NEW YORK
The Iraqi conflict is going to be with us for years if not decades. The country has become the focus of a crisis of Islamic civilization that is closer to its onset than its conclusion. Violent conflict between the now dominant Shiite community and Sunnis nostalgic for power is but one aspect of this epochal upheaval.
As in the Palestinian territories, the Iraqi struggle has been complicated by the presence of forces driven not by national goals but by the global objectives of jihadist Islamism. These jihadists, finding inspiration in their reading of the sacred texts of Islam, have embarked on a holy war against the West.
It is against such fanatics, some of whom call themselves Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, that General David Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, has just announced a major offensive. I wish Petraeus and the 155,000 troops now in Iraq luck, but I am not hopeful.
The fact is that however many bomb makers are taken out, however many cells broken, the social and religious forces driving angry young men across the Muslim world into this sort of fight are not about to abate.
A population explosion is pushing these men into societies with few jobs and scant hope for the future beyond a range of causes - from Palestine to Iraq to the perceived debauchery of modernity - capable of drawing them into a consoling, if nihilistic, zealotry.
Against this reality, exacerbated in Iraq by the whirlwind fragmentation that often occurs in multi-ethnic societies when the lid of despotism is lifted, America's September deadline for measuring the progress achieved by the addition of 30,000 troops looks almost comical.
Let's face it folks, things are not going to be measurably better in Iraq by September. They may be about the same; they could be worse. The destructive energy disaggregating the country is still building. Wars tend to end when their participants are exhausted. We are not there yet, not even close.
The other day, I met Mokhtar Lamani, a distinguished Moroccan diplomat who took on the thankless task of representing the Arab League in Baghdad. He recently quit because, as usual, the Arab League could not get its act together. Anyway, a non-Arab state, Iran, is the major regional player in Iraq. Its envoy would not even call on Lamani.
Before he left, Lamani did something useful. Each time there was a bomb or killing, he asked his staff to identify the group claiming responsibility and, if its existence could be verified, note it down. The list reached more than 300 names. "We are not talking about a civil war, but a series of civil wars," Lamani said.
These wars - bringing together global, religious, regional and national struggles - should be seen as facets of the crisis of Islamic civilization.
The United States is a big country at the apogee of its power. But there are historical forces that even very big countries cannot stop. At best, they can be contained - and it is to containment that President George W. Bush must now look. He should have the courage to admit his mistakes, but also to resist calls for complete withdrawal driven more by electoral calculus than concern for Iraqis.
The last military build-up will not be repeated. Americans have no stomach for a further "surge" and the U.S. armed forces have no capacity for one. Republicans, facing an unpopular war, are going to walk off the reservation unless the president changes course in the fall.
I see four core American interests in Iraq that cannot be abandoned. There must be no Afghan-like Al Qaeda takeover of wide areas. There must be no genocide (say a Shiite sweep against Sunnis). There must be no regional conflagration (for example, a Turkish invasion). And there must be no return to the old order (murderous Stalinist dictatorship).
To ensure this, the United States must keep a military presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future. The size of this deterrent force is up for debate, but 50,000 soldiers, or 105,000 less than today, is one talked-about figure. The timing of the drawdown will have to be discussed with Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, but it should begin soon after September.
Pulling out a lot of troops is the only way to increase pressure on Maliki to make the political compromises - on distribution of oil revenue, the constitution and de-Baathification - that will give Iraq some long-term chance of cohering. That chance will be increased if, as the United States steps down, the United Nations steps up.
E-mail: rocohen@nytimes.com
