Rosemary Hollis, director of research at Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs), takes us behind the scenes of the Iraq Commission, which made its ground-breaking report on Saturday. In an interview with National Interest editor-at-large Ximena Ortiz, Hollis said that "the future of Iraq is sufficiently bleak", and that the United States and Britain will be continually blamed for the next several years. The future of Iraq, she said, belongs to Iran.
There are recent indications that the commission's report is being heard and heeded on Downing Street. On Saturday, Lord Malloch Brown, a Foreign Office minister, said that Prime Minister Brown would not be "joined at the hip" with President Bush. And when the defense minister spoke Monday of plans to draw down 500 forces from Iraq, he stressed the ability of the Iraqi forces to assume control, rather than the overall Iraqi security situation-echoing the recommendations of the commission. Given all the testimony you heard with the commission and these recent remarks, what is your impression of the mood in London? Could the new government be inclined to implement some of your suggestions?
As you picked up in your question, the current British policy is that there will be a British presence in Iraq to so-called "get the job done." That job is about restoring Iraq to peace and stability and indeed even democracy. What the commission recommends is a modest and definable goal of handing over responsibility to the Iraqi forces once they're ready, which is already happening, and completing a job of training Iraqi forces-and then leaving. This is something that the commission thinks is possible to measure, whereas the other goal of staying until Iraq is stable, democratic and peaceful is open-ended and could leave the British and Iraqis not really knowing when there would be a British departure.
By attaching the departure date to the situation on the ground, the commission feels the British end up letting themselves into a vicious cycle, because at the moment the vast majority of the attacks taking place in the south of the country are by Iraqis on the British soldiers, as opposed to by Iraqis on Iraqis. So if the British maintain the idea that they must remain until those attacks stop-and yet they are by their very presence the reasons for the attacks in the first place-a vicious cycle is created, one that will be desirable to break.
The government is on a course which is set for the drawdown of British troops in Iraq and for the handing over of responsibilities for local security problems to the Iraqis. So the new administration of Gordon Brown doesn't actually need to have a massive reversal of policy in order to continue the drawdown. However, to embrace the recommendations of the Iraq Commission, they would, in fact, be changing the emphasis of the goals. They would be turning necessity into virtue and saying that the job we are engaged in is principally training the Iraqis from now on as we hand over responsibility. And we'll know once we've done as much as we can to train the Iraqis, whereas we don't know when or how we would get a stable, secure situation on the ground that would enable us to leave under our present objectives.
The commission concluded that there are now only painful options left for Iraq. What do you believe will be the impact for Britain and the United States of the world continuing to see a smoldering Iraq? How will each country's leadership and leverage be affected in the Middle East and beyond? Have the countries handicapped themselves? What bearing could it have, for example, on President Bush's decision to ramp up Quartet efforts towards Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and how it could affect Blair's potential role as the envoy of the Quartet?
There is the possibility that the worst legacy of the Iraq tragedy will attach to George W. Bush and to one or two members of his administration and to Tony Blair personally. And therefore it might be possible for their successors in government to disassociate themselves from the worst of the legacy.
But the situation is significantly bad, and the future of Iraq is sufficiently bleak, that it's impossible for America and Britain not to be continually blamed, not to have to live with that and not to be chastened when it comes to other future engagements overseas. So yes, their credibility and their maneuverability and their leverage will take a toll. But if to tell me that the United States will hang in there, not because of something they can achieve-something that's been called victory-but in order to maintain their credibility in the region, I fear that that won't work either.
As far as the Quartet and Tony Blair is concerned, I think it has to be understood that Tony Blair will not be representing Britain and that, indeed, he can probably only succeed in his new potential role if he doesn't represent Britain. But rather he comes with all the experience he's gained as British prime minister, and will be working on behalf of the members of the Quartet with special access to Washington. Britain isn't even a member of the Quartet except through the European Union. So I think you have to leave him aside in terms of what difference it would make in what British policy is under Gordon Brown for the region.
Then, I would say that it does have to be acknowledged that what they are proposing is in contrast to the thrust of Europe's policy towards Iraq, which is to build up the force levels in order to achieve what President Bush is still calling victory. And what the commission is saying is that victory as originally conceived is not in the cards.
Because we are looking at a range of undesirable scenarios at any rate?
Well, I was in Iran just over a month ago, and I interviewed a number of people in and around the administration. The future of Iraq belongs to them. They believe they're winning in Iraq and that America is losing, and it's just a question of how soon the Americans give up and go home, or whether they will hold on. Now if they hold on, one must assume that part of the reason is to deny a victory to the Iranians, but how do you justify that to the soldiers on the ground? That it's no longer about putting things right in Iraq? It's about salvaging America's reputation vis-à-vis Iran?
How contentious was the discussion about Iran at the commission? Take us backstage.
Basically the commission recommended a change of focus, in the context of a new diplomatic initiative which must engage all Iraq's neighbors and recognizes that Britain is the only country of the major stakeholders in this situation that has diplomatic relations with all those neighbors, unlike the United States. This may be a signal that the British have a role to play in terms of ensuring that all the players come to the table.
