By Anthony H. Cordesman|March 31, 2009
No one can predict the outcome in Iraq. It certainly is not yet victory in any meaningful sense. There are still serious security threats. U.S. command warns that al-Qaida in Iraq is not yet defeated, and there may still be years of low-level violence before Iraqi forces can eliminate it. Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi militia are down but scarcely out. Sunni-Shiite and Arab-Kurdish tensions can still explode into violence. Iranian influence remains a threat, and so does the threat of Turkish intervention in the north and Syrian tolerance of hostile Sunni infiltration across the Syrian border.
Nevertheless, there is real hope for a stable, independent Iraq that can stand on its own and that would be largely democratic - if we can persevere a while longer.
Plenty of challenges remain. Most of the leaders elected in provincial voting have no real experience with politics and governance, and will have to deal with local governments formed by their predecessors and a central government that is still heavily biased in favor of Shiites and Kurds. A new power struggle for national elections set for late this year has begun and adds a Shiite-on-Shiite and Sunni-on-Sunni dimension to the problems.
Iraq lacks refinery capacity and must import large amounts of oil that are sometimes stolen. Oil export income has dropped sharply. Iraq has had to cut its planned budget from $80 billion annually to $58.6 billion. It has had to freeze critical new hires, such as 60,000 security personnel, as well as key projects. It still faces problems with debt and reparations, massive unemployment and underemployment, is ceasing to get floods of foreign aid, and faces serious challenges in modernizing its manufacturing and agricultural sectors.
Yet these are problems - not crises. Neoconservative dreams for Iraq have proved to be just as unreal and infantile as neoliberal dreams for Vietnam. But what U.S. soldiers now refer to as "Iraq good enough" is becoming a reality. Such an outcome may well be far better than Saddam Hussein.
Violence is down to levels that allow Iraq to function as country. The central government is now far more popular, and the Iraqi people have far more confidence in the government, the economy and the future. A new ABC poll shows that 64 percent of Iraqis now call democracy their preferred form of government. Sixty-five percent of Iraqis say things are going well in their lives, up from 39 percent in 2007.
