BRIAN KATULIS: Well, look, again, I think the key deadline was last summer. And we have already adopted a posture of training and advising. I think we still have targeted operations against insurgent groups and terrorist groups, and these have been quite effective, even as we are drawing down the force there.
And I think the real challenge in the next year is making sure that the Iraqis stand up. And I think everybody talks about the surge of U.S. forces in 2007. The real surge that mattered was the surge of Iraqi forces. The U.S. surge was about a 15 percent increase. The Iraqi forces during that same period doubled.
And that is what matters the most, is that Iraqis have a strong impetus to take control of their own affairs.
GWEN IFILL: But the president opposed that surge. Did it work in the end?
BRIAN KATULIS: It didn't in terms of -- actually, you look at the political divisions in Iraq, and one of the goals of the surge was actually to reduce the violence, to get Iraqi leaders to bridge their political divide.
I argue that the surge actually froze those divisions in place. And, also, for those who like to talk about a counterinsurgency strategy achieving results on the ground in Iraq, there are millions of Iraqis who don't see the benefit of basic services and increased security.
Counterinsurgency didn't succeed in the way that it's, I think, portrayed here in Washington.
MICHAEL RUBIN: Well, I think counterinsurgency did succeed to some extent in giving the political -- the political elite space to move. There is still a lot to be done.
One of the most interesting and important statistics from the Iraqi elections last March is that only 20 percent of the incumbents returned to office. Some of that is because they chose not to run again. Some of that was because they were thrown out of office, as the younger generation and as the Iraqis basically say, enough of this ethno-sectarian strife. We want results.
GWEN IFILL: But they haven't been able to form a government.
MICHAEL RUBIN: This is the main problem. But so far, until this point, they're combating themselves politically. They are debating. They're arguing.
The question is, if we withdrawal in the midst of that, whether some might decide to try to impose, through force of arms, what they can't win on the floor of the assembly.
GWEN IFILL: Why is this divide so stubborn, so wide? And what difference does it make whether the U.S. is there or not in order to close it?
BRIAN KATULIS: Well, look, I think we should take a step back and look at the Iraq war and its impact on U.S. national security.
And more than seven years later, it is still a net negative when you measure it for U.S. national security interests. What we have is emboldened Iran. Some of Iran's best allies are now in power in Baghdad. We helped create for a while there a live training ground for terrorists, who are now using some of the tactics they tested on the battlefield against us in Iraq at this point.
So, for those who argued seven years ago that we're going to have tsunamis of democracy and that the region will be completely changed, they were proven wrong. And I think what we're now trying to do is take a sad song and make it better.
