Dem rhetoric on Iraq has not caught up with reality

Fareed Zakaria:

Pity the U.S. presidential candidates. They had their positions on Iraq all worked out by last summer and have repeated them consistently ever since. But events on the ground have changed dramatically, and their rhetoric feels increasingly stale. They're fighting the Iraq War all right, but it's the wrong one.

The Democrats are having the hardest time with the new reality. Every candidate is committed to "ending the war" and bringing our troops back home. The trouble is, the war has largely ended, and precisely because our troops are in the middle of it.

From 2003 to 2005 the war in Iraq was defined by an insurgency. After the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra in February 2006, it became largely a sectarian conflict. Now the dominant feature of the war is the proliferation of local ceasefires across the country. The real questions that candidates need to answer are these: How do they interpret this new reality? What would they do to maintain the new stability? What does all this mean for U.S. foreign and military policy in the next few years?

American forces in Iraq have done superbly but the violence has not ended because they won great military victories. Instead, the adversary —the Sunnis—switched sides. Instead of shooting Americans they are now allied with them. This has happened for many reasons—changes in U.S. policy, Al Qaeda's brutality, Sunni defeats and war weariness. But it's a fragile peace. Stephen Biddle, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has made several trips to Iraq to advise Gen. David Petraeus, says, "If you go south of Baghdad you will see Sunni units that are the most impressive Iraqi fighting forces in the country, never defeated, with their command structure, tight discipline, equipment and gear all intact. They have simply made a decision to stop fighting."

This realignment, however, has been directed at the United States and not the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. Petraeus has been trying to integrate these "Concerned Local Citizens"—the military's wonderful euphemism for Sunni militias—within the Iraqi police and security forces, so they can be paid by the central government and develop a new relationship with Shiites. But both sides remain extremely wary. The Shiites suspect the former insurgents' motives; the Sunnis say that jobs and weapons are being withheld by the government. As of now, the United States Army is the organizer, financier, guarantor and enforcer of the peace.

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It was a military victory that caused the turn around. Because it was achieved through counterinsurgency warfare Zakaria and many other observers missed how it happened. Their lack of understanding of counterinsurgency warfare has led them to discount the strategy. However, Zakaria shows a keener understanding of the facts on the ground than the Democrats who are still in denial about this victory and seem willing to throw it away with a hasty retreat. They were wrong when they opposed the new strategy and they are wrong now to want to abandon the victory it has achieved. It is going to haunt them in this election when they get out of the Democrat echo chamber.