"I just wonder if they will ever tell us the truth." - Harold Casey, Louisville, KY, October 2004.
Gareth Porter takes a look at recent developments in US negotiations with the Iraqi Sunnis: US Realignment With Sunnis Is Far Advanced Inter Press Service 01/30/06. He writes:
Implied in [US Ambassador] Khalilzad's position is the threat to stop funding units that are identified as sectarian Shiite in their orientation. That could affect the bulk of the Iraqi army as well as the elite Shiite police commando units which are highly regarded by the U.S. military command.
Khalilzad's decision to make the U.S. threat public was followed by the revelation by Newsweek in its Feb. 6 issue that talks between the United States and "high level" Sunni insurgent leaders have already begun at a U.S. military base in Anbar province and in Jordan and Syria. Khalilzad told Newsweek, "Now we have won over the Sunni political leadership. The next step is to win over the insurgents."
As this sweeping definition of the U.S. political objective indicates, these talks are no longer aimed at splitting off groups that are less committed to the aim of U.S. withdrawal, as the Pentagon has favoured since last summer. Instead, the administration now appears to be prepared to make some kind of deal with all the major insurgent groups.
What's especially notable in this is the increasingly sharp disagreement with the Shi'a-dominated elected government in Iraq. Cutting off Shi'a-dominated security units would be admitting to a huge setback for the "as the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down" promises. If the Shi'a government were to start insisting at this point thatthe US leave and cut off cooperation with the Americans, that would make the US position in Iraq completely untenable, it would seem.
Porter describes the risks of a shift to an accomodating position with the Sunni insurgents:
Although it may be a way out of a war that cannot be won, the U.S. shift in political alignment away from the Shiites and toward the Sunnis brings with it a different set of costs and risks.
It is bound to bring to the surface the anti-U.S. sentiments that the Shiite political leadership and militants have kept more or less under wraps since the U.S. invasion for pragmatic political reasons.
And as the Shiites gird for a showdown with their enemies, they will be seeking the assistance of their Iranian patrons. The worst crises for U.S. policy in Iraq are still to come. (my emphasis)
As I've said before, any chance for a genuinely good outcome in Iraq is long gone. If it ever existed. (David Hendrickson and Robert Tucker in their Dec. 2005 paper and even of the performance of the Army itself than most Democratic politicians I hear. For instance, David Hendrickson and Robert Tucker in their paper Revisions in Need of Revising: What Went Wrong in the Iraq War of Dec 2005 argue that a genuinely good outcome may have been impossible from the start.)
And so we're at the point where a even an article like Porter's is good news, though it ends concluding, "The worst crises for U.S. policy in Iraq are still to come." War, the Republican Party way. Nothing quite like it.
But if this allows for a rapid and relatively safe withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, that much will be a good outcome. "Good" in the very relative meaning of the word we have to use in talking about the Iraq War.
Porter quotes from these articles in his piece:
Direct Talks - U.S. Officials and Iraqi Insurgents Newsweek 02/06/06 edition
America's Message To Iraq by David Ignatius Washington Post 01/25/06
US tries to loosen Shiite grip in Iraq: Sunni Arabs gain American backing in negotiations to form anew government by Charles Levinson Christian Science Monitor 01/17/06
Newsweek reports:
U.S. intelligence officials have had back-door channels to insurgent groups for many months. The Dec. 15 elections brought many Sunnis to the polls and widened the split between Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi's foreign jihadists and indigenous Sunni insurgents. This marks the first time either Americans or insurgents have admitted that "senior leaders" have met at the negotiating table for planning purposes. "Those who are coming to work with [the U.S.] or come to an understanding with [the U.S.], even if they worked with Al Qaeda in a tactical sense in the past—and I don't know that—they are willing to fight Al Qaeda now," says a Western diplomat in Baghdad who has close knowledge of the discussions. An assortment of some of Iraq's most prominent insurgent groups also recently formed a "council" whose purpose, in addition to publishing religious edicts and coordinating military actions, is to serve as a point of contact for the United States in the future. "The reason they want to unite is to have a public contact with the U.S. if they disagree," says the senior insurgent figure. "If negotiations between armed groups and Americans are not done, then no solutions will be found," says Issa al-Addai al-Mehamdi, a sheik from the prominent Duleimi tribe in Fallujah. "All I can say is that we support the idea of Americans talking with resistance groups."
Newsweek also quotes Vice President Adel Abdel Mehdi of SCIRI, the largest party in the dominant government coalition, as complaining that the Iraqi government had not authorized negotiations between the US and Sunni insurgents.
Ignatius writes, quoting US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzhad:
The American envoy is deploying a weapon the United States hasn't used much in Iraq -- the word "no." He said he is arguing that the new government must give the two security ministries -- Interior and Defense -- to people who have broad national support and aren't linked to sectarian militias. Otherwise, America may have to adjust its massive effort to train and equip the Iraqi security forces.
"The security ministries have to be run by people who are not associated with militias and who are not regarded as sectarian," Khalilzad told me. "The issue is how forces that we're investing a huge amount of money in are perceived by the Iraqis. If they are perceived as sectarian, their effectiveness will not be there. We have insisted on this, stated it clearly. These two ministries need people who are acceptable to all parties of a national unity government. . . . We are saying: If you choose the wrong candidates, that will affect U.S. aid."
Khalilzad's message is aimed largely at Abdul Aziz Hakim, the leader of the Shiite religious coalition that won the largest number of votes in December's election. The current interior minister is a close ally of Hakim's and a former leader of the Shiite militia known as the Badr Brigade. U.S. officials believe that under his control, the Interior Ministry has condoned torture of Sunni prisoners and increasingly used the police to settle sectarian scores. That must stop, the Americans argue.
Levinson reports:
In the SCIRI headquarters in Baghdad, Redha Taki, does not speak with the confidence one might expect from a leading member of Iraq's most popular political party, the anchor of a coalition that dominated last month's vote. Rather, he speaks like a man under siege.
He says the US, England, Iraq's Sunni Arabs, and his neighboring Arab countries are conspiring to undo Shiite gains.
"We are threatening that maybe in the future we will use other means, because we have a true fear," he says. "It's not possible that we are going to go back to how it was three years ago, ruled by Baathists and Saddamists with a new name. We won't accept it."
He dresses like a statesman in a tailored suit, but when talk turns to US dealings with Sunni Arab insurgents, he speaks like a soldier.
"I am prepared to go down into the streets and take up arms and fight to prevent the Baathist dictators and the terrorists from coming back to power," says Mr. Taki, whose son and two brothers were killed by Saddam Hussein's henchmen.
And this from our Shi'a allies!
"Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." - George McGovern and Jim McGovern 06/06/05
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