Iraq and Afghanistan

Peace in Iraq?

The last couple of days have brought news of an agreement engineered by the Iraqis that will bring at least a tenuous peace between the Americans and sadrists in Najaf and apparently Kufa (in Karbala there was already such a agreement in practice). This does not yet affect the battles between the sadrists and Americans in "Sadr City" area of Baghdad. It represents a considerable backing down by the Americans, similar in some respects to what happened in Falluja with a somewhat different cast. If the agreement holds, the Americans will help bring peace to the embattled holy cities and, one hopes, the recovery of authority in them by more moderate elements. The role of the Iraqis is significant. For all in all, what we are seeing is a progressive Iraqization of authority in the country so that July appears more and more likely to actually mean a transfer of significant power. For their part, the Americans are becoming more comfortable with letting Iraqis take the lead, so they may in fact fade away slowly in the aftermath. However, there are still many hurdles, and the United States and its allies will continue for some time to have thousands of soldiers and civilians exposed to attack throughout the country. In the next few months unless the Iraqis can control the rate of attacks against these persons (leave alone against Iraqis), the Americans will remain tempted to push aside developing national forces in an attempt to crush their tormentors.