SOME PROMISE IN IRAQ

I've written before that above the family, the basic social structures in Iraq are the tribe and the clan and that is one thing standing in the way of creating a working nation-state. Now, some in our military have begun to use these structures to our advantage:

Iraq likely to miss goals set by U.S.
Military officers doubt top objectives -- sharing of oil revenue, provincial elections and integration of Sunni Arabs -- will be achieved before a September report to Congress.
By Julian E. Barnes, LA Times Staff Writer
May 29, 2007

Military officers in Baghdad and outside advisors working with Petraeus doubt that the three major goals set by U.S. officials for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki will be achieved by then. Enactment of a new law to share Iraq's oil revenue among Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions is the only goal they think might be achieved in time, and even that is considered a long shot. The two other key benchmarks are provincial elections and a deal to allow more Sunni Arabs into government jobs.

... Petraeus' advisors hope to focus on smaller achievements that they see as signs of progress, including local deals among Iraq's rival factions to establish areas of peace in some provincial cities. "Some of it will be infrastructure that is being worked, some of it is local security for neighborhoods, some of it is markets reopening," said a senior military official in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing military tactics.

The advisors and military officers say the local deals and advances they see are not insignificant and can be building blocks of wider sectarian reconciliation. Military officers in Iraq said the efforts included recruiting Sunni Arab nationalists into security forces, forging agreements among neighborhoods of rival sects, establishing new businesses in once-violent areas and shifting local attitudes.

Frederick W. Kagan, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and early advocate of the troop buildup, said the military would have few major political accomplishments to report by September. "I think the political progress will be mostly of this local variety," said Kagan, who recently visited Iraq and met with American commanders.

Over the last six months, military leaders have pointed to the success of Army Col. Sean MacFarland in negotiating with tribal leaders in Ramadi to bring relatives into the local security forces and win their support against Al Qaeda insurgents in Al Anbar province. Kagan said commanders in Diyala, Salahuddin and Babil provinces have been working on similar deals. "The whole Anbar thing has snowballed," he said. "A lot of people want to play."

...Gates said last week that U.S. officials may have over-emphasized the importance of Iraq's central government. "One of the concerns that I've had," Gates said, "was whether we had focused too much on central government construction in both Iraq and Afghanistan and not enough on the cultural and historical, provincial, tribal and other entities that have played an important role in the history of both countries."

Military analysts have said the local deals now being forged often include bringing members of a tribe or sect into the security forces, then providing them with armored vehicles and weapons. But if the groups refuse to cooperate, military forces conduct disruptive neighborhood sweeps, raiding houses and hunting for insurgents.

...military commanders in Baghdad have not explicitly been giving or withholding assistance to communities based on cooperation, they have been stepping up efforts to forge agreements with local leaders about how best to secure neighborhoods, military officers said. Those discussions could involve the kind of security to provide to marketplaces, where to place protective walls and where to build new security stations, the senior military officer said.

Kagan said it would be difficult to replicate the Al Anbar-style deals in Baghdad, where tribal ties remain weak and many families have been displaced from their traditional neighborhoods.