National Journal .... Surging Doubts

[RedEarth]

President Bush's surge strategy for the Iraq war rests on the premise that all of the many participants in the conflagration -- the U.S. and Iraqi militaries, the U.S. diplomatic and aid bureaucracy, the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki,, even the U.S. Congress and certain Iraqi sectarian factions -- can pass several crucial tests. If any one of these players fails, the whole enterprise becomes riskier. If more than one falls short, the odds of success could become insurmountable. And even if all pass their exams with flying colors, the surge may still fail.

In interviews with current and former senior government officials, active and retired military leaders, and think-tank analysts of all stripes, the level of confidence in Bush's plan is, to be generous, low.

The strategy depends, first, on the readiness and relative good faith of Iraqi security forces and political leaders, especially Maliki and his government. That reliance is perhaps the Bush administration's greatest embrace of hope over experience. So many times already, the Iraqi government, and the Iraqi military and police forces, have been found wanting. After two failed campaigns to secure Baghdad, will the United States receive effective Iraqi military support this time to help clear neighborhoods? Will Iraqi police be able to provide a useful presence to hold the ground? This time, this time, senior Bush officials say, the early signs are that Maliki and the Iraqi troops may be passing the test.

Although the prime minister has often responded testily in public to increased U.S. pressure to act against the Shiite militias tied to renegade cleric Moktada al-Sadr, U.S. sources in Iraq note recent progress, some of it behind the scenes. They say that Maliki sent delegations to the holy city of Najaf last month to speak to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a relative moderate and the senior Shiite religious figure in Iraq. The Maliki delegation also visited Sadr himself.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, reached out to Iraq's Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, a longtime U.S. ally, and to Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the largest Shiite party in Iraq. The officials strongly encouraged the pair to back Maliki's hand in any showdown with Sadr, whose party has 32 members of parliament in the prime minister's ruling majority. The purpose of those talks, say administration sources, was to set the conditions for the crackdown on rogue elements of Sadr's Mahdi army that are responsible for some of the worst death-squad activity. In recent weeks, the Iraqi government has arrested several top Sadr lieutenants and detained more than 600 members of the Mahdi army. Sadr, normally a firebrand orator, responded in unusually quiet fashion, agreeing to end a boycott of the parliament and raising no objections to the arrests.

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