The Exit Strategy

By Gareth Porter, Foreign Policy in Focus. Posted March 18, 2005.

The United States has an opportunity to negotiate a peace settlement in
Iraq. Will George Bush take it?

It is now time for the United States to pursue the one policy option
that has been missing from the national discussion of Iraq: the
negotiation of a peace settlement with the insurgents that would involve
the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops in return for the surrender of
the insurgents and the reintegration of the Sunni region into the
post-Saddam political system.

In recent weeks there have been multiple indications that some insurgent
leaders as well as some in the election-winning United Iraqi Alliance
are actively interested in such a settlement. Time revealed that certain
insurgent leaders had met with U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers
about a settlement under which they would surrender.

Then former U.S. client and member of the United Iraqi Alliance, Ahmed
Chalabi, told Agence-France Presse on March 3 that he had been meeting
with the Muslim Scholars Association, which is known to have contacts
with the insurgents, about “cooperating together to end the foreign
presence in Iraq so [the insurgents] do not feel they have to fight to
defend the country against foreign occupation.” Just a day before that,
a member of the Muslim Scholars Association had informed Xinhua news
agency that they had held “clandestine negotiations with the leaders of
the Iraqi resistance on a possible ceasefire in the Anbar province.”

The Bush administration has long discouraged any thought about
negotiations, portraying the Iraqi insurgency as a terrorist alliance
between the foreign jihadists aligned with Osama bin Laden and
high-ranking Baathist security officials who seek to restore Saddam’s
regime. That propaganda line misrepresents the actual composition and
leadership of the insurgency. High-ranking officers of Saddam’s elite
security services did start the insurgency, and some of them may still
harbor the dream of recreating the old regime. But the insurgency
quickly evolved into something quite different.

During the last half of 2003, tens of thousands of young men, most of
them former soldiers in the disbanded Iraqi army who could not get a
job, joined the insurgency, not out of loyalty to Saddam but to drive
out the occupation forces and to avenge the killing or mistreatment of
family members or friends in U.S. “cordon and search” operations. By
early 2004, the original Saddamist “Party of Return” was only one of
more than 35 insurgent operations in Iraq.

Many of the local leaders of insurgent groups are clearly not Saddam
loyalists but former mid-level officers from the security services, as
noted recently by an adviser to the Pentagon on Iraq in The Washington
Post. These young Baathists and the Sunni clerics who joined the
resistance in 2004 are the insurgent leaders who are likely to be most
interested in a peace settlement.

Given the decentralized nature of the insurgency, some leaders would
undoubtedly refuse to participate in the agreement at first. However, if
the agreement called for a phased series of mutual cease-fire agreements
starting in cities in the Sunni triangle, followed quickly by almost
simultaneous insurgent demobilization and U.S. withdrawal, the
successful implementation of the first U.S. withdrawal would certainly
bring about a dramatic change in the political climate in Sunni areas.
Especially if those who surrendered were honored locally for their role
in achieving that withdrawal, the pressures on initial holdouts to
participate in the process could quickly become irresistible, except for
the small hard core of Saddamists whose participation in Saddam’s crimes
would make them ineligible for amnesty.

The hundreds of foreign terrorists in Iraq would not profit from such a
settlement. They have been able to avoid capture only because they have
been tolerated by the predominantly secular leadership of the Sunni
insurgents. But that dynamic could easily change if a peace agreement
were negotiated ending the U.S. and coalition occupation.

The foreign jihadists’ fanatically anti-Shiite brand of Islam and some
of their tactics, such as kidnappings and executions of hostages and
terror bombings of Shiite worshippers, have created serous conflict
between them and nationalist leaders of the anti-occupation forces,
including those who are Sunni clerics. There have been numerous
indications over the past year that the nationalist leaders would like
to be rid of the foreign jihadists once the Americans have withdrawn. If
peace negotiations were to begin, therefore, it is likely that the
foreign terrorists would start packing their bags, knowing that the
shelter they have had in the Sunni areas would disappear.

Despite the fact that such a peace accord would serve the interests of
both Iraqis and Americans, there is a serious danger that the Bush
administration will not support negotiations, much less initiate them.
Last July, Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi declared through his
spokesman his desire to offer a general amnesty for any insurgents who
would surrender. U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte insisted, however, that
insurgents who killed Americans should not be amnestied, and Allawi
dropped his plan.

The evidence thus far suggests that the meetings between U.S. officers
and insurgent leaders were only to explore the possibility of splitting
them off from the rest of the insurgency without ending the occupation.
Deeper negotiations are unlikely as the Bush administration may have an
ulterior motive for seeking to avert a negotiated settlement of the war.
Such a settlement would eliminate the main leverage Washington has on a
Shiite-dominated regime in Iraq—its dependence on the U.S. military
presence. Once the Sunni insurgency is no longer the main problem facing
Iraq, it can be expected that a conflict would soon emerge between U.S.
regional strategy and a Shiite leadership that is determined to maintain
close relations with Iran.

If the opportunity for peace is lost because Bush spurns negotiations,
everyone will lose except for the