Kenneth Pollack has a length and sober article in Foreign Affairs assessing the reconstruction of Iraq. His diagnosis is that things are far better than the media would report. While the security situation is still unsettled, the process of reconstruction has been going steadily forwards since the end of the war in April.
There is enough going well in Iraq that there is no reason to believe that the U.S.-led reconstruction effort is doomed to failure. Indeed, quite the opposite. There is so much good in Iraq, even in the face of numerous and crippling American errors, that pessimists need to be cautious in making prognostications of doom.
Pollack notes that there are things which need to be addressed, mainly the lack of security and the long-standing problems in getting basic services such as gas and electricity to the Iraqi people. However, none of these problems are insurmountable, and the CPA has been willing to shift their strategies to meet the demands of the situation at any given time. It is clear that the initial plan for reconstruction was simply inadequate. The dismissal of General Garner early in the post-war period began a lengthy period of constant re-examination in which different strategies were tried and discarded.
There’s nothing particularly shocking about that process, nor is it a sign of incompetence on behalf of the Administration or the Pentagon. The fact was that Iraq was a substantial unknown by the end of the war. We didn’t know how bad the country was after decades of Ba’athist neglect and nearly constant warfare. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and the initial plans for Iraq were no exception to that rule. The overall lesson is that the Coalition was willing to alter their plans, which is the kind of operation flexibility that is crucial to such a massive undertaking.
Pollack’s final conclusion is that the future of Iraq is tied to how willing the United States is to remain in Iraq until the Iraqi people can form their own functional government. That will mean committing US and coalition troops in Iraq for some time. However, if the coalition can significant reduce the number of attacks in Iraq – which is already beginning to happen it will be a significant step towards a more secure and stable Iraq.
Pollack gives a critical and sober assessment of the situation in Iraq that shows that the breathless cry of "quagmire" from the media here and abroad doesn’t match the facts on the ground. It is clear that Iraq is far from settled, but it is no Vietnam. We’re slowly but surely winning the larger battle to create a democratic Iraq and the largest threat to that process is not the terrorists attacking our troops, it is the threat that we may give up before the job is done.
