The National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, published by the White House national security council, is more a statement of United States war aims than a detailed blueprint.
The central objective is defined in terms of the nature of the country US troops will leave behind when they eventually depart. ”We will help the Iraqi people build a new Iraq with a constitutional, representative government that respects civil rights and has security forces sufficient to maintain domestic order and keep Iraq from becoming a safe haven for terrorists,” the 35-page document says.
It is a lofty goal, given the ferocity of the insurgency and the dramatic rifts between the country’s Shia, Sunni and Kurdish populations. However, the document makes it clear that ”failure is not an option”.
It spells out three costs of failure. Firstly, it declares that ”Iraq would become a safe haven from which terrorists could plan attacks against the US.”
Secondly, it presents the Iraq war as a turning point for the region’s embryonic pro-democracy movements. ”Middle East reformers would never again fully trust American assurances of support for democracy and human rights in the region,” it warns.
Thirdly, it argues that the US cannot afford such a strategically important corner of the world to sink into chaos.
The US plan is described as ”an integrated strategy along three broad tracks” — political, security and economic.
Politically, the strategy is to isolate US enemies from Iraqis who are open to being won over by countering ”false propaganda” — a possible reference to ”psychological operations” aimed at planting favourable coverage in the Iraqi press. Efforts would be made to engage those outside the political process and to build national institutions.
On the security track, the plan is ”clear, hold and build”. The idea is to take insurgent-held areas with bold offensives, hold those areas principally by deploying Iraqi forces there, and then build support by supplying public services to those recaptured zones.
The plan has less to say on the economic track, other than to promise to restore the country’s infrastructure while reforming the economy ”so that it can be self-sustaining in the future”.
What is missing is any discussion of a timetable for withdrawal. ”Our mission in Iraq is to win the war,” the document concludes. ”Our troops will return home when that mission is complete.” — Â