Iraqis not seizing the opportunity

Tom Ricks and Robin Wright:

From troops on the ground to members of Congress, Americans increasingly blame the continuing violence and destruction in Iraq on the people most affected by it: the Iraqis.

Even Democrats who have criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the occupation say the people and government of Iraq are not doing enough to rebuild their society. The White House is putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group have debated how much to blame Iraqis for not performing civic duties.

This marks a shift in tone from earlier debate about the responsibility of the United States to restore order after the 2003 invasion, and it seemed to gain currency in October, when sectarian violence surged. Some see the talk of blame as the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement.

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"We should put the responsibility for Iraq's future squarely where it belongs -- on the Iraqis," began Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the committee's next chairman. "We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves." He has advocated announcing that U.S. troops are going to withdraw as a way of pressuring Iraqi politicians to find compromises.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) followed by noting: "People in South Carolina come up to me in increasing numbers and suggest that no matter what we do in Iraq, the Iraqis are incapable of solving their own problems through the political process and will resort to violence, and we need to get the hell out of there."

"We all want them to succeed," agreed Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.). "We all want them to be able to stabilize their country with the assistance that we've provided them." But, he added, "too often they seem unable or unwilling to do that."

Later the same day, members of the House Armed Services Committee took their turn. "If the Iraqis are determined and decide to destroy themselves and their country, I don't know how in the world we're going to stop them," said Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.).

Iraqi Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie said he worries about the growing chorus of official voices blaming Iraq, and suggested that a little introspection on the U.S. side could help.

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It isn't just politicians who have decided that the problem with Iraq is the Iraqis. In the military establishment, said Joseph J. Collins, a professor at the National Defense University, "there is lots of disappointment in the performance of Iraqi officials of all stripes."

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Ricks and Wright seem to think the recognition of the failure of the Iraqis is a prelude to an exit and a debate over who lost Iraq. I think it is just a recognition of the obvious. Perhaps we should always have characterized the post major combat operations phase as giving the Iraqis and opportunity. Ultimately it was always going to be up to them after the US left anyway. If you want to blame the administration it should be focused on rushing them into a government they clearly were not ready for. While the Afghans have fewer educated people and less of a tradition of achievement, they have done much better in taking responsibility with the opportunity they have been given. They have done this despite the war lord and tribal traditions of their culture.

Part of the problem in Iraq is that al Qaeda has been more successful in implementing its chaos strategy there. It was clearly losing while the US was in charge and it was losing during the election phase. Its bombing of the Shia shrine loosed the Shia militia against the Sunni minority. While this appears to be a strategic success, in reality it is not. They got only part of the result they wanted. Their failure is that they did not get the rest of the Sunni world to come to their aid. In reality the success of their strategy has given them a worse situation because it has actually strengthened the Shia militia which is not constrained by the government or the Geneva Conventions. Thus many Sunnis are facing torture by electric drills and death squads, while others continue to explode at Shia gatherings. But none of this chaos brings them close to seizing control of the apparatus of government.