Will a new occupant of Pentagon office 3E729 mean a new direction for American strategy in Iraq? Will a new Democratic leadership in Congress deliver a new strategy?

Resident Fellow Thomas Donnelly

The Washington establishment never misses an opportunity to go back to the future, to seek the status quo. And, since the November elections, the nomination of Robert Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense and the impending report of the Iraq Study Group--or the “Baker-Hamilton” group as it is better known, for co-chairs James Baker, former secretary of state, and Lee Hamilton, also co-chair of the 9/11 Commission--conventional wisdom is beside itself anticipating a renunciation of naive democratic idealism and a return to a hard-headed realism. The new defense secretary nominee is thought to be the symbol of a “takeover of Bush 43 by Bush 41.” With a special inside-the-Beltway self-satisfaction, Newsweek magazine says it’s time to “Make Room for Daddy.”

However, the establishment more often defines the world outside the Beltway in terms of who’s up and who’s down inside the Beltway. If there’s one lesson our experience of recent years ought to have taught us, it’s that Iraqis, Afghans and others don’t neatly follow the scripts we write for them. Nor does the establishment scenario--in effect, a withdrawal with honor from Iraq--pay much attention to other voices in Washington, in particular President Bush’s or those among the new Democratic majority in Congress.

The fact is that a change of personnel in Washington does not in itself change facts on the ground in Iraq or anywhere else in the world. Gates faces a number of the same choices that Rumsfeld faced, as well as the same constraints. First, Gates also serves the same president, who, despite the “thumping” his party suffered in this fall’s elections, seems to be as committed to victory in Iraq as ever. Bush, having fought the last election of his career, has only his and America’s place in history to play for. And even his behavior during the election campaign season--failing to replace Rumsfeld when there might have been domestic political advantage, mounting the Baghdad campaign despite the certainty it would increase the number of American casualties, speaking out forcefully on Iraq when Republican candidates were desperately trying to change the subject--reveals that the president’s starting point is victory.

Second, Gates also faces the same challenges in Iraq. Since the Sunni attacks on the al-Askari mosque in Samarra last Febraury, the conflict in Iraq has become a low-level sectarian civil war rather than simply a Sunni insurgency. The role of the U.S. is no longer just to reinforce the power of the government headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the effectiveness of the Iraqi army and police but to ensure they reflect national rather than sectarian interests. Whatever opportunity might have existed in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq for direct reconstruction has slipped away; it is increasingly apparent that Iraqis would prefer to fight it out.

In particular, the Shiite majority has little trust that the U.S. will defend its community or its interests. Given the failure of the Bush 41 administration to intervene during the post-Desert Storm massacres, the U.S. has been on trial among the Iraqi Shiites; removing Saddam from power created a chance to redeem Shiite trust and, through the initial years of the occupation, the Shiites proved themselves committed partners in building an Iraqi democracy. Indeed, the current elected government would not exist but for pressure from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

But the failure to provide security against Sunni attacks--to prevent Abu Musab al-Zarqawi from achieving, even in death, his goal of dividing Iraqi against Iraqi--has helped to empower radicals in the Shiite community; the Iraqi Shiites are divided against themselves as well. Overall, the Shiites seem less interested in a power-sharing arrangement with Sunnis, even if it means they have to settle for a lesser Iraq.

In sum, Gates faces the enduring reality that the future of Iraq will be determined first and foremost by what the Shiite majority wants. He cannot change that, nor can the Iraq Study Group. Nor will the fact of Shiite power be essentially changed by a partition of Iraq. Indeed, there are many reasons to think that partition would exacerbate the violence without producing viable states as a result: Iraqi Kurdistan, by far the most mature and already autonomous political region, would remain isolated and under immense pressure from Turkey; an independent “Shiite-stan,” relieved from any incentive to think about a larger Iraq, would likely become an ideological Islamist state prone to come under Iranian sway; a rump “Sunni-stan” would be economically prostrate, a front-line state along a sectarian frontier and a magnet for Sunni radicals and financial support.

Third, Gates faces unpleasant realities in Afghanistan. The change of mission from U.S. to NATO forces in the southern part of the country has not been a success. Although many NATO units have fought well and bravely in battles with the resurgent Taliban, European governments are less willing and European militaries less able to sustain the effort. More seriously, the lesson for those in the region--and crucially, for the Pakistanis--is that the U.S. is losing interest. For all Afghanistan’s internal problems and the weaknesses of the government of President Hamid Karzai, the Taliban cannot hope to mount or sustain serious operations but for their sanctuaries in Pakistan.

