Too much focus has been placed on President Barack Obama s new withdrawal plan and too little on other aspects of the situation likely to impact on US Iraq policy. Likewise, regarding Iran, excessive attention has been accorded renewed interest in US-Iranian engagement and questions like the possible adverse impact of the appointment of Dennis Ross on that process, while neglecting other important drivers affecting this complex equation. All things considered, developments related to both Iraq and Iran could fall well below expectations.
This year will bring a series of events that could bear heavily on the Obama administration s new withdrawal plan for Iraq. One such juncture is the July referendum on last December s US-Iraq agreement: so much opposition to the agreement arose from various quarters in Iraq that the Iraqi parliament agreed to submit the pact to a popular referendum. Should the agreement fail to pass this July, the deadline for total withdrawal might move up to July 2010 from December 2011, a potentially sizeable disruption.
Of more immediate concern is the agreement s requirement that US combat troops withdraw from Iraqi cities and towns by the end of June. In mixed areas, US forces are still separating or sitting on populations of various ethno-sectarian communities that remain, in many cases, hostile toward or deeply suspicious of each other. No one knows to what degree this withdrawal will result in violence. Most observers apparently expect at least some, but do not know whether such outbreaks can be contained by Iraqi security forces.
The failure of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki s government to achieve much of the communal reconciliation so desperately needed (the main goal of the reduction in violence since mid-2007) has greatly aggravated this potentially explosive situation. And it is difficult to know whether parliamentary elections in late 2009 will foster stability and reconciliation or increased uncertainty. If, for example, the Sunni Arab under-vote in the recent provincial elections is repeated (and Sunni Arab representation in parliament is, therefore, unexpectedly low), that restive minority could become more problematic.
Obama may well be prepared to order US forces to re-enter problem areas of the country if violence were to rebound seriously. Should this happen, a question arises: when could they be removed? Unless the Iraqi government changes its tune regarding political reconciliation, in this scenario US forces could remain in such areas a long time with political disputes going unresolved. Additionally, US troops involved in any such intervention could be caught in situations in which they would be perceived as taking sides, possibly increasing US casualties once again.
Concerning Iran, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just suggested that her Iranian counterpart attend an Afghanistan conference later this month. Yet, an Iranian presence of some significance at such gatherings also occurred during the Clinton administration, and the inclusion of Iranian officials in Afghanistan consultations took place during the early Bush years.
There has been considerable debate over the recent appointment of Dennis Ross as special Gulf and southwest Asia advisor at the State Department. But Clinton (and Obama) will likely be calling the shots on Iran, not Ross. Yet there is some reason for concern on that score, too, because Clinton herself traditionally has been inclined toward taking a fairly tough stance toward Iran.
On the Iranian side, the success of US-Iranian engagement ultimately rests with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, not the more notorious President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad. A defeat of Ahmadinezhad by reformer Mohamad Khatami later this year would be helpful, but Khamenei and others around him remain key. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week of their uncertainty that Khamenei favored significantly improved relations with Washington. Iranian missile launches are merely efforts to ensure that Iran is not viewed as weak, but Khamenei s March 4 expression of deep skepticism over US intentions is more disturbing, casting doubt on his interest in robust US-Iranian diplomacy.
Despite the increased open-mindedness of the new US administration regarding contact with Iran, some sobering historic context must be borne in mind. When the Clinton administration last attempted engagement in the late 1990s, Khatami was already president, the overall atmospherics were even more positive and Khamenei and other conservatives felt compelled to give ground in the face of a tide of pro-reform sentiment. Most importantly, there was no thorny nuclear issue hanging over the entire process. As a result, engagement now could prove more difficult than during the failed effort of a decade ago.
So, on both the Iraqi and Iranian fronts caution is warranted with respect to expectations. The US withdrawal from Iraq could become quite complicated–even ugly. And so long as the new US administration hews to policies on Iran like retaining Iranian nuclear enrichment as a red line, keeping additional sanctions very much on the table and not clearly taking the military option off of it, the prospects for progress toward markedly improved relations with a suspicious Tehran will remain somewhat iffy.-
Wayne White,former deputy director of the State Department s intelligence office for the Near East and South Asia, is an adjunct scholar at Washington s Middle East Institute. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with bitterlemons-international.org.
