National governance still matters

I read the op-ed last month and found it pretty weak tea. I re-read it this afternoon and came to the same conclusion. Nagl and Fontaine try to make their case by analogizing Afghanistan to Iraq (always a dangerous proposition):

Consider the analogous case of Iraq over the last three years. In January 2007, the "surge" of combat forces began as part of a new counterinsurgency strategy that emphasized clearing areas of fighters, holding that territory and building the infrastructure and institutions that had been so badly lacking -- just as Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal has proposed for Afghanistan.

At the time, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Shiite-led government was widely viewed as weak and sectarian...

[...] Army Gen. David H. Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy aimed to arrest this process by using American troops to protect the population -- predicting, correctly, that until basic security was restored in key neighborhoods and communities, extremists on both sides of the sectarian divide would continue to inflame the situation. With U.S. forces clearing and holding territory and demonstrating to the Sunnis that they had a reasonable alternative to Al Qaeda and its sectarian warfare, the extremists were sidelined. Security began to improve, and the political space necessary for reconciliation began to open.

Nagl and Fontaine are right. The U.S. achieved increased security -- despite the weakness of the Baghdad government -- by focusing on local institutions.

But they gloss over an important point: National governance still matters! Iraq's feckless central government is on the verge of shattering the fragile gains of the last few years.

How? Let's take a quick tour. Maliki's administration is viewed as simultaneously strong and ineffective. He seems incapable of providing basic security for the population -- witness the ministry bombings in Baghdad in August and October -- which has led militias to take over the job for themselves: The Mahdi Army controls security in Sadr City, for example. Religious leaders are furious over the security situation.

And yet he has also managed to alienate a large swath of the Sunni population by arresting many leaders of the Awakening militias that were so essential to Iraq's improved security.

Parliament, meanwhile, can't agree on an election law; Arab-Kurd tensions are on the rise, and Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is reportedly threatening to boycott the January election (which may be delayed).

Oh, and the national economy is in tatters, and the parliament still hasn't passed an oil law.

As we've said once or twice or a dozen times before: Security gains were never the desired end-state of the surge in Iraq. They were supposed to provide breathing space for national political reconciliation -- which still hasn't happened.

I worry that the same dynamic exists in Afghanistan. We can make some temporary progress by building local and provincial institutions, like we did in Iraq. But at a certain point a credible, effective national government needs to emerge. Where is that going to come from, with Hamid Karzai in office for the next five years?