Unqualified Offerings

The Times of London says that the US and Iraqi governments – once there is an Iraqi government – are going to launch a major “clear, build and hold” operation in the Iraqi capital by sometime late summer. This is essentially the plan Greg Djerejian has been advocating recently.

Its boosters call the proposed operation “the second liberation of Baghdad.” Incurably dubious of government rhetoric, I find myself having a strangely comforting thought. “The Second Liberation of Baghdad” has marketing slogan written all over it, but that’s the part that cheers me up. The proposed TSLOB timetable (unfortunate acronym) means that, if it either goes well or could be made to appear to go well, it would tend to boost the President’s popularity and Republican electoral prospects heading into the fall elections. And that means the Administration may be pinning its hopes on TSLOB instead of an October Surprise over Persia. They can’t relish trying to calm Baghdad down while Iran explodes.

On the substance of the plan, I suspect it will prove to be more whack-a-mole – the Baathists and Sadrists and Badrists currently rampaging through Iraq have other places they can go, and we’ll have to strip US and Iraqi troops from other parts of the country to pull this off. The relative success of recent operations in Tal Afar serve as a model for TSLOB, but if we pull troops out of Ninevah to “liberate Baghdad (again),” Tal Afar itself could slide back toward insurgent control. And there’s this:

Vines’s replacement as commander of ground forces is Lieutenant-General Peter Chiarelli, who pioneered the use of force with Sweat [“sewage, water, electricity and trash”] to subdue Sadr city, a working-class Shi’ite district of Baghdad, in 2004. On the eve of his return to Iraq this year he described how the tactics had worked and vowed to repeat them.

“It was not uncommon for the 1st Calvary Division to be engaged in intense urban combat in one part of the city, while just a few blocks away we had units replacing damaged infrastructure, helping to foster business growth or facilitating the development of local government,” Chiarelli said.

Which is great, but as you may have read, a lot has happened in Sadr City since 2004. It was “subdued” for a bit, and Baby Sadr’s militia has shied from direct attacks on Americans since then, but Sadr City remains a Shiite militia-controlled badlands. We may liberate Sadr City yet again (it would probably count as Liberation Number Three), but for how long. Will we really get from Clear to Build and eventually Hold, or will something come up undoing whatever progress TSLOB makes?

That’s my bet. Against that, I’ll say, if you really think the US needs to continue its share of the war in Iraq, TSLOB may be the best option you’re left with. It will provide a good test of my reflex pessimism. I hope the Iraqis themselves appreciate their chance to contribute to Science.