Americans remain skeptical of Iraqi military capabilities

WASHINGTON, June 9 (UPI) -- A common American attitude towards the more than six-year U.S. military deployment in Iraq is that not only should the U.S. armed forces get out of that country as soon as possible, but that also the Iraqis have somehow failed the United States and the American people.

This attitude has made the insistence of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that U.S. forces fully exit Iraq over the next couple of years much easier to accept. But it also involves an attitude of scolding and punishing the Iraqis for their failures -- and there have certainly been many of them.

However, this view leaves out of the equation the fundamental question as to how the U.S. national interest is best served, regardless of what the Iraqi people and their armed forces and government do or do not do efficiently.

The U.S. government could very well send "messages" to the Iraqis and then feel good about the fact that, before leaving, at least it had tried. This attitude could be expressed in the phrase: "We really hoped that they would shape up, but, alas, they did not. So, in good conscience, we did what we had to do and left. So there."

This kind of approach, of course, assumes that it is entirely reasonable to expect that the first Iraqi Parliament and democratic coalition government to be elected in Iraq in the nearly half a century since the toppling of the Hashemite monarchy and its ramshackle but certainly democratic constitutional system in the bloody military coup of 1958 will have acquired the maturity, the sophistication, the capacity and the expertise to behave according to the standards of modern day liberal democracies.

Maliki's government, against so many pessimistic expectations, has made serious progress towards restoring law, order and functioning society in most of Iraq. And while they are clearly falling short in some areas, their achievements after two and a half years of Gen. David Petraeus' "surge" counterinsurgency strategy is now undeniable to any unbiased observer.

The ultimate viability of the more than 530,000 Iraqi security forces after U.S. forces fully withdraw has, of course, yet to be fully tested. In the past, the Iraqi security forces have repeatedly had to fall back on the professionalism and effectiveness of U.S. forces to roll back their opponents.

This has created a widespread attitude among Americans of skepticism about the ultimate effectiveness of any Iraqi security force to effectively maintain law and order in their own country without the U.S. Army and Marines being there to back them up.

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Part 5: Calibrating an effective transition from U.S. to Iraqi control of security

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(Paolo Liebl von Schirach is the editor of SchirachReport.com, a regular contributor to Swiss radio and an international economic-development expert.)

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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)