Iran ups bid in Iraq

Opinion: October 31, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

By Frederick W. KAGAN AND KIMBERLY KAGAN

Los Angeles Times

Iran has just defeated the United States in Iraq.

The American withdrawal, which comes after the administration’s failure to secure a new agreement that would have allowed troops to remain in Iraq, won’t be good for ordinary Iraqis or for the region. But it will unquestionably benefit Iran.

President Obama’s February 2009 speech at Camp Lejeune accurately defined the U.S. goal for Iraq as ”an Iraq that is sovereign, stable and self-reliant.” He then outlined how the U.S. would achieve that goal by working ”to promote an Iraqi government that is just, representative and accountable, and that provides neither support nor safe haven to terrorists.”

Despite recent administration claims to the contrary, Iraq today meets none of those conditions. Its sovereignty is hollow because of the continued activities of Iranian-backed militias in its territory. Its stability is fragile, since the fundamental disputes among ethnic and sectarian groups remain unresolved. And it is not in any way self-reliant. The Iraqi military cannot protect its borders, its airspace or its territorial waters without foreign assistance.

Strategic objectives

Although Obama has clearly failed to achieve the goals for Iraq that he set five weeks after taking office, Iran, in contrast, is well on its way to achieving its strategic objectives. Since 2004, Tehran has sought to drive all American forces out of the country, to promote a weak, Shiite-led government in Baghdad, to develop Hezbollah-like political militia organizations in Iraq through which to exert influence and intimidate pro-Western Iraqi leaders, and to insinuate its theocratic ideology into Iraq’s Shiite clerical establishment. It has largely succeeded in achieving each of those goals.

Preventing the extension of a Status of Forces Agreement allowing American military forces to remain in Iraq has been the primary goal of Iranian activities in Iraq since 2008. That year, the then-commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, told the Washington Post that he had seen intelligence reports suggesting that Tehran and its agents bribed Iraqi leaders to derail a new agreement. Iranian-backed militants also attempted to conduct an intimidation campaign to deter Iraqi officials from signing the extension. But their attempts to drive the U.S. out at the end of 2008 failed.

Assassinations

This year, however, Shiite militants were able to execute a campaign of targeted assassinations. They also increased rocket and IED attacks on U.S. and Iraqi security forces using technologies that they had tried unsuccessfully to field in 2008 but have since perfected. Militias that had been badly damaged during a surge by U.S. forces were able to reconstitute during the protracted government-formation process, because Iraqi politicians were unwilling to support attacks on groups affiliated with Muqtada Sadr, whose backing was needed for Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s continued premiership.

Opponents of the U.S. presence in Iraq have long argued that the withdrawal of American forces would reduce anti-American sentiment and violence, denying the militias their excuse for continued operations. Sadr does not see it that way.

Two days after the president’s announcement, Sadr declared that even an expanded U.S. diplomatic presence in Baghdad would be a continued occupationt.

Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar and director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Kimberly Kagan is president of the Institute for the Study of War. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.