Winning the Narrative

The National Review On-Line recently posted an interview with LtGen James N. Mattis, commanding general of I Marine Expeditionary Force and Marine Corps Forces CENTCOM. Mattis is widely-known for his boldness and ferocity in combat. Yet Mattis did not discuss operations. Instead, he focused on perceptions. "I noticed (in the newspaper) today that 'a bomb went off in Baghdad'... the moral bye, the passive voice by our media, makes it appear like what the enemy is doing is just an act of God of some Godamned thing...getting our narrative out will be as important or more important than tactics."

The jihadist narrative is well developed. In an analysis entitled "Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War Of Images And Ideas", Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo of Radio Free Europe examined 966 statements posted on websites by insurgent groups. They concluded that the statements "used religion-based, pejorative code words for the targets of the attacks." The insurgent groups coalesced around a narrative that depicted US forces as Christian crusaders, the Iraqi Army as traitors to Islam and the Shiites as heretics - all deserving death in the name of religion. Mattis called this narrative, "tyranny in a false religious garb".

Mattis is correct in pointing to the lack of a united American response. Americans are as divided about the narrative of Iraq as we were about Vietnam. Some believe Saigon fell because the South Vietnamese government and military were hopelessly incompetent; others believe we lost our will and, by reducing our aid, enabled North Vietnam, amply armed by China and the Soviet Union, to win by force of arms.

In the Iraq case, On June 10, former Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the issue: " As the national intelligence estimate characterizes al-Qaeda, it says they are the accelerant. They have the most effective bombs, the more vicious soldiers.... But it is not just an al-Qaeda problem. It's much bigger than that. It is a sectarian conflict that I choose to call a civil war."

Therein lies the rub. Mr. Powell presented two narratives side by side: defeating al Qaeda by military force, and interjecting in a civil war that cannot be won by American military force. Mr. Powell endorsed elements of both narratives, while tilting in favor of depicting Iraq as a civil war driven by religious hatreds that transcend terrorist provocations.

The term "civil war" conjures up an image of fighting on a scale far larger than currently exists. Secretary Powell, presumably well-briefed by US Army generals who are his colleagues, suggested the civil war will increase in intensity, posing the question, " Are we delaying the inevitable conclusion of this civil war that ultimately will be fought out between Sunnis and Shias, Shias and Shias, Sunnis and al-Qaeda?"

There was no such ambiguity in General Mattis's interview. He said, "If this is important, we can win this. We know we can win it. There's nobody more convinced of that than the young troops who have spent the most time over there."

How could two generals reach such differing conclusions? Mattis's turf is Anbar Province, where conditions have improved remarkably, proving wrong the military's own predictions of a year ago. Excepting al Qaeda, most guerrillas do not roam from province to province. Because the insurgency is locally based, it's possible for conditions to improve inside Anbar and not improve elsewhere.

General Mattis was correct that the press issues a "moral bye" each time a story reads: 'a bomb killed 40 civilians' rather than 'a suicide bomber murdered 40 civilians'. The problem is that America is divided into two camps about how to write the narrative of Iraq.

The Anti-Terror camp identifies the jihadists as the main enemy. General Petraeus insists that "Iraq is the central front of al Qaeda's global campaign." In his judgment, AQI is "public enemy number one" because it slaughters thousands of innocent Shiites in order to provoke a civil war. The Washington Post reported that last November CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden told the Iraqi Study Group that al Qaeda was in fifth place among the main causes of the violence. Whatever the truth of that report, Hayden also believes that a US failure in Iraq will result "in a safe haven (for al Qaeda) from which then to plan and conduct attacks against the West".

Al Qaeda in Iraq has a different goal than the insurgent groups that call themselves "the honorable resistance" rebelled against American occupation and rejected democracy with a Shiite majority. It is the belief of the Anti-Terror camp that after four years of fighting, many of these Sunni rejectionists have reluctantly concluded they cannot wrest central power from the upstart Shiites. Knowing the Americans do not intend to stay, they now fear that Qaeda extremists will become their rulers. The Anti-Terror camp believes many of these fighters can be reconciled. The same belief is applied to the Shiite militias; namely, that while the death squads must be destroyed, most militias can be disarmed or neutralized. So with perseverance, the terrorist movement based around AQI can be destroyed while other insurgent and militia groups reach local understandings about power-sharing, allowing Iraq to emerge as a pluralistic, democratic-based society, albeit plagued like Columbia with violence.

Anbar illustrates this point of view. Even as insurgent Web sites persist in endorsing jihad, attacks against American forces have substantially declined. How to account for this gap between rhetoric and reality? In the judgment of Marine Brigadier General John R. Allen, who leads the effort to support the tribes in Anbar, "jihad rhetoric probably comes from a fairly finite collection of tech savvy jihadis both here in Iraq as well as across the Web.... The tribes know what they have done (by attacking al Qaeda) and the risks they will face for years to come. "

It's conventional wisdom now to say that Anbar improved because the Sunni tribes aligned against al Qaeda. True enough, but an incomplete explanation. With inadequate manpower, the Marines and Army National Guard and active duty soldiers persisted year after year with gritty, relentless patrolling that convinced the tribes the American military was, as one tribal leader said to me, "the strongest tribe". Hence the tribes could turn against al Qaeda, knowing they had the strongest tribe standing behind them.

But why join "the strongest tribe" if it is migrating back to the States? In Anbar, the Marines are trying to cement relations between the tribes, the police chiefs and the local Iraqi Army battalion commanders so that, with American advisers, they will support one another - and be supported by the Shiite-dominated central government. "They (the tribes in Anbar)," Allen wrote me recently, "expect their government to assist in rebuilding their cities and giving their children a better life. They expect security and expect to have their own young men and women incorporated into this security. "

The Anbar narrative points toward strong provincial self-rule in a Sunni province. This is a simpler model of government than in the mixed areas in and around Baghdad. It is a bottom-up approach toward reconciliation, at least as important as the compromise legislations inching through the National Assembly sheltered in the Green Zone. Bottom-up or top-down, though, the onus falls on the central government to deliver a modicum of resources.

