity and clarity:
Ramesh Ponnuru
Senior editor, National Review
“I suspect the shape of the year to come is going to depend crucially on the next few weeks, particularly on whether there’s a political settlement in Iraq. If that happens, then it is possible the security situation improves. If the political situation comes unglued, then we’ve lost the last great, positive thing we have going for us. That is a scenario for either civil war or some kind of ignominious kind of American retreat, followed by civil war.
“There is reason to hope. The political situation has been better than the security situation. The question is whether the fact that a civil war would serve no one’s real interest will ultimately exert enough pressure to keep that (civil war) from happening.”
U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton
Ranking Democrat, House Armed Services Committee
“Who has a crystal ball? Two things have to happen: You have to get the security situation under control and … all the ministries have to function, and the Iraqi people have to respond positively. If those two things don’t happen, Humpty Dumpty will not be put together again, and you can bet your bottom dollar you will have a melee like you have never seen before.
“The American people strongly support the troops, (but) the support for the mission is beginning to wane. With some good luck, this can all come out at the end of the day with a responsible government and with Iraq forces quelling the violence. We’re going to have to have good luck along with some hard work.”
Danielle Pletka
Vice president, foreign and defense studies, American Enterprise Institute
“I expect a drawdown of American troops. It’s hard to misread the signals that we’re getting from the administration. I think the (Iraqi) government will be formed. They’re taking a long time coming together, but this is a big challenge. With the security force on ground, they’re going to get better because they’ve got the best training ground in the world, unfortunately.
“I think instinctively the American people want to bring the troops home. They don’t want to bring troops home prematurely if they sense there’s a political overlay to the decision-making. If it’s timed for the midterm election, that’s a reasonable thing for the American people to have some skepticism about. I think Americans have enormous staying power. They’d have liked the Bush administration to have been more competent. But they’re not just going to throw the Iraqi people to their fates saying, ‘Whoops. Sorry. That was a mistake.’ ”
John Pike
Director, GlobalSecurity.org a defense and security information Web site
“I think that over the next 12 months, the surprise-free scenario is that the American casualty rate drops by half and the American troop presence goes below 100,000. But this whole thing could fly apart in 48 hours. The whole thing could degenerate into a genocidal civil war very quickly, and political support for American troops (staying in Iraq after) getting caught in crossfire could collapse pretty fast. You could see political support for this in Washington collapse very quickly if there was no discernible purpose for the American presence there.
“I think we’re going to bomb Iran over the next year or two. What impact is that going to have on Iraq? That’s hard to say. It has to be in the back of everybody’s mind as to how do we stay away from that probability.”
Shibley Telhami
Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development, University of Maryland, and noted author of several books on the Middle East
“I opposed the war because we have the power to reshuffle the deck in Iraq, but we don’t have the power to determine where the cards will fall. The cards are still falling. Once you dismantle a state, it is an uphill battle to reconstruct it. The forces at work are highly volatile and unpredictable. I wouldn’t rule out that things could get better. I wouldn’t rule out that things could get worse.
“The momentum is for more sectarian violence and civil war. Once you have central authority destroyed, all it takes is a determined minority that wants civil war. We have a determined minority that wants civil war. Even with the best of intentions, it is very difficult to overcome.”
Paul Rieckhoff
Executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a nonpartisan group that favors a strong military and encourages veterans to run for office. An Army 1st lieutenant, he served a year in Iraq as an infantry platoon leader.
“What you are going to start to see that is most alarming is the real cost of the overextension of our military. Every active duty division has been through at least once. The numbers are starting to look like a drawdown (of troops). But it’s not going to be because of the political stability in Iraq or the political pressure on Bush at home. The generals are going to sit down and say to him, ‘You are going to have to choose, one or the other: Continue the level of engagement or keep our homeland secure.’
“Like when you were a kid and played ‘Risk,’ you only have a certain number of pieces to play.”
—David Goldstein, The Star’s Washington correspondent
© Copyright 2006, The Kansas City Star