Fourth, Gates faces the fact that the U.S. has yet to formulate a coherent strategy for the larger struggle for the political future of the Islamic world. Ironically, if such a strategy is being created, it might be the final legacy of Rumsfeld: U.S. Special Operations Command, moving beyond its initial direct-action, global-manhunt approach to fighting terrorism, has formulated an indirect approach that emphasizes foreign internal defense and unconventional warfare missions that might provide a long-term method for a long-term conflict.

The danger is that adopting such a strategy will not be seen as a supplement to requirement, as in Iraq or Afghanistan or elsewhere in the future, of undertaking large-scale operations, but a substitute. This danger is greatest now, as frustrations with Iraq dominate decision-making. But it’s worth noting the longer-term trend in the Middle East: Since the creation of what has become U.S. Central Command in 1979, the U.S. military posture in the Persian Gulf and Middle East has risen steadily, increased in pace of operations, moved from an off-shore to an on-shore presence and been involved in three major wars--Iraq twice and Afghanistan.

Thus, the fifth fact that Gates must deal with is that he inherits a force essentially unchanged from 2001; like Rumsfeld, Gates goes to war with the army he’s got--literally, the force Rumsfeld had. To be sure, it’s a more experienced and sophisticated force when it come to irregular or urban combat, but this has been wisdom dearly purchased, not only in terms of casualties but in equipment destroyed, broken or simply worn out. Gates faces the reality of land forces that are too small to sustain their current mission; it will not answer to say, “We’ll never fight a war like this again.” Rumsfeld never meant to fight like this in the first place.

Of course, the one reality for Gates that Rumsfeld avoided was dealing with Congress, which now, of course, is in the hands of the Democratic opposition. Despite all the post-election warbling about bipartisanship--which sounded even less genuine than usual--the Democrats have made it clear they measure change in Iraq policy entirely by U.S. force levels. There are two versions of the Democratic alternative: the first, forwarded by Sen. Carl Levin, in line as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, calls for reductions within four to six months as a way of putting pressure on the Maliki government; the second, a total withdrawal or redeployment, is associated with Rep. John Murtha and favored by the rising speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi--who’s even backing Murtha’s bid to become House majority leader against moderate Rep. Steny Hoyer.

“The first order of business is to change [U.S.] Iraq policy,” declared Levin, with the backing of Sen. Harry Reid, who will be Senate majority leader in the new Congress. “We have to tell the Iraqis that the open-ended commitment is over.” Pelosi has said she wants to see “at least 30,000 troops home by this time next year.” In short, the Democrats’ test for Gates--as well as for the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group--is whether they can convince Bush to accept their view that the Iraq war represents a failed strategy, not just incompetence. They don’t want a more effective secretary of defense, they want a different strategy.

Democrats have had the luxury thus far of being out of power: They have been able to point out the failings of Bush policy without having to take responsibility or offer alternatives. Their congressional majorities naturally put them in a spotlight, as will the 2008 presidential election, which has in effect already begun. Although it’s true that the mainstream media is imbued with unconscious attitudes that reflect Washington conventional wisdom, it’s more profoundly true that the press demands conflict. The Democrats are about to be judged by an unforgiving standard.

Thus, the ability of congressional Democrats to serve as change agents--to run the war from Capitol Hill--is even more constrained than is the defense secretary’s. To begin with, the one real tool they possess, the power of the purse, is the proverbial sword that cuts both ways. Pelosi and the new leadership have fallen all over themselves promising they will never undercut “the troops in the field,” and the ghost of Vietnam looms over the Democrats; they are desperate to escape their habitual soft-on-security image, if only to change the subject to domestic policy issues where they believe they have a more entrenched advantage. Immediate post-election polling reveals continued popular concern with the situation in Iraq but an equal concern that Democrats will try to force a premature withdrawal.

The hope for the nation in all this is that American politicians may no longer be able to escape engaging in a serious conversation about a post-Cold War security strategy. During the lotus-eating years of the 1990s, there was no interest or little need: The collapse of the Evil Empire and the dot-com boom seemed to have ushered in a period of permanent peace and prosperity. The attacks of Sept. 11 shook the U.S. from its slumber, but the questions of what to do--at least once the Taliban were toppled and al-Qaida driven into exile--came too quickly and did not allow for easy answers. The war in Iraq is, most of all, a reflection of our inability to understand the politics of a region we could no longer ignore, leave to the locals or simply punish with air strikes.

If the new secretary of defense is really to be an agent of change--of military transformation--his most profound contribution would be to bring Americans to accept their constraints without sacrificing their strategic goals. The problem in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East is less the idea that the region requires representative governments; this remains the only hope for lasting stability. Rather, the real problem stems from our fetish for rapid, decisive operations. We must adapt the preferred American way of war to respond to the realities of the war as it is, no matter what Robert Gates, Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton--or the leaders of the new Congress--may say.

Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow at AEI.