More than three months into the implementation of US President George W Bush’s “surge” strategy, scepticism over the likelihood of its success is still running high. Except among neo-conservatives, who have been the strategy’s most enthusiastic champions, most analysts believe it is doomed to failure in the absence of major moves — of which there have so far been virtually none — by the Shi’a-led government of Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki to promote national reconciliation with the Sunni minority. But even while the addition of thousands of US troops in Baghdad has reduced sectarian killings there — a major goal of the surge — violence outside the capital appears to have increased.

Indeed, according to a draft report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) obtained this week by the New York Times, the number of attacks on civilian and security forces across Iraq remained at roughly the same level in March and April as at the end of last year, before the surge got underway in February. The actual death toll from those attacks, a growing proportion of which consists of car and truck bombings in civilian areas, may actually have risen compared to previous months, according to some analysts who note that the Maliki government last month stopped releasing casualty figures.

Besides the reduction of killings in Baghdad, which most analysts attribute to Moqtada al-Sadr’s orders in January to his Mahdi Army to lie low and avoid confrontations with US forces, the surge’s defenders point to Anbar as the brightest spot in the strategy’s implementation to date. Not only have government and US-backed forces regained control of Ramadi from Al Qaeda, but a new alliance called the Jihad and Reform Front (RJF) with deep roots throughout the province has mobilised against Al Qaeda — which renamed itself the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) — effectively splitting the insurgency.

But according to Marc Lynch, a specialist at George Washington University, the RJF’s opposition to the ISI does not translate into support either for US forces and even less for the Maliki government. Rather, it remains at heart a nationalist movement committed both to expelling US forces and fighting Shi’a domination, which it depicts as an “Iranian”

occupation.

And while killings in Baghdad itself may be down compared to late last year, they have been steadily creeping upwards over the last two months, according to published reports. Even the super-protected “Green Zone” — the nerve centre of US operations and the Iraqi government — has become increasingly insecure.

Two people were killed and 10 more wounded by mortar fire into the Zone on Thursday, the second day in a row that it has come under fire. So dangerous has the area become that the US Embassy warned all residents earlier this month to keep outdoor travel to a minimum and “remain within a hardened structure to the maximum extent possible and strictly avoid congregating outdoors.”

Those who work outdoors were ordered to wear bullet-proof vests and helmets at all times. “In any other embassy, we would have been evacuated,” one State Department staffer told McClatchy newspapers earlier this week. “They are going to wait until 20 people die, then the people back in Washington will say we have a problem.” — IPS