Is the Surge Working?

I expressed skepticism that the surge would work at the outset; the plan seemed like "more of the same, only moreso." There have been what seems to be an accelerated number of car bombings, and a lot of reports of the more educated, middle-class members of Iraqi society (particularly in Baghdad, where a quarter of the country's population lives) fleeing the country and setting up shop elsewhere, whether that be in one of the Gulf States, Europe, India, or the U.S.

At the same time, I have the opportunity to correspond and share messages with other instructors at University of Phoenix. One of them is a Colonel on active duty in the Guard, and he and his troops are part of the "clean up the streets" operations, and just finished another sweep of Sadr City (which, as I recall, used to be called Saddam City), a Shi'ite slum to the northeast of central Baghdad. My UoP colleague reports with a tone of resignation and realism that the violence does continue, but that the bulk of it is now sectarian rather than insurgent. In other words, he sees the fact that the violence is religiously-motivated, and aimed at members of varying sects of Islam (and against non-Muslim religions, like against the native Jewish, Druze, and Christian populations) is at least better than violence directed at unseating the Iraqi government and dislodge the U.S. forces.

He acknowledges that there are a lot of the educated class fleeing. He has seen this process start to slow down in the past two weeks, though, and thinks it will eventually slow down to a trickle and then stop. He is confident that many will come back if a greater level of peace and stability can be created. (To his credit, he uses the word "if," indicating an uncertainty of result, but that in no way diminishes his feeling of confidence that the job can get done.) He stresses the point, which I think is patently obvious, that if U.S. forces were not in Iraq, the level of violence that would be going on would be several orders of magnitude greater than what we are seeing now.

My colleague is someone who is actually there, mature and intelligent enough to assess the situation realistically, and has the ability to discuss his evaluation in a candid fashion with his civilian colleagues back home. He hasn't disclosed anything operational but instead shared with us a big-picture sort of assessment -- like the kind he and his fellow full-birds give as briefings to both the Congressional and industrial delegations that visit periodically and to the lower-ranking officers who lead the squads and units out into the city to be visible and engage in operations against "the bad guys." My point here is that he is in a position to give a realistic assessment of the situation, and he seems to have done so. His tone lacks both panic and swagger. Rather, he writes as if there is still a great deal of work to do, but given sufficient support and a realistic amount of time, he is confident that it can get done. A "realistic amount of time" seems to be months, not weeks, and not years. "Getting it done" seems to be attaining a level of urban violence roughly equivalent to that of a U.S. or European city of similar size.

The biggest thing he thinks needs more work is rebuilding Iraqi nationalism -- right now he thinks people identify with their religious sect or their favored militia faction more than they do with their country. The most promising thing he sees happening are multinational corporations seeking to open factories and other facilities in and around Baghdad, representing both capital investments and employment opportunities.

I'd call it a guarded vote of confidence. Reassuring, but realistic. The violence isn't going to end next week. Or the week after that. But my colleague seems to think that it will recede to, perhaps, Israeli-like levels, and soon thereafter, we can start drawing down our forces. Assuming that my colleague's reports to the rest of the faculty are pretty much accurate, I'd be extremely glad to be in the middle of being proven wrong right now.