Bush’s exit strategy: cut and run – but not too far

More than four years after the American-led invasion of Iraq, there are signs that George W. Bush is preparing to call it quits. When the Americans disbanded the Iraqi army in 2003 and left the borders wide open they sowed the seeds of disaster. Neither the ‘coalition of the willing’ nor even the recent ‘surge’ could put Humpty together again. That, at least, is the conclusion I have reached after intensive interviews with senior Iraqi politicians and Western experts for a book that I am writing on the imbroglio.

Whatever gloss General Petraeus applies to his report to Washington next month, he is unlikely to be the bearer of good news. Nor, in the run-up to the presidential election, is Congress likely to be more forgiving of Bush’s grande folie. Sooner rather than later, willingly or not, he will have to start pulling the troops out.

It gets worse. In spite of the deployment of a substantial American force, the most influential players in Iraq today are not the Americans, say my Iraqi political sources, but the Iranians. And they are likely to remain so. Iran shares a border with Iraq that runs for almost a thousand miles. Only the bravest or most foolish Iraqi politician fails to listen very carefully to the wants and needs of the Iranians.

As things are, Iran will remain the hegemonic power when the American troops pull out. Iraq will be heading into the eye of a civil war. Its fragile security forces are hopelessly split along sectarian lines and infiltrated by insurgents. The central authority is tottering precariously, and the Shia prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is inclining dangerously towards Iran.

This week Maliki called a crisis meeting of his government after many Sunni ministers resigned and others boycotted government meetings. Amid the gathering political and security chaos, a complex political fracture of the state appears inevitable. That is the nightmare scenario facing Bush, and it could hardly be worse.