Uh-oh: Administration's "great achievement" falling apart?

Last week, Joe Biden rushed to claim credit for the success in turning Iraq from a ruthless dictatorship to a successful representative republic, calling it a “great achievement” for the Obama administration — despite it being the product of George Bush’s refusal to take the advice of Biden and Barack Obama and withdraw in 2007.  Of course, now Biden remembers it differently, claiming that he always knew the surge strategy adopted in 2007 would work, but apparently only because Obama and Biden showed up 24 months later to follow the Bush plan without the slightest modification.

Now, however, the Washington Post reports that the fragile democracy may start to disintegrate in a new round of sectarian violence — and the US won’t be able to do much to stop it this time, thanks to the Obama-led drawdown.  And guess who may be back?

The victim was a Sunni man in the mostly Shiite neighborhood of Hurriyah, in northwest Baghdad. The death and the aftermath were reminiscent of the prelude to the sectarian war, which began in late 2005 with a smattering of killings and threats and culminated with 100 bodies a day being dumped in the streets of the capital. With the imminent departure of American forces and fierce competition for power ahead of general elections on March 7, many here say sectarian strife is reigniting.

But this time, there will be no outsider acting as a buffer between the warring sects. U.S. military officials acknowledge that as Iraq regains sovereignty, their influence is waning. A senior U.S. military official who has spent years in Iraq said he fears that as the drawdown begins, American forces are leaving behind many of the same conditions that preceded the sectarian war.

“All we’re doing is setting the clock back to 2005,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a stark assessment. “The militias are fully armed, and al-Qaeda in Iraq is trying to move back from the west. These are the conditions now, and we’re sitting back looking at PowerPoint slides and whitewashing.” ….

In the past two months, the Mahdi Army has been reactivated, said Hussein Kamal, intelligence head at the Interior Ministry, which oversees Iraqi police. Authorities have seen an increase in training in southern Shiite provinces and heavy recruiting by the militia in the capital, he said. Sadr had turned his militia into a civic organization, but the group never disarmed. Kamal said Sadr may be changing his tactics again.

How long will it take for Obama and Biden to blame Bush for this situation?  I’m guessing a lot shorter than it took for them to claim credit for the success in Iraq.  The same mechanism is actually responsible for both.  Robert Gibbs tried to explain that Biden was right about taking credit for the success, because the political pressure coming from Obama, Biden, and other Democrats forced Bush to negotiate the status-of-forces agreement with Iraq that structured Iraq’s return to sovereignty and the withdrawal of US forces.

There may be some truth to that, although Bush had insisted all along that he wanted a clear path to leave Iraq as long as victory was assured.  However, the devotion to the SOFA timetable may leave the US without any way to either stop the sectarian violence before it turns into civil war, as we did in 2007-8, or to pressure Nouri al-Maliki to do it.  The Iraqis attempted to reject Sunnis from campaigning for the National Assembly last month — a move they finally reversed, for the most part — and the Shi’ite majority seems a lot less interested in protecting Sunnis as the Americans have withdrawn to positions outside of the cities.

Biden’s grab at credit leaves Obama on the hook for the sectarian meltdown that the Post warns may be coming.  He’d have to hint strongly to the Iraqis that the US may delay its withdrawal without a more clear effort by the Baghdad government to crack down on the militias, especially with Moqtada al-Sadr.  Otherwise, the Sunnis will once again realign with al-Qaeda for protection against the Shi’ite majority, and we can look forward to a repeat of 2005-6 without any hope of a 2007 to stop it.