Subject: Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report

From: "Strategic Forecasting, Inc." <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2006 14:50:39 -0500

Stratfor: Geopolitical Intelligence Report - September 6, 2006

Iraq: The Policy Dilemma

By George Friedman 

U.S. President George W. Bush now has made it clear what his policy
on Iraq will be for the immediate future, certainly until Election
Day: He does not intend to change U.S. policy in any fundamental
way. U.S. troops will continue to be deployed in Iraq, they will
continue to carry out counterinsurgency operations, and they will
continue to train Iraqi troops to eventually take over the
operations. It is difficult to imagine that Bush believes there
will be any military solution to the situation in Iraq; therefore,
we must try to understand his reasoning in maintaining this
position. Certainly, it is not simply a political decision. Opinion
in the United States has turned against the war, and drawing down
U.S. forces and abandoning combat operations would appear to be the
politically expedient move. Thus, if it is not politics driving him
-- and assuming that the more lurid theories on the Internet
concerning Bush's motivations are as silly as they appear -- then
we have to figure out what he is doing.

Let's consider the military situation first. Bush has said that
there is no civil war in Iraq. This is in large measure a semantic
debate. In our view, it would be inaccurate to call what is going
on a "civil war" simply because that term implies a degree of
coherence that simply does not exist. Calling it a free-for-all
would be more accurate. It is not simply a conflict of Shi'i versus
Sunni. The Sunnis and Shia are fighting each other, and all of them
are fighting American forces. It is not altogether clear what the
Americans are supposed to be doing.

Counterinsurgency is unlike other warfare. In other warfare, the
goal is to defeat an enemy army, and civilian casualties as a
result of military operations are expected and acceptable. With
counterinsurgency operations in populated areas, however, the goal
is to distinguish the insurgents from civilians and destroy them,
with minimal civilian casualties. Counterinsurgency in populated
areas is more akin to police operations than to military
operations; U.S. troops are simultaneously engaging an enemy force
while trying to protect the population from both that force and
U.S. operations. Add to this the fact that the population is
frequently friendly to the insurgents and hostile to the Americans,
and the difficulty of the undertaking becomes clear.

Consider the following numbers. The New York Police Department
(excluding transit and park police) counts one policeman for every
216 residents. In Iraq, there is one U.S. soldier (not counting
other coalition troops) per about 185 people. Thus, numerically
speaking, U.S. forces are in a mildly better position than New York
City cops -- but then, except for occasional Saturday nights, New
York cops are not facing anything like the U.S. military is facing
in Iraq. Given that the United States is facing not one enemy but a
series of enemy organizations -- many fighting each other as well
as the Americans -- and that the American goal is to defeat these
while defending the populace, it is obvious even from these very
simplistic numbers that the U.S. force simply isn't there to impose
a settlement. 

Expectations and a Deal Unwound 

A military solution to the U.S. dilemma has not been in the cards
for several years. The purpose of military operations was to set
the stage for political negotiations. But the Americans had entered
Iraq with certain expectations. For one thing, they had believed
they would simply be embraced by Iraq's Shiite population. They
also had expected the Sunnis to submit to what appeared to be
overwhelming political force. What happened was very different.
First, the Shia welcomed the fall of Saddam Hussein, but they
hardly embraced the Americans -- they sought instead to translate
the U.S. victory over Hussein into a Shiite government. Second, the
Sunnis, in view of the U.S.-Shiite coalition and the dismemberment
of the Sunni-dominated Iraqi Army, saw that they were about to be
squeezed out of the political system and potentially crushed by the
Shia. They saw an insurgency -- which had been planned by Hussein
-- as their only hope of forcing a redefinition of Iraqi politics.
The Americans realized that their expectations had not been
realistic.

Thus, the Americans went through a series of political cycles.
First, they sided with the Shia as they sought to find their
balance militarily facing the Sunnis. When they felt they had
traction against the Sunnis, following the capture of Hussein --
and fearing Shiite hegemony -- they shifted toward a position
between Sunnis and Shia. As military operations were waged in the
background, complex repositioning occurred on all sides, with the
Americans trying to hold the swing position between Sunnis and
Shia. 

The process of creating a government for Iraq was encapsulated in
this multi-sided maneuvering. By spring 2006, the Sunnis appeared
to have committed themselves to the political process. And  in June
, with the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the announcement that
the United States would  reduce its force  in Iraq by two brigades,
the stage seemed to be set for a political resolution that would
create a Shiite-dominated coalition that included Sunnis and Kurds.
It appeared to be a done deal -- and then the deal completely
collapsed.

The first sign of the collapse was a sudden outbreak of  fighting
among Shia  in the Basra region. We assumed that this was political
positioning among Shiite factions as they prepared for a political
settlement. Then Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme
Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), traveled to Tehran,
and Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army commenced an offensive. Shiite
death squads struck out at Sunni populations, and Sunni insurgents
struck back. From nearly having a political accommodation, the
situation in Iraq fell completely apart. 

The key was Iran. The Iranians had always wanted an Iraqi satellite
state, as protection against another Iraq-Iran war. That was a
basic national security concept for them. In order to have this,
the Iranians needed an overwhelmingly Shiite-dominated government
in Baghdad, and to have overwhelming control of the Shia. It seemed
to us that there could be a Shiite-dominated government but not an
overwhelmingly Shiite government. In other words, Iraq could be
neutral toward, but not a satellite of, Iran. In our view, Iraq's
leading Shia -- fearing a civil war and also being wary of
domination by Iran -- would accept this settlement. 

We may have been correct on the sentiment of leading Shia, but we
were wrong about Iran's intentions. Tehran did not see a neutral
Iraq as being either in Iran's interests or necessary. Clearly, the
Iranians did not trust a neutral Iraq still under American
occupation to remain neutral. Second -- and this is the most
important -- they saw the Americans as militarily weak and
incapable of either containing a civil war in Iraq or of taking
significant military action against Iran. In other words, the
Iranians didn't like the deal they had been offered, they felt that
they could do better, and they felt that the time had come to
strike.

A Two-Pronged Offensive 

When we look back through Iranian eyes, we can now see what they
saw: a golden opportunity to deal the United States a blow,
redefine the geopolitics of the Persian Gulf and reposition the
Shia in the Muslim world. Iran had, for example, been revivifying
Hezbollah in Lebanon for several months. We had seen this as a
routine response to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
It is now apparent, however, that it was part of a two-pronged
offensive.

First, in Iraq, the Iranians encouraged a variety of factions to
both resist the newly formed government and to strike out against
the Sunnis. This created an uncontainable cycle of violence that
rendered the Iraqi government impotent and the Americans
irrelevant. The tempo of operations was now in the hands of those
Shiite groups among which the Iranians had extensive influence --
and this included some of the leading Shiite parties, such as
SCIRI.

Second, in Lebanon, Iran encouraged Hezbollah to launch an
offensive. There is debate over whether the Israelis or Hezbollah
ignited the conflict in Lebanon. Part of this is ideological
gibberish, but part of it concerns intention. It is clear that
Hezbollah was fully deployed for combat. Its positions were manned
in the south, and its rockets were ready. The capture of two
Israeli soldiers was intended to trigger Israeli airstrikes, which
were as predictable as sunrise, and Hezbollah was ready to fire on
Haifa. Once Haifa was hit, Israel floundered in trying to deploy
troops (the Golani and Givati brigades were in the south, near
Gaza). This would not have been the case if the Israelis had
planned for war with Hezbollah. Now, this discussion has nothing to
do with who to blame for what. It has everything to do with the
fact that Hezbollah was ready to fight, triggered the fight, and
came out ahead because it wasn't defeated.

The end result is that, suddenly, the Iranians held the whip hand
in Iraq, had dealt Israel a psychological blow, had repositioned
themselves in the Muslim world and had generally redefined the
dynamics of the region. Moreover, they had moved to the threshold
of redefining the geopolitics to the Persian Gulf. 

This was by far their most important achievement.

A New Look at the Region 

At this point, except for the United States, Iran has by far the
most powerful military force in the Persian Gulf. This has nothing
to do with its nuclear capability, which is still years away from
realization. Its ground forces are simply more numerous and more
capable than all the forces of the Arabian Peninsula combined.
There is another aspect to this: The countries of the Arabian
Peninsula are governed by Sunnis, but many are home to substantial
Shiite populations as well. Between the Iranian military and the
possibility of unrest among Shia in the region, the situation in
Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Peninsula is uneasy, to say the
least. The rise of Hezbollah well might psychologically empower the
generally quiescent Shia to become more assertive. This is one of
the reasons that the Saudis were so angry at Hezbollah, and why
they now are so anxious over events in Iraq.

If Iraq were to break into three regions, the southern region would
be Shiite -- and the Iranians clearly believe that they could
dominate southern Iraq. This not only would give them control of
the Basra oil fields, but also would theoretically open the road to
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. From a strictly military point of view,
and not including the Shiite insurgencies at all, Iran could move
far down the western littoral of the Persian Gulf if American
forces were absent. Put another way, there would be a possibility
that the Iranians could seize control of the bulk of the region's
oil reserves. They could do the same thing if Iraq were to be
united as an Iranian satellite, but that would be far more
difficult to achieve and would require active U.S. cooperation in
withdrawing.

We can now see why Bush cannot begin withdrawing forces. If he did
that, the entire region would destabilize. The countries of the
Arabian Peninsula, seeing the withdrawal, would realize that the
Iranians were now the dominant power. Shia in the Gulf region might
act, or they might simply wait until the Americans had withdrawn
and the Iranians arrived. Israel, shaken to the core by its fight
with Hezbollah, would have neither the force nor the inclination to
act. Therefore, the United States has little choice, from Bush's
perspective, but to remain in Iraq.

The Iranians undoubtedly anticipated this response. They have
planned carefully. They are therefore shifting their rhetoric
somewhat to be more accommodating. They understand that to get the
United States out of Iraq -- and out of Kuwait --they will have to
engage in a complex set of negotiations. They will promise anything
-- but in the end, they will be the largest military force in the
region, and nothing else matters. Ultimately, they are counting on
the Americans to be sufficiently exhausted by their experience of
Iraq to rationalize their withdrawal -- leaving, as in Vietnam, a
graceful interval for what follows. 

Options 

Iran will do everything it can, of course, to assure that the
Americans are as exhausted as possible. The Iranians have no
incentive to allow the chaos to wind down, until at least a
political settlement with the United States is achieved. The United
States cannot permit Iranian hegemony over the Persian Gulf, nor
can it sustain its forces in Iraq indefinitely under these
circumstances. 

The United States has four choices, apart from the status quo:

1. Reach a political accommodation that cedes the status of
regional hegemon to Iran, and withdraw from Iraq. 

2. Withdraw forces from Iraq and maintain a presence in Kuwait and
Saudi Arabia -- something the Saudis would hate but would have
little choice about -- while remembering that an American military
presence is highly offensive to many Muslims and was a significant
factor in the rise of al Qaeda. 

3. Halt counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and redeploy its
forces in the south (west of Kuwait), to block any Iranian moves in
the region.

4. Assume that Iran relies solely on its psychological pre-eminence
to force a regional realignment and, thus, use Sunni proxies such
as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in attempts to outmaneuver Tehran.

None of these are attractive choices. Each cedes much of Iraq to
Shiite and Iranian power and represents some degree of a
psychological defeat for the United States, or else rests on a
risky assumption. While No. 3 might be the most attractive, it
would leave U.S. forces in highly exposed, dangerous and
difficult-to-sustain postures. 

Iran has set a clever trap, and the United States has walked into
it. Rather than a functioning government in Iraq, it has chaos and
a triumphant Shiite community. The Americans cannot contain the
chaos, and they cannot simply withdraw. Therefore, we can
understand why Bush insists on holding his position indefinitely.
He has been maneuvered in such a manner that he -- or a successor
-- has no real alternatives. 

There is one counter to this: a massive American buildup, including
a major buildup of ground forces that requires a large expansion of
the Army, geared for the invasion of Iran and destruction of its
military force. The idea that this could readily be done through
air power has evaporated, we would think, with the Israeli air
force's failure in Lebanon. An invasion of Iran would be enormously
expensive, take a very long time and create a problem of occupation
that would dwarf the problem faced in Iraq. But it is the other
option. It would stabilize the geopolitics of the Arabian Peninsula
and drain American military power for a generation.

Sometimes there are no good choices. For the United States, the
options are to negotiate a settlement that is acceptable to Iran
and live with the consequences, raise a massive army and invade
Iran, or live in the current twilight world between Iranian
hegemony and war with Iran. Bush appears to be choosing an
indecisive twilight. Given the options, it is understandable why.

Send questions or comments on this article to
[email-masked].
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Iran: Redefining the Middle East? 

We would like to bring to your attention a recent Stratfor update
on the political struggles in Iraq, the complex power matrix in the
Middle East and the role Iran has been playing in redefining the
entire region.

With an increase in the militia incidents in Iraq and the ongoing
Israel-Hezbollah conflict, you will find the Break Point: What Went
Wrong analysis a timely, sobering review of: 

The escalation of sectarian violence in Iraq and its root causes 

The internal Shiite struggle and its resolution

Iran's interests and motivations concerning Iraq and within the
larger Arab world 

Why Iran is key to understanding both the crisis in Iraq and the
Israel-Hezbollah conflict

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