Sectarian violence in Baghdad has decreased, but many significant problems remain, according to military experts at a panel held Friday in cooperation with the George Washington University Elliot School of International Affairs and the Security Policy Studies Program Institute for Middle East Studies.
It is uncertain if Iraqi security forces will be able to develop the capabilities to continue the current progress without the support of international forces, they said.
"Within the next few months, Iraqi forces' capabilities will be important because U.S. forces will be withdrawing," said Nora Bensahel, senior political scientist at RAND Corporation.
The improvements are partly due to the surge in U.S. forces in 2007 because troops were on the streets patrolling more often, she said.
Tribal, political and militia loyalty over the Iraqi ministry is behind the slow progress in Iraq, and the problem flows to the rest of the political system, Bensahel said.
Many Iraqis are fearful of the police and militias because they compete for influence, she said.
"Many [Iraqi police] patrol by day and get involved in sectarian attacks at night," she said.
The war is "a communal war on identity rather than ideas," said Stephen Biddle, senior fellow for defense policy at the Council of Foreign Relations who recently returned from an assessment mission to Baghdad.
The recent success in Baghdad is due to outside forces that worked to secure a new local cease-fire deal among tribal parties, Biddle said.
"As of Nov. 10 ... they [tribal leaders] agreed to stop firing at us and at each other," he said.
The most important reason behind the shift in sectarian violence is the Sunni defeat in the battle of Baghdad during the winter of 2006, Biddle said.
"The ethnic cleansing also helped to persuade the Sunnis to no longer fight," he said.
The central policy strategy is rapidly changing and challenging because the United States is trying to keep the cease-fire going.
"It's like we hit the lottery, but now we have to pay the tax," Biddle said. "If we continue to be blessed by our recent fortune, Iraq will look like a patch-work quilt, a collection of cease-fire deals from tribal and political leaders."
Briana Picotte, a sophomore at George Washington University studying political science, said she went to the panel to get information for a paper about Vietnam and Iraq. There are parallels between the two conflicts, she said.
GW professor Jim Goldgeier, who teaches at the school's Elliot School of International Affairs, called the panel "the best you could hear on the subject."
Many people incorrectly say that Iraq and Vietnam are analogous, he said.
"It can be misleading to compare - they are two very different conflicts," he said.