Is it your view that there has to be some sort of carrot to Iran? Would you say that there has to be some condition offered to Tehran in order for them to take a more proactive and cooperative approach with Iraq?
I think there are two background points to make: One is that for Britain, relations with Iran don't have nearly the same political implication as they do for the United States. And one has to say that the way Iran's influence in Iraq has been discussed not only by the Bush Administration but also on Capitol Hill, one does get the sense that it's all too easy for senior figures in America to believe that the bad guy in all of this is indeed Iran.
I would say that in Britain the bases are not so loaded because Iran is one of the players and always has been. And Britain has for a long time had relations with Iran, and whilst relations between Britain and Iran are not good, they are not in the same league as with the United States, since the United States has been at odds with Iran since 1980. And in regards to knowledge of Iran, access to Iran and understanding of what's going on there, there's no comparison.
So would you say that the commission easily found a general level of consensus on Iran, or was that consensus more elusive?
I think there was some sort of surprise perhaps of the evidence we heard of the extended Iranian influence inside Iraq. But the commission was then at pains to recognize that the situation is as genuine as it is and to say, O.K., if that is the case, what is the answer? The commission is not looking [to single] out Iran and dealing with Iran by itself, and it is not looking for a U.S.-Iran dialogue on the issue of Iraq. What the commission is asking for is a multilateral initiative which involves all the Security Council members and all neighbors of Iraq, plus the respective clients and allies inside Iraq.
The real departure here is that this is not about the United States deciding who wins and on what conditions. This is about saying, this is beyond the capacity of the United States to work out unilaterally, bilaterally or through leading. The United States has to be one of the players, but the better umbrella for the multilateral process-whereby everyone has to sign a treaty guaranteeing that the territorial integrity of Iraq-is the United Nations.
Do you feel that under such an umbrella that Iran could become a cooperative player in securing the future of Iraq?
That is the conclusion of the commission. Now, the commission also recognizes that this will be difficult and that some of the objectives of the Iranians are not attractive and not palatable to the Americans and probably to the British-and certainly not to the Sunni Arabs in Iraq and Sunni Arab neighbors to Iraq. But therein lies the point: you get some trade-offs. You do not make it all about: "Unless you bow to our conditions you do not come to the table." There is an assumption here by the commission that Iran has some common interests with all the other players and that the lowest common denominator is you need to keep Iraq from breaking up.
And what about the nuclear issue and how is that included or excluded from the discussion about Iraq?
There was recognition that irrespective of the way the nuclear issue is being dealt with, there is room for involving Iran constructively in the future of Iraq. They would be invited to the table as a neighbor of Iraq, with stakes in Iraq and a capacity to make things better with the others.
What would you say was the testimony that you find most illuminating or surprising? On this side of the pond, General Jay Garner's warning that Iraq could descend into a genocidal civil war if it is not partitioned raised some eyebrows.
I think I was very struck by two women. Iraqis-one of them Kurdish Iraqi-who were advising that the foreign troop presence is actually a cause of as much violence as a resolution to violence and the message was, get them off the streets. They don't have to leave completely, but these patrols are causing agitation, affront and injuries.
There was a large degree of consensus between the Iraq Study Group's report and the findings of the commission. What would you say were the main differences?
There is a very crucial difference, which is that the British commission was concentrating purely on advice for the British government, irrespective of what the Americans decide to do. Now, my sense is that the debate in the United States at the moment, which is obviously very heated on Capitol Hill, is very much caught in internal American politics and fighting over the next election and over culpability over what has happened in Iraq and that therefore, the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group and the people who wrote it knew it was going to be received in a very different atmosphere. And I think you sense that in the Iraq Study Group's findings and the contemporary debate in the United States.
The goal of the commission was a much more modest endeavor, it's yet another reminder that Britain is in a totally different league from the Americans. I think all of us on the commission were taken back at being told that the British effort in Iraq is about 3 percent of the overall effort. So what we have to take into account at the commission is: What difference would it make to the "special relationship" if the British did objectives calculations regarding what they should do, vis-à-vis their circumstances in Iraq? And the conclusion was that since we were not recommending cut-and-run there need not be a crisis. But a message would have to come to Washington to the affect that the British are not cutting and running, but are making the calculations that they have to in their circumstances. And they would retain a residual position at the airbase in the south to provide cover for the communication routes that they know are vital to the Americans and that they would have to backfill if the British didn't do it. But a larger mission to stabilize all of the south to provide security-instead of the Iraqis-is beyond the British capability and therefore should not be an official objective.
Could you speak a later bit further about the "special relationship"? Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had often argued that by assisting America in Iraq, Britain could gain a degree of influence over U.S. policy on issues concerning Britain, such as the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. How, in your view, would more conditional British support of U.S. policy, as argued by the commission, affect London's standing in Washington? Do you feel that such a stance could, contrary to Blair's assumption, bolster Britain's influence in Washington, decrease it or have no overall affect?
I think the commission is arguing that if Britain slipped into the position of always agreeing, at least in public, they probably would have less and less influence behind the scenes because they would always be taken for granted. And there is something to be said for knowing what your own redlines are, and being a good and supportive and appreciative ally to the extent that you're able, but being realistic that there might be differences.
