Picturing Iraq Without Maliki.(World View)(Nuri al-Maliki)

Next week's report to Congress by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the top American leaders in Iraq, will probably be anticlimactic. Among the many things we already know, it will tell us that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki -- try though he might -- has not been able to set Iraq on the right path. Whether we like it or not, he is a weak man in a weak position.

The problems at the top loom large in part because there is finally some sign of life at the grass-roots level: the Petraeus report will likely confirm what the intelligence community and others (myself included) have already reported -- the surge and its attendant new counterinsurgency strategy are making progress in some important regions and allowing modest political and economic development at local levels. Of course, this does not mean the war is won: although security has improved in the west and north, it is still up for grabs in Baghdad, and the south is run by feuding Shiite warlords beyond anyone's control. The national economy remains moribund, and while American efforts have at least reduced the hemorrhage of dollars, they have also created problems getting the Iraqis to spend the money they have.

Meanwhile, Iraq's central government remains deadlocked. From a historical perspective this is unsurprising: even in successful counterinsurgency campaigns, political accommodation usually trails bottom-up security and economic improvements, sometimes by many years. But the American political calendar won't wait that long. And the surprising progress being made in some areas has put the spotlight back on Baghdad as the primary obstacle to meaningful change.

Most of this is not Maliki's fault. Let's not forget the circumstances of his accession: first, Washington prematurely handed sovereignty back to the Iraqis long before they had an effective, representative government capable of exercising it. We compounded that problem by leaving most of Iraq in a security vacuum, overrun by organized crime, warlords and militias, while we chased Al Qaeda around the wastes of Anbar province. With no government (or adequate Coalition forces) to protect them and provide basic services like water, rations, electricity and gasoline, people all over Iraq grudgingly turned to the militias and insurgents to provide them instead. We then acquiesced when the militia leaders (and many of the exiles) insisted on adopting proportional ...