Jim Lobe

Growing pessimism about averting civil war in Iraq, as well as mounting concerns that the US military presence there may itself be fuelling the insurgency and Islamist extremism worldwide, has spurred a spate of new calls for the US to withdraw its 140,000 troops sooner rather than later. Although resolutions to establish at least a timeline for withdrawal have so far gained the support of only about a quarter of the members of Congress, the absence of tangible progress in turning back the insurgency is adding to fears on Capitol Hill that the administration’s hopes of stabilising the situation, let alone giving birth to a pro-western democracy in the heart of the Arab world, are delusory. While the Bush administration still insists that civil war will be avoided and current negotiations to produce a new constitution by the middle of next month remain on track, the continuing high level of violence and the strength and sophistication of predominantly Sunni insurgents and foreign fighters are clearly having an effect here.

That was made clearest in two New York Times articles published Sunday, including one entitled “Defying US Efforts, Guerrillas in Iraq Refocus and Strengthen,” and another, by John Burns, a veteran star Times reporter who has spent considerable time in Iraq, entitled “If It’s Civil War, Do We Know It?” The latter story recounted the recent intensification of Sunni violence against the Shia community that provoked even the ever-patient Shia religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Sistani to call on the Shiite-led government to “defend the country against mass annihilation.” Such assessments are spurring what rapidly has become a cottage industry, one fuelled in part by the leak in early July of a British contingency plan that called for halving the number of US and British troops in Iraq by the latter part of 2006. Thus, on Jul. 15, former Central Intelligence Agency director John Deutch published a column in the Times calling for a “prompt withdrawal plan,” with the initial draw down set to coincide with the Iraqi elections scheduled for Dec. 15.

At the same time, the US would urge the Iraqi government and its neighbours to recognise their common interest in Baghdad’s peaceful evolution without external intervention and commit itself to an economic assistance programme to Iraq “so long as it stays on a peaceful path.” A more detailed plan emerged from the Boston-based Project on Defence Alternatives (PDA) calling for complete withdrawal, except for the retention of a multi-national civilian and military monitoring and training contingent of less than 10,000 by September 2006. The plan, to take effect Aug. 1, would begin with the adoption of a withdrawal timeline, a sharp de-escalation of the war in Sunni areas, a shift of US resources to its training mission, and the transfer of foreign military control of localities to elected officials. As noted by Deutch, continued investment in a losing proposition could result in “an even worse loss of credibility down the road.” — IPS