Iraq: Winning the Unwinnable War

James Dobbins

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2005

Summary:  By losing the trust of the Iraqi people, the Bush administration has already lost the war. Moderate Iraqis can still win it, but only if they wean themselves from Washington and get support from elsewhere. To help them, the United States should reduce and ultimately eliminate its military presence, train Iraqis to beat the insurgency on their own, and rally Iran and European allies to the cause.

James Dobbins is Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at Rand. He was a U.S. Special Envoy in Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, and Afghanistan.

In parallel with these regional efforts, Washington should seek to restore a transatlantic consensus on Iraq, launching quiet and informal talks with its principal partners and critics in Europe, including London, Paris, and Berlin. Whatever can be settled by these governments could then be sold to NATO, the EU, and the G-8 group of highly industrialized states plus Russia; whatever cannot be settled will never find support in any wider forum.

The transatlantic discussions should first focus on devising a common approach to Iraq and only later broach the issue of greater contributions to its rebuilding. Expanded allied efforts should initially seek to build Iraq's capacity for self-governance, encourage efforts within Iraq to bring elements of the resistance into the political mainstream, and support the constructive engagement of regional powers. New military contributions, to the extent that they reduce the preponderance of U.S. forces and expand the circle of countries committed to helping Iraq, would be helpful. But these are unlikely to be forthcoming, and even if they were, it is unclear whether, at this stage, the presence of many more European troops would help stabilize the country. Rather, the major contribution U.S. allies can now make is to help the Iraqi government to become more self-sufficient and to create a regional dynamic in its favor.

EXIT STRATEGY

Extricating the United States from the costly conflict in Iraq, ending the insurgency, and leaving behind a representative Iraqi regime capable of securing its territory and protecting its population cannot be achieved without the support of the Iraqi people and the cooperation of their neighbors. To win that support, Washington will have to redefine its goals in Iraq in terms that the populations and governments of the region can identify with. The U.S.-led campaigns against terrorism and for democracy are tainted in local eyes by their association with the doctrine of pre-emption and their application in occupied Iraq and occupied Palestine. Whatever their considerable objective merits and potential long-term appeal to Arab audiences, the war on terrorism and regional democratization are not themes around which Iraqis and their neighbors will unite, as they must if the current insurgency is to be defeated.

As the new Bush administration reaffirms its support for the current Iraqi government and for the electoral process, it should begin to reemphasize the importance it places on peace, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. It should commit the United States to a complete military withdrawal from Iraq as soon as the Iraqi government can safely be left in charge. It should conduct a counterinsurgency campaign focused on enhancing public security and should support the Iraqi government's efforts to co-opt elements of the resistance into the political mainstream. Once again, it should take the lead in brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. And it should develop new consultative arrangements to engage all of Iraq's neighbors, as well as its allies across the Atlantic, and secure their active cooperation in stabilizing Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for an early drawdown and, eventually, for a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces.