Former US Army general and supreme allied commander of NATO, Wesley Clark lambasted President Bush's plan to deploy an additional 21,000 troops to Iraq in the op-ed he wrote today titled in the Sacramento Bee as "Diplomacy as the Last Surge". But could the general have jumped the gun?
In the letter, General Clark argued that the president's plan is shortsighted and will only be a temporary fix, citing that "increased troop presence [will] initially frustrate...militias, [but] wouldn't be long before they found ways...to continue the conflict." Rather, General Clark suggested diplomacy as the key. General Clark identified the current situation in Iraq as a political and not a military problem.
As mentioned in my previous posts, the US must use diplomacy to help the Iraqis build a unitary government and they have done so since 2003 under Paul Bremmer III. If, however, the end to build that government involves choosing sides as I mentioned in my last post, then the military option cannot be ignored. The president's proposal of increasing troop levels—which he will address tonight—may mean that he is choosing Prime Minister al-Maliki's side. Let me explain in greater detail.
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Supporting al-Maliki means eliminating al-Sadr. Translation: military action against al-Sadr is required.
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The US, since 2003, has invested billions of dollars in helping the Iraqis form a unitary government, from setting up the Iraqi preliminary government to holding elections. Currently, the State Department is working with Iraqi officials in creating a fair system of dividing Iraq's oil reserves proportionally so as to include the minority Sunnis to the table. This would be an important step to build trust among the Kurds, Shias and Sunnis, and towards a unitary government. I believe the administration firmly believes that only through a unitary government will the current state of sectarian violence on the ground be curbed.
Forming a unitary government can only be done by bolstering al-Maliki’s political position in the Iraqi parliament. This is easier said than done since the Shia majority is also divided within as Muqtada al-Sadr and his faction wait along the sidelines to break away from the government. Supporting al-Maliki then means eliminating al-Sadr. Translation: military action against al-Sadr is required.
While the media has not reported it directly, CNN's military strategists have already circled in their fancy Google-Earth Iraqi map Sadr City as the next major area of confrontation where these 21,000 troops will be conducting military operations. This could only mean one thing. The US will attempt to root out Muqtada al-Sadr's heavily-armed Mahdi militia. If this military operation is successful, the US will not have only eliminated a group that it considered a threat to obstructing Iraq's plans in forming a unitary government but it will also eliminate al-Maliki's major political nemesis in the Iraqi parliament. As a result, eliminating al-Sadr would give al-Maliki major political leverage which I believe the administration is gambling on to happen. Success over al-Sadr would pave the way for al-Maliki to form an Iraqi unitary government. The question now stands: will 21,000 US troops be enough to take out al-Sadr? Will Pelosi, Ted Kennedy and the Dems put up the money for this deployment? Will the American people buy it? We will see.
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