In this highly polarized climate when “experts” travel to Iraq to give their impressions on the “surge” or the overall political or security situation there we are usually treated to a predictable confirmation of the status quo; those who oppose the war find the same things wrong and those who support the war and the surge find “stunning” evidence of success waiting just around the corner. Washington Post Baghdad correspondent Jonathan Finer blasted the regular propaganda coming on the heels of high-profile visits in his column entitled, Green Zone Blinders.

That said, one of the more interesting perspectives in the war comes from those who lead the fight on the ground. Not, of course, the highly politicized generals who report to the White House. I’m talking about the sergeants and other NCOs who have some sense of the larger strategic goal but who actually see the ground reality on a daily basis. Not surprisingly the sergeants are of many minds on the situation in Iraq. But in the New York Times one group of recently returned sergeants posted what I think is the most perceptive analysis of the entire conflict.

These men, coming home from a 15-month deployment in Iraq, identify the “surreal” politics of avoidance.

Where American politicians grope for examples of success - including Sunni marginalization of AQI - they inevitably miss the complete failures of reconstruction that bedevil the entire process. As Petreaus’s Counterninsurgency Manual points out, if you don’t build the infrastructure and convince the locals that you can provide security, deliver basic services and sustain a reasonable economy, all efforts at security will go for naught. Add to this the need to tie the base of insurgent support to the central government; Petraeus himself mentioned that the surge strategy will only succeed if the Iraqi politicians take advantage of the “breathing space” and solve the country’s problems.

But as these sergeants point out, our agenda for solving the Iraqi people’s problems is not the same as that of the Iraqis themselves. In fact, our very belief in a stable, multi-ethnic, equitable democracy is part of the problem. As the authors uncomfortably remind us, there will be winners and losers in this Iraqi civil war, and it will be the Iraqis that decide it. Trying to create the most perfectly balanced government between Sunnis, Shi’ites, Kurds and other smaller minorities will end up pleasing nobody. Not surprisingly, the Iraqi government, such as it exists, merely serves to protect the interests of the Shi’ite majority. The Iraqi army serves the goals of Shi’ite militias, not the “national interest.” As for the so-called successful Anbar strategy, what we’ve really done is armed a new Sunni militia that will undoubtedly train its guns on the Shi’ite led government once Al Qaeda (or the US) is out of the way. The recent pullout of Sunni Arabs from the government merely confirms the sentiment among Sunni tribesmen that they don’t need the central Iraqi government; not to fight Al Qaeda or provide basic services. Our fixation on fighting AQI, important as it might be, misses the forest for the trees. We aren’t fighting “the enemy” in Iraq; we are merely arming two sides in a brutal civil war.

As the authors state,

“Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.”

The reality in Iraq is one of unspeakable despair. “Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. “Lucky” Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.”

The end result is a call to listen to what Iraqis really want: dignity. They’ve lost everything, having replaced “Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence.” Having lost all self-respect in the process, the natural leadership of Iraq has moved to Syria, Jordan, UAE or beyond, and the rest are left behind to fight over the scraps of honor. Only when they “force our withdrawal” will they come together in some semblance of unity again.

Usually countries fracture AFTER they kick out a foreign occupier; think of China after WWII, or Vietnam after 1954. It’s possible that this case will be different. Maybe Iraqis will come together only after they force the US to leave and after Iraq’s “reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere.” But I’m not so certain. There is a real risk of a spreading war to neighboring countries. What is undeniable, however, is that tactical gains in security in places like Anbar have done little or nothing to reconcile the Iraqi nation according to the multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian vision we imagined. Sunnis and Shi’ites are as far apart as ever. And with the coming referendum in Kirkuk on joining the Kurdish Autonomous Region, it’s only likely that the instability will worsen. In many ways the recent atrocity in Sanjil where hundreds of Yazidis were murdered in their homes is a taste of what is to follow in Kirkuk, where forcibly relocated populations look to re-establish residency in an oil-rich, multi-ethnic powder keg.

At the very least, let’s be honest about what we face in Iraq and stop jumping all over every breathless report on Sunni tribal meeting with Maliki or venture against Al Qaeda in Iraq, or contrarily, on every mundane atrocity that merely confirms the obvious despair of modern Iraq. As the sergeants in this op-ed ironically quote the infamous Brookings claim of progress, the debate in the US is “surreal.” Let’s look at the big picture together: security, national political legitimacy, economic reconstruction, and some semblance of civil “normalcy.” Minor gains in one area without corresponding advances in the others are not worthy of anything more than passing reference. Things that go forward can go backward, as we see in Basra. Examine the conflict in terms that make sense to Iraq, not American politics.