WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- The Bush administration has finally admitted, in effect, that it was wrong to try to defeat the Sunnis who have been fighting occupation forces after all. Now it wants to make a deal with them aimed at the real enemy in Iraq: the al-Qaida terrorist network.
This strategic turnabout is a major step forward, even if it has come two-and-a-half years too late, after tens of thousands have died needlessly in Iraq. But it also highlights the contradiction between the primary U.S. objective in eliminating the terrorist bases of operation from Iraq and the administration's continued reliance on military force.
In the past two weeks, administration policy toward the Sunni insurgents has undergone a dramatic shift. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has declared that he is ready to negotiate with the Sunni insurgent organizations. Meanwhile, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq says U.S. Command had decided to "focus on defeating the terrorists" while aiming only at "disrupting the capabilities of the rest of the insurgents," primarily through "political engagement" -- through negotiations with them. This is still a stealth policy, because the White House doesn't want to call attention to the fact that it has reversed what turned out to be strategic blunder. So when Bush talks about victory, Americans are still under the impression that he is talking about victory over the insurgents who have long been treated as the primary enemy in Iraq.
The Bush administration now understands, however, that those very insurgents are the key to shutting down the al-Qaida "terrorist haven" in Iraq run by the shadowy Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Al-Zarqawi's foreign terrorist network in Iraq has operated with the assent of a loose coalition of Sunni anti-occupation armed organizations. But those organizations are led mainly by secular Baathist officers whose interest is in achieving a bigger political role for Sunnis and Baathists in a post-Saddam Iraq without U.S. military presence.
Along with the Sunni clerics who are among the insurgents' strongest supporters, they consider the foreign Islamic terrorists who are mainly interested in killing Shiite worshippers they consider to be infidels to have no place in post-occupation Iraq. Some leaders of Sunni insurgent organizations have already offered, through Arab intermediaries, to turn over al-Zarqawi to Iraqi authorities under such an agreement.
Administration policymakers have now recognized that they need the help of the Sunni insurgent leaders to solve the terrorist haven problem, and that they must negotiate an agreement with them. But there are two fundamental obstacles to such a deal.
Bush continues to paint himself into a corner by rejecting the whole notion of timetable for withdrawal as incompatible with his "victory" strategy. That obstinacy will certainly deadlock any talks with the Sunni leaders, because the demand for a date certain for withdrawal is generally and passionately shared by the vast majority of the Sunni population.
The second is that a U.S.-Sunni deal may require the cooperation of the Shiite-dominated government. The Sunni insurgents cannot lay down their arms if they know they are going to be systematically rounded up and tortured or gunned down by Shiite goon squads, and if there are no major political concessions protecting minority rights in the new Iraq. That means the Shiite leaders must be brought into the negotiations as well.
Unfortunately, the militant Shiite parties who are likely to prevail in the parliament once the votes in the Dec. 15 election are counted have no inclination to make such compromises with the Sunnis. Having suffered under the Sunni yoke for so long, they are now determined to take their revenge. And the U.S. occupation has produced a constitution hostile to the rights of the minority Sunnis, as the administration itself now acknowledges, which was adopted in a process rushed through under pressure from... guess who?
So the new Shiite-dominated government may not cooperate with the administration's desire to strike a deal with the Sunni insurgents at the expense of al-Qaida, because it would also be at the expense of militant Shiite interests as well. The only leverage the administration will have on the Shiite government, therefore, is the threat of unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces. And that is anathema to the White House.
Over the coming weeks and months, it is going to become increasingly clear that a deal with the Sunni insurgents is the only way for the United States to withdraw U.S. troops while taking care of the al-Qaida terrorist bases in Iraq. To do so, however, both the administration and Congress will have to accept the reality that U.S. military forces in Iraq cannot contribute to the achievement of U.S. objectives in Iraq by continuing to kill Iraqis.
The U.S. military presence serves U.S. interests only as a bargaining chip to obtain the cooperation of the Sunni insurgents. In light of that objective, the war that the administration continues to wage against the Sunni insurgents is an anachronism that should be halted. It is time to call a ceasefire with those insurgents to facilitate negotiations and to put pressure on the Shiites to get serious about accommodating the Sunnis themselves.
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(Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst who writes news analysis on Iraq for Inter-Press Service. His latest book is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.)
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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
