Stabilizing Iraq from the Bottom Up

Earlier this month, Dr. Stephen Biddle, a Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, met before the United States Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations to testify on the topic of “Stabilizing Iraq from the Bottom Up.”

Dr. Biddle has provided us with a transcript of his testimony, which paints a vivid picture of the complex, and somewhat surprising, situation in Iraq today.

As Biddle states: "This is not what the Administration had in mind when it invaded Iraq." Whoever occupies the White House next inherits one of the great challenges of our time.

Here is an excerpt of Dr. Biddle’s speech to the Senate:

“What will happen to Iraq as the recent surge in US troop strength subsides? Violence fell in late 2007; will this trend continue, or was this merely a temporary lull created by an unsustainable US troop presence? The last week saw a major spike in fighting as the Maliki government launched an offensive against militia fighters in Basra; is this a harbinger of future violence? And what do the answers imply for the US posture in Iraq? Should we extend the ongoing troop reductions? Or should these be slowed or even reversed?

In fact the violence reduction was more than just a temporary lull. It reflected a systematic shift in the underlying strategic landscape of Iraq, and could offer the basis for sustainable stability if we respond appropriately.

But this will not yield Eden on the Euphrates. A stabilized Iraq is likely to look more like Bosnia or Kosovo than Germany or Japan. And like Bosnia and Kosovo, a substantial outside presence will be needed for many years to keep such a peace. If US withdrawals leave us unable to provide the needed outside presence, the result could be a rapid return to 2006-scale violence or worse. Nor can we afford to hold out for a less Balkanized Iraq that could control its own territory without us in the near term: pushing too hard too soon for the ideal of a strong, internally unified Iraqi state can easily undermine the prospects for a lesser but more achievable goal of stability per se.

This is because the violence reduction of 2007 was obtained from the bottom up, not from the top down. Instead of a national political deal, the military defeat or disarmament of the enemy, or their conversion into peaceful politicians in a reconciled, pluralist society, violence fell because most of the former combatants reached separate, local, voluntary decisions to stop fighting even though they retained their arms, their organizations, their leaders, and often their ambitions. These decisions were not accidental or ephemeral – they reflected the post-2006 strategic reality of Iraq, which for the first time gave all the major combatants a powerful self-interest in ceasefire rather than combat. This new self-interest in ceasefire creates an important opportunity for stability. But the decentralized, voluntary nature of these ceasefires means that peace would be fragile and would need careful and persistent US management to keep it from collapsing, especially early on. The required US presence would change from war fighting into peacekeeping, and US casualties would fall accordingly. But a continued presence by a substantial outside force would be essential for many years to keep a patchwork quilt of wary former enemies from turning on one another – if we try to exploit the violence reduction to take a peace dividend by bringing American troops home too quickly, the ceasefire deals we have reached would likely collapse. And if we try to replace this patchwork quilt of local ceasefire deals with a strong central government that could monopolize violence in Iraq and allow us to leave, the result is much more likely to be the collapse of today’s ceasefires without any effective central government to put in their place.

This is not what the Administration had in mind when it invaded Iraq. Reasonable people could judge the costs too high and the risks too great. But an Iraq stabilized from the bottom up in this way nevertheless offers a meaningful chance to stop the fighting, to save the lives of untold thousands of innocent Iraqis who would otherwise die brutal, violent deaths, and to secure America’s remaining vital strategic interest in this conflict: that it not spread to engulf the entire Middle East in a regionwide war. No options for Iraq are attractive. But given the alternatives, stabilization from the bottom up may be the least bad option for US policy in 2008."

- From a statement by Dr. Stephen Biddle, Senior Fellow for Defense Policy, Council on Foreign Relations before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Second Session, 110th Congress.