A Tale of Two Wars: Iraq

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A Sunni militia member surveys the landscape outside Fallujah. The U.S.'s embrace of Sunni tribes has helped chase out al-Qaeda, but Iraq's sectarian tensions still simmer.

Yuri Kozyrev / Noor for TIME

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The next U.S. President will discover, however, that one thing unites most of Iraq's politicians. Awkwardly, that is opposition to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), the understanding that would formalize and legalize the continued presence of U.S. forces on Iraqi soil. In late October, when the Bush Administration leaked a draft of SOFA that it had worked out with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government, his Cabinet demanded a renegotiation. No particular provision seems to be objectionable so much as the agreement itself: it is practically political suicide for an Iraqi politician to be seen authorizing the U.S. occupation. So now the U.S. is stuck in a game of chicken with the Iraqi government. "We are telling them they are not going to get a better deal," says the senior American diplomat. "I don't think the situation is ready [for us] to walk out the door and leave the Iraqis on their own. But if that's what the Iraqis want, we have no choice."

However long U.S. soldiers stay in Iraq, they will largely be out of the war-fighting game, focusing mainly on training the Iraqi army. Will that be enough to prevent Iraq from slipping back into sectarian civil war? Cautious optimists hope so. "Iraq is well on its way to becoming a normal Middle Eastern country, with all the good and the bad that that implies," says John Nagl, a retired Army officer who helped General David Petraeus draft the Army's new counterinsurgency manual. "As long as Iraq stays Page 26 news, that's O.K." But if anything goes wrong, it's going to be tough to handle. "We put ourselves in the position of fighting two wars simultaneously, and that's leading to competing demands for scarce resources," says Nagl.

Both the success of the surge and the challenges awaiting Iraq are visible in Dora, a neighborhood in southern Baghdad that was the scene of some of the worst urban violence during Iraq's dark days. When Lieut. Colonel Ali Abbas Hamad, deputy commander of an Iraqi police brigade, first deployed in Dora in the summer of 2007, most of the neighborhood's Christians had been driven from their homes by jihadis and militias, and the residents that remained didn't dare leave their homes. "There wasn't a car in sight," Hamad told TIME. "The only person I saw fired an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] at me." With the help of U.S. soldiers, the police began taking back the streets and now patrol them on their own. Stores are open, and a church is once again celebrating Mass. But Hamad said he never could have done the job without the help of a local Awakening group that the government is disbanding, concerned that the loyalties of its members are uncertain. Hamad thinks this is a mistake. "Some of these people helped al-Qaeda [only] because they needed the funds," he said. "All they have known for four years is war. If the government doesn't treat them with respect and help give them jobs, they will go back to war."

It is a familiar tale. What Dora wants and needs most is reliable electricity and water. Yet Hamad says not a single government official has shown up in Dora while he has worked here. "Our officials only care about themselves," he said, in the sort of resigned phrase that should depress any U.S. leader. "They are only in power for four years so they make as much money as they can and then plan to flee the country. What we need is a dictator."

If one comes, there's a palace waiting for him.