Independence Days in Iraq: "Violent Semi-Peace"

On Friday a suicide bomb, targeting "a reconciliation meeting" held by a tribal leader in a town south of Baghdad killed up to 32 people and wounded up to 70.

Maybe it's because the timing was a bit off, given the dominance of the news by the Israel-Gaza conflict, but the nominal handover of power by the US and Britain to Iraqi forces on New Year's Day didn't get the celebration you might have expected. There were news stories to mark the occasion, with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki greeting the Iraqi security forces now in charge of Baghdad's "Green Zone" and Britain ceremonially confirming --- since British forces had been limited to Basra airport for months --- that Iraqis ran the show in the south.



Anthony Shadid's article in The Washington Post, as he moves through a Baghdad divided by walls, offers an excellent account of why the celebrations were muted:

Not to say that there is peace in Iraq. As many people are killed today as on any day in 2003 and 2004. Nor is there victory. For any Iraqi, the word, translated into Arabic, draws a dumbfounded look. Victory for whom? Certainly not the tens of thousands of civilians -- perhaps many more -- killed in the frenzied clashes of those once inchoate forces.

Rather, it is the day after.

This Mission-Far-From-Accomplished was highlighted, albeit inadvertently, by Michael O'Hanlon --- a fervent supporter of the US military surge --- and co-writers last week. Doggedly proclaiming "the population-protection strategy initiated by Gen. David Petraeus has been a remarkable success on balance", O'Hanlon and Co. have to settle for a year-end assessment that "Iraq has settled into a kind of violent semi-peace":

While Iraqi security forces have shown huge improvement, other government institutions still flounder. Inflation is in check and the economy is growing, but quality of life for most Iraqis has improved only modestly.

Shadid, unburdened by the need to keep proclaiming US success, cuts to the chase:

2009 feels much like that April day in 2003. Then, as now, one war's end was the preamble for another, far greater struggle. Much was ambiguous and indistinct. Consequences were unintended.