Benchmarks of Success

With the testimony of General Patraeus and Ambassador Crocker taking place this week, I've become a bit of a news junkie once again. And inevitably, after forcing myself to listen to the talking heads, I get a little miffed with the crap that they spew forth.

There's plenty of talking points with reference to Iraq that I'd like to counter-spew on, but there is one that outweighs all others, and that is this nonsensical focus on these so-called "benchmarks."

Let me be absolutely clear on this point. There is only ONE benchmark that matters in Iraq. One, and that's it. And that benchmark is the legitimacy of the democratically elected government. That legitimacy is what Al-Qaida and opportunistic warlords are trying to undermine; to cause it to crumble and be replaced by something more to their liking. Success in counterinsurgency means preventing that from happening. All other goals in counterinsurgency are subordinate to this goal.

Yet, when the pundits spout off about the "benchmarks," there is no context--no reference how these supposed failures indicate that our strategy is failing. In fact, even the majority of the media covering the story don't even bother to tell you exactly what the benchmarks are. Well, here they are, on page 3 of this pdf.

The Iraqi government's failure to achieve many of these benchmarks is significant, to a point. But taken in context, they don't mean we're losing. This list is all about legislative progress... legislative progress expected of a parliamentary system in a time when the population doesn't even know for sure what sort of state they want Iraq to be! We Americans couldn't even get our first Constitution to work at all before we had to throw in the towel and start again, and to this day our Congress doesn't get much done. And that's without a war going on during the drafting and in a 2-party system! Yet somehow we expect the legislature in Iraq to crank out crucial law after law with all the efficiency of an assembly line? Get real... That isn't a sign that we're losing---it's NORMAL, especially under the circumstances.

To be sure, effectiveness of a government is important to establishing and maintaining its legitimacy; and this is especially true in cultures used to more authoritarian forms of government. The benchmarks do matter--but the way that matter is that they are a sign that could indicate that the people might become frustrated with the government and turn away from it. And turning away could simply mean electing different representatives, or amending the constitution to fix the problem. It isn't necessarily indicative of the rejection of democratic rule in favor of theocracy, or even the rejection of national rule in favor of breaking the state along sectarian lines. To evaluate our strategy, you need to look at other signs that factor into the one benchmark that matters--legitimacy.

Those factors are mentioned all over Ambassador Crocker's testimony, but apparently no one was listening. The gains in the security situation are reviving Iraqi markets and their economy. Local businesses are being simulated and employment is rising. Foreign direct investment is on the rise. 74 states have pledged economic assistance to Iraq. Oil revenues are being shared, even without the benchmarked legislation going through. Informal reconciliation is taking place with the reintegration of former insurgents into the Iraqi security forces--also without the benchmarked legislation on amnesty being passed yet. Most strikingly, the people of Anbar overwhelmingly rejected Al-Qaeda and volunteered to work with the coalition to remove them, and AQ is being broadly rejected overall. Al-Sadr has reigned in the Mahdi army in response to the backlash against the targeting of worshippers and Iranian meddling.

Not all signs are positive. Particularly troubling to me is the electricity situation (also mentioned in Crocker's testimony), the stagnation in the training of Iraqi forces (from General Patraeus's tables), and the polls indicating (1)that the Iraqi public considered life to have gotten worse during that surge; and (2) that the people were divided about 53-47% as to whether US forces should stay or leave (respectively). Those indicators say at least as much about legitimacy as the failure of the central government to enact certain legislation.

In the greater scheme of counterinsurgency, political gains should follow institutional and economic gains, and institutional and economic gains should follow military gains. The military gains are definitely happening; you'd have to really stick your head in the sand not to see that at this point. Economic and institutional indicators appear largely positive. Political gains are occurring mostly at the local level, while progress is lacking at the national level. With the new strategy in place less than a year, and the surge in full swing only a few months, it's very encouraging to see many second-order and some third-order effects already. The data at this point overwhelmingly indicates that the strategy is working.

Which shouldn't be too surprising. General Patraeus, after all, literally did write the book on counterinsurgency. Success is mostly a matter of taking back the initiative we gave away to the insurgency by having our heads up our asses when the occupation began. It would appear from the military situation that the initiative is ours, and the rest will flow from that.