Digging Deeper On Iraq

I'm still looking for what is new and more sophisticated about Barack Obama's New York Times opinion article, My Plan For Iraq. Maybe the answer is that there is little new here, except for the news hook provided by the Maliki government.

Steve Clemons has a good overall assessment of the article at The Washington Note. I'm going to focus on a few items I think are essential that I want Senator Obama to address.

The overall problem I see with this statement of Iraq policy is that it is too focused on the troop issue, not enough on the twisted politics of the Persian Gulf. Clausewitz is still right: war is the extension of politics by other means. In order to really get the troops out of Iraq, the next president will have to fundamentally change the politics of Iraq and of the region. I just do not see Senator Obama really willing to go there, publicly. That is why his plan requires such a potentially large follow-on force.

Here's what I mean. Changing the politics of Iraq means getting a real process underway that can build a legitimate and durable political consensus in Iraq. This is not new or unknown. It is merely what was called for in the Iraq Study Group report. To get all the stakeholders to the table, however, will take a commitment from the U.S. and the international community to admit that the current government of Nuri al-Maliki is less than legitimate. This is 180 degrees from the Bush and McCain strategies for Iraq and even Obama is recognizing the Maliki government's sovereignty in today's piece in the Times. I, however, believe that government is part of the problem that we have created.

In short, we need a political surge to complement the military surge. It may not be led by the United States, as Carlos Pascual at Brookings has argued, but it must be supported by the United States. And if the Maliki government becomes just one of the political factions at the table, then we will need more than just troop withdrawal as leverage. Steve Clemons, writing this morning, called for a Bonn Conference, of the sort Amb. Dobbins put together for Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. That would work fine. I just don't see troop withdrawal alone getting the Maliki government to the table.

The reason is that they will have little incentive. If, as Senator Obama states, the Maliki government will be able to "provide security" by 2010, then by the time of inauguration day, it will likely have a force advantage over the competing militias, at least the non-Kurdish ones. Could it not be just as likely that the Maliki government will simply roll the dice, cast its lot with Shi'ite militias, and finish the ethnic cleansing of the oil-rich south of Iraq? Then, political accommodation will be much easier, and more lucrative.

Oil has another role to play. In addition to limiting the sovereignty of the Maliki government (which can be done under the UN's Responsibility to Protect provisions) any effort, by the U.S. or under a UN flag, will have compell the ruling Kurds and Shi'ite factions by imposing a new Iraqi oil embargo on the northern and southern fields. Oil, of course, is the real prize for the parties in Iraq and the denial of it will really hurt the oil revenue patronage that distorts Iraqi politics. It's a hardball move, but why should we be ok with our soldiers dying when we're not willing to use all the non-lethal leverage at hand?

Getting the regional politics right means getting Iran to play ball on Iraq. That would be a major reversal of the Bush policy and would recognize Iraq as the greater, more immediate strategic problem. However, Senator Obama recently said that Iran is the "greatest strategic threat in the region in a generation." I'm not so sure. While I am certain Senator Obama was speaking of threats from states and non-states, I think our current policy in Iraq is the biggest, most destabilizing threat. The next president will have to make a choice.

Because of that, I would engage Iran in conversations around a grand bargain, as my colleague Flynt Leverett has argued. Part of that bargain would be Iraq, part nuclear power, part political recognition, part ending support for regional destabilization either directly or indirectly through proxies like Hezbollah.

But to even dream of such internal and regional political moves we would need a committment from the new White House to reduce oil consumption dramatically over the next 25 years. A new oil embargo would take 2 million bpd off the global oil markets, threatening our own economy further and at the same time, Iran needs to know we are ending the massive redistribution of U.S. wealth to oil producers. Obama's 35% reduction is not enough. We can do 100% and the plan exists. That, like Obama advisor Sarah Sewall has said, would give us incredible strategic latitude to get deal with this complex region without being dependent on them at the same time.

Troop withdrawal is just not the panacea Democrats want. I'm sorry it is not so simple. To really get a viable outcome in the region, we have to change American interests around oil, we have to transform the regional politics, and we have to get the parties to the table in Baghdad. That's the only way a negotiated, durable political agreement will emerge. I think that is called "changing the mindset."