Sunni and Shiite extremists do not attack each other; both attack the defenseless. Unfortunately, the Iraqi police and soldiers kill or capture relatively few of these cowards. Most of the violence against the population is perpetrated by Sunni extremists. Their numbers aren't large, and number of firefights in Iraq is astonishingly low. This is a police war, not a battle between squads, platoons or battalions. American troops in large numbers are needed to prevent the Sunni insurgents from tearing the country apart by forcing the Iraqi soldiers to flee from city after city, to include ceding large parts of Baghdad. Any precipitate withdrawal on our part would demoralize the Iraqi forces. It's not enough, then, for US soldiers to protect the population; our soldiers must also either cripple the Sunni extremist movement or inculcate in the Iraqi forces a sense that they will emerge as the winners.

In Baghdad, American forces must restore security to every district; then they must solidify relations among neighborhood watch groups, the local police and the Iraqi Army units. Both tasks can proceed simultaneously. In the summer heat, though, that is a daunting mission. Realistically, continuing with the surge into early 2008 would be prudent.

However, February of '08 is the key Presidential primary month. Most Republican candidates will not run on continuing the status quo; the surge is expected to recede and to be replaced by Plan B - the gradual withdrawal of US combat forces. But discussing withdrawal undercuts the momentum the surge is gathering. Thus General Petraeus must score a hat trick with his report in late September. He must: 1) persuade a skeptical public that terrorism, not sectarian hatred, is the root cause of the simmering civil war; 2) affirm that Iraqi forces can gradually defeat those terrorists; and 3) assure, without divulging any timetables, that most US combat forces will be quietly withdrawn over the next few years.

The Sectarian Camp, on the other hand, believes an intransigent hostility between the Shiites and Sunnis will lead inevitably to a full-blown civil war and ethnic cleansings -regardless of the current surge. Iraq is being torn apart by religion, not terrorism. Senator Barack Obama argues that "Iraq was a diversion from the fight against the terrorists". Senator Clinton advocates withdrawing US troops from Baghdad and other areas of sectarian strife.

In this view, the cancer of hate has already metastasized and spread throughout the body politic. Removing the terrorists - Petraeus's Public Enemy Number One - will not remove the root cause of the violence. Senator Clinton has been quite direct about this: "Thousands of people are dying every month in Iraq. Our presence there is not stopping it. This is an Iraqi problem — we cannot save the Iraqis from themselves.... I think I have a lot of support among general officers and military experts that it's (the surge) not going to work."

Indeed, there are distinguished generals, experienced policymakers and disquieting incidents that support that view. For instance, in February when I visited Salman Pak, a staunch Sunni enclave on the southern outskirt of Baghdad, the sectarian hostility was palpable. When I went back in April, the American advisers proudly showed me the progress made under a new, non-sectarian Iraqi National Police battalion. However, the nearby presence of Iraqi forces and the well-meaning efforts of their leaders had not altered the bloodletting between the local sectarian communities.

Among the Shiites, there are powerful interests dedicated to sectarian supremacy. The American toleration of Moqtada Sadr in 2003 and 2004, when there were numerous opportunities to remove him from power, was a crucial mistake. Iran's influence among the Shiite militias is malign.

It's clear, though, that the Sunni extremists are the number one enemy. With their murderous car bombs and hate-filled suicide bombers, they are the provocateurs of the low-grade civil war. In late April, I visited with Iraqi and American units in various neighborhoods throughout Baghdad. Everywhere the residents were eager to talk to the American soldiers. (Venting to Americans about the lack of Iraqi government services was as normal as booing at a baseball game.) In almost every conversation, sooner or later anxiety about the unknown cropped up - who might walk by and incinerate us in an instant.

By slaughtering Shiites for the "crime" of heresy, the terrorists erected a wall of distrust that separated neighborhoods, causing the Shiites to band together out of fear. Every neighborhood then had punks and toughs who grabbed power by claiming to be the guardians. Ethnic cleansing followed as the Sunni middle class elected or were forced to flee, with Shiite poor occupying the abandoned houses. Petraeus stopped that by putting US rifle companies in every district.

On balance, no one knows, as Secretary Powell put it, how much "bigger the problem is"; that is, how deep the roots of sectarian hatred have pushed. Incidents, no matter how horrifying in themselves, do not constitute a trend. Hence two narratives are competing to frame the story of Iraq: whether the root cause of the violence is terrorism that can be contained, or sectarian hatred that cannot be contained.

We know where General Mattis stands. He wants Americans to come together and support one narrative. No hesitation in Mattis: show him the fight and his instinct is to win it. His experience was Anbar, where the ferocity of the fighting was characterized by the two battles for Fallujah. For years, Anbar was the toughest fight, where the core enemy is al Qaeda in Iraq, Yet Anbar swung faster than anyone had projected.

No one yet knows whether a similar change is germinating in Baghdad neighborhoods, where American and Iraqi forces are now patrolling from every one of the 67 police precincts. This is the key question General Petraeus will address in September.

The Senate overwhelmingly confirmed General Petraeus as our military commander in a messy, vicious war. He would not be leading our troops in battle if he did not believe in his mission. Judgments about the surge being rendered in advance, no matter how well-meaning, lack the professional expertise and depth of analysis that Petraeus and his experienced staff possess. So let's wait and listen to him before reaching conclusions. He is our military leader.

A former Marine and former assistant secretary of defense, Mr. West visits Iraq on a regular basis. He is working on his third book about the war.