A major part of the surge strategy is that the Iraqi government pass certain legislation that is supposed to produce national reconciliation amidst the newfound security. Some of those laws got passed, others stalled, as a result of a contining standoff between the US backed parties, and this is the big news in Iraq right now, not Obama's visit or the empty promises of the colonial masters.
Follow me after the flip for Byzantine, or rather Babylonian, intrigue and machination.
It is considered essential by many that the Iraqis hold new provincial elections, and this, along with the oil revenue distribution law, which is likewise stalled, is the most important benchmark for Iraqi government progress among those attached to the Surge. The last time they were held in 2005, the Sunnis boycotted and as a result are underrepresented in the current Parliament (though pursuant to the Lebanized power sharing agreements, regardless of the numbers of Sunni representatives, certain positions are guaranteed to them, such as the speaker of Parliament, deputy President, etc.) are underepresented in the provincial councils in mixed regions, and governed very ackwardly in the Sunni dominated provinces. The international community, true to its mantra of reconciliation committees and group hugs as a means to solve long standing colonial divisions, are placing a lot of hope on a more representative national and provincial government in Iraq brining stability to Iraq.
The Sunnis have been pushing for new provincial elections to get more power in the Sunni and mixed provinces to the right people. As we all know, with power comes money, with money comes more power, then the drugs, then the sugar, then the women. Of course, who those right people may be is a question, as in the Sunni provinces, there is currently a vigorous struggle for power between the Iraqi Islamic Party, which was the party which did not boycott the previous elections and so currently holds the seats, and the actual power in the provinces, which is the Awakening Councils and their tribal army poetically referred to as the Sons of Iraq, formerly the Concerned Local Citizens, formerly the Upright Citizens' Brigade. What happens between these two competing entities is unknown, but the smart money is on the side with a militia wing around 100,000 strong paid, armed and supplied by the Americans. In recognition of this, the Americans just had to indefinitely delay the handover of Anbar province to Iraqis, because it was feared that a bloodbath would ensue as the Sons of Iraq dealt with both the Iraqi Islamic Party and with any Shiite soldiers sent from Baghdad to assume control, and the Iraqi Islamic Party officials are begging the Americans not to leave them.
Incidentally, the provincial elections law prohibits parties with militias from taking part, but this provision is widely expected to be applied only to disqualify the Sadrists from participating (those Sadrists that haven't been killed or imprisoned that is). The Badr Organization, formerly the Badr Brigade(the Iranian trained armed wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), formerly the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, formerly the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, formerly a military formation composed of Iraqi exiles fighting on the Iranian side of the Iran-Iraq war), the peshmerga (translated as "those who are not afraid to die, the Kurdish people at arms), and the Sons of Iraq are not going to be classified as militias. The numbers of each of these militias are not known, but are probably in the low hundreds of thousands, with the peshmerga in particular being a very potent fighting force, hardened by decades of guerilla fighting against the Turkish, Iraqi, Syrian and Iranian armies.
The Shiites have been ambivalent about this, because the Sadrists are virulent nationalists and opposed the movement of power to the provinces fearing the creation of a federal state with three ungovernable and mutually hostile components. There was a bitter struggle between the ISCI, which favors such a federal arrangement and the creation of an autonomous Shiite zone which would not have to supply the Sunnis with power or oil, and would be free to profit from the oil resources of the south of Iraq, and the Sadrists, who present themselves as ardent nationalists. Both sides were backed by Iran, whose overall strategy is still unclear and will not become apparent until the US presence is greatly reduced. I could posit some theories on the Iranian strategy for Iraq, but it would be a guess, the complexity of the Iranian foreign policy in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Lebanon, and with its nuclear program is enormous and will need to be examined decades later when more information is available.
This year, there has been a fairly decisive resolution to the standoff between the Sadrists and the ISCI, which boils down not so much to a difference in philosophy as to the struggle between the great Shiite families, the Hakims who run ISCI, Muqtada al Sadr, the last scion of the great Sadr ayatollah house, and Ayatollah Sistani, who tries to appear above such petty divisions but has been drifting ever closer to the Hakims. The Badr Organization has for years now been wearing military uniforms and incorporating entire divisions of itself into the Iraqi police force as special strike brigades. In March of this year, they struck, with American air power and artillery support, and engaged in a systematic purge of the Sadrists in Basra, Sadr City, and across the Shiite south. This operation has resulted in thousands of casualties and tens of thousands of arrests among the Sadrists, fatally weakening their organization. Along with the Sadrists, smaller rival parties such as Fadhilla, were also decimated. As a result, the Shiite south is now securely in the control of the Hakim clan, and ISCI will win a resounding victory in any provincial elections, bringing them closer to their goal of a de facto independent principality in the south.
The final piece to the puzzle are the Kurds. Their chief preoccupation, now that they have secured control of their actual provinces, is to expand their reach to the coveted major urban centers and oil fields of Kirkuk and Mosul. Mosul may be out of reach at this point, but the Kurds feel that Kirkuk, which has a large Kurdish population, should be theirs, along with its vast oil reserves.
I am not going to go into the justice of the Kurdish claims to Kirkuk. Justice has had little place in the Middle East since Hammurabi. Regardless, the Kurds put in a clause to the Iraqi Constitution guaranteeing that first a census and then a referendum be held in Kirkuk to decide whether it would be in the Kurdish or Sunni region. Saddam had ethnically cleansed both Mosul and Kirkuk of Kurds, so that they are no longer in the majority, but the Kurds are working to fix that in preparation for the referendum with ethnic cleansing operations of their own, some of which are done with threats, others by imprisoning the Arab and Turkmen men in prisons in the Kurdish north and others by paying Arab families money to leave the area and then bringing in Kurds. The census was supposed to take place this spring, but through the concerted efforts of both the Sunni and Shiite Arabs, did not. The Kurds are getting increasingly restive about this, and as the side with the best army on the ground, are dropping dark hints about the future should the referendum not take place.
The provincial election law was finally passed by the Iraqi parliament, but in order to break the deadlock caused by the unresolved issue of Kirkuk, in which the Arabs wanted to have a rigidly balanced government of equal numbers of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, the Sunni Speaker of Parliament resorted to a secret ballot so that the Kurds would not be able to intimidate those voting against them. The Kurds protested and boycotted the vote, and the Kurdish President has promised to veto the law. The law had already postponed the elections from October to December, and now it looks liek they will not happen until next year. This benefits the Kurds, who will be even farther along into their cleansing of Kirkuk by then, and possibly Sadr, who might be able to rebuild his shattered militia back into a potent force by then. Maliki has always tried to play Sadr and Hakim off each other to avoid ending up in Hakim's pocket, and it is likely that Maliki will throw Sadr a lifeline at some point to keep his movement going and preserve his own independence.
How does this fit into the current discourse on the Surge? It is a benchmark not met, but only one of 18. But what it does show is just how precarious the balance of power is in Iraq, and what a strange role American power is playing in this intense struggle. Petraeus has traditionally been most favorable to the tribal sheikhs, starting back when he ruled Mosul after the invasion, and he is friendly with the Hakim clan, whom he backed decisively this year in its struggle with Sadr. The Sons of Iraq are being directly paid by the US. The Kurds are traditional US allies, and house permanent US bases in their friendly territory. The odd men out are the urban Arabs and Turkmen of Kirkuk, who are left with no cover against the Kurds except for the delaying tactics of the Iraqi parliament, the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, which is being squeezed by the US sponsored tribal militias, and Sadr, who is virulently anti occupation and difficult to work with.
In essence, the US is achieving stability by backing strong militias from each of the three major Iraqi groups and giving them support in eliminating their rivals. Once each of the protégés is secure in power in its respective region, the US will be able to move to Overwatch, which is a term coined by the Australians and then picked up by the British to describe the stage in the occupation when the occupation forces are not directly patrolling or fulfilling a combat role, but instead backing up, training, supplying and controlling local armed forces. This transition is what Obama describes as leaving a "quick reaction force" after combat brigades are removed. From the Overwatch position, the US will then act as the arbiter of Iraqi power disputes, not letting any party get too strong, and not allowing outright war to break out between the militias. Such a transition to Overwatch is the unspoken goal for the surge, and is the plan shared by both parties for going forward in Iraq. As colonial strategies go, it is fairly standard and is modeled closely on the successful Russian pacification of Chechnya after the Second Chechnyan War, and we should anticipate development on the Chechnyan model.