After the ‘Surge’

To see what peace looks like in Baghdad, go to the Karrada district. At dusk, Iraqi families picnic in a thin stretch of park recently built on the banks of the Tigris River. A couple of blocks away, along lively Sadoun Street, sidewalk restaurants flame-roast chickens on long spits and a crowd of teenagers spills out of a bright new juice shop. The al-Shamari family returned to Karrada from Damascus a year ago, and they say there haven't been any sectarian killings for a couple of months. But they don't want their real name used, for safety's sake. Their street is cordoned off by barbed wire and one of the low concrete barriers that are scattered across Baghdad like a child's spilled Lego blocks. In one corner of their manicured backyard they've dug a well to get water. They have a computer and a TV, but only two hours of city-provided electricity a day. And Karrada is probably the best-off neighborhood in Baghdad.

Ordinary Iraqis are as unsure as anyone what to make of this existence—a "peace" in which masked men still run tense checkpoints, towering T-Walls blot out neighborhoods from view and the lawnmower buzz of drones fills the air. In Baghdad earlier this month, as the last of the "surge" brigades prepared to leave, the war I saw seemed to be entering a confusing interregnum period. Suicide bombers continue to wreak havoc, killing at least 50 people last week. But the conflict is now hazier, more unpredictable, more political.

Ensconced in their villas and offices inside the Green Zone, Iraqi leaders exude optimism. Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish politicians all made the same argument to me: the country, in the words of Sunni Vice President Tariq Hashemi, had reached "a turning point." The key was Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's decision in March to launch an assault on Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Basra. The bloc of Sunni parties Hashemi leads has rejoined Maliki's coalition. Shiite leaders declared that Iran had been taught a lesson about the limits of its influence in Iraq. Kurdish Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the government's solidarity had inspired new respect among Iraq's Arab neighbors.

A senior Western official, who asked for anonymity in order to speak freely, was more cautious. But he captured the prevailing thinking. During the worst of the civil war in 2006 and 2007, he says, Iraq was paralyzed by fear: "Sunnis feared the future, Shiites feared the past and the Kurds feared both." The hope is that those anxieties are beginning to dissipate.

This bonhomie, however, may just as well be driven by a different kind of fear—of challenges to the status quo. One of the latest additions to the power map of Baghdad is Sheik Ali Hatim's house. A Sunni tribal leader, whose men have been key to the rollback of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, he has movie-star good looks and the clear support of the Americans. (And perhaps more: he sports a diamond-encrusted watch, while his garage is filled with shiny new SUVs and, bizarrely for a desert prince, a Sea-Doo.) It's hard to tell whom the sheik loathes more—Al Qaeda or Sunni politicians like Hashemi, who he describes as venal quislings. Hashemi says his party welcomes the chance to test its popularity against the tribes in local elections. Shiite pols say the same about their rivals in Moqtada al-Sadr's camp. But none of them seem to be working terribly hard to schedule the vote, which may well slip to 2009.

True, at least these established parties are trying to preserve a political order rather than tear it down. (They have, says the Western official, realized "the benefits of incumbency.") To Iraqis like the al-Shamaris, though, the system is the problem. Now that they no longer fear for their lives, at least in places like Karrada, they can afford to fume about the dry faucets and constant blackouts. Oil revenues have swelled government coffers—to a projected $70 billion this year. Yet even the most high-profile projects are stalled by inefficiency and graft. Five years after its looting, the Baghdad museum is still a mess, without air conditioning or running water.

Over dinner, a U.S. adviser to a senior Iraqi official waves his cell phone at me. "This is how Maliki gets information," he says, dismissively. Most ministries are ineffective, if not downright incompetent—little more than patronage machines. They report directly to the prime minister rather than coordinating with each other. Large reconstruction projects are declared, but "there's no follow-through," says Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish legislator. Parliament is still paralyzed by squabbles between political blocs.

This is not something that American soldiers can fix. The institution into which we've poured the most time and money—the Iraqi Army—is the most effective one in the country. (So much so that more than one Iraqi politician expressed concern to me about the possibility of a coup.) But we're not likely to have a similar impact on the ministries of housing, or transport, or electricity. No one doubts that U.S. troops have been crucial to establishing what calm does prevail in Iraq. But we're not the ones who can ensure that it lasts.

© 2008