(NYT) Pollack: "We came away feeling that Iraq was absolutely a mess, the situation remained grave"

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http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/world/slot3_20070802.html

Pollack: ‘Surge’ Producing Real Progress in Iraq

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You and your colleague, Michael E. O’Hanlon, wrote an op-ed for The New York Times on your recent trip to Iraq whose headline says: “A War We Just Might Win.” That sounds very optimistic. Can you elaborate?

We weren’t quite comfortable with the word “win” when we talked about using it in the piece, but nevertheless we came away from this trip feeling that there was more progress than we expected, especially in regard to creating security in some important parts of Iraq, and to a lesser extent in terms of local, political, and economic developments. That said, to us there were enough signs of life in the “surge” that it was worth allowing it to continue for some additional months to see if it could continue to make progress. We didn’t come away having decided the war in Iraq was won, everything was fine, and it was just a matter of time before we could put up a real banner that said “Mission Accomplished.” Quite the contrary, we came away feeling that Iraq was absolutely a mess, the situation remained grave, but that we did have the right strategy, and that if any strategy could create stability in Iraq, it was the counterinsurgency and stability strategy that General David Petraeus had brought with him.

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There’s been a lot written by the journalists in Iraq in the last couple of months about Anbar province and how the Sunni tribal leaders have coalesced against al-Qaeda in Iraq. You saw this firsthand?

We did. I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t really have a full sense of just how far it had gone or how much of an impact it has had. As always in war, it’s important to be lucky, and this was one where it was mostly more about being lucky than being good--although the U.S. forces and General Petraeus did the right thing and took advantage of their good luck very quickly.

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Let’s talk about Iraqi politics. I don’t know if you had the chance to meet with any Iraqi political leaders. Their parliament’s gone on vacation in August and their leaders don’t seem any closer to resolving key issues or even coming together. What’s preventing that?

That’s a good question. We did meet with a number of top Iraqi policymakers over there and we found exactly what you said, which was absolutely no progress at that strategic political level. These are people who know that if there were really free and fair elections, they might not win nearly as many seats as they have under the current prevailing conditions of a failed state and a security vacuum. I came away from the trip believing it may be necessary to have new elections in Iraq and maybe even a new electoral system that actually could produce a government that is more representative of the Iraqi people, with leaders who actually would be much more willing to make compromises.