Rice On Iraq

I caught Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday. The one good thing I heard was a plan to deploy Afghanistan-style Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) to Iraq. After two and a half years of bumbling, it's way past time for a real plan.

The challenge, of course, is to hold Iraq together until the PRTs can gain traction rebuilding infrastructure and building trust in the communities in which they work. It'll be hard enough to get the civilian component into Iraq under current conditions, and impossible if the Sunnis decide the Shiites and Kurds will never allow them to participate in Iraq's political process (the Shiite attempt to change the referendum rules isn't very encouraging), and full-scale civil war breaks out.

If President Bush is serious about using PRTs to secure Iraq, I expect to see a full-scale diplomatic blitz to secure commitments from UN humanitarian agencies, the international community, and NGOs like Medecins Sans Frontieres to provide doctors, police, judges, sewer workers, teachers, firemen -- everything needed to reseed a community after a catastrophic breakdown. And all under the protection of lots of well-armed, well-trained troops, preferably with a more "international flavor".

But you'll have to pardon me if I'm skeptical about President Bush's commitment to something like that. It's a major undertaking, and a major shift from the current strategy (whatever that is). It's going to take a lot of work -- especially diplomatic work -- and I don't think President Bush can, or even wants, to put in the effort.

But I hope he does, because Senator Lugar is right, "Permanent instability or civil war in Iraq could set back American interests in the Middle East for a generation -- increasing anti-Americanism, multiplying the threats from tyrants and terrorists and reducing our credibility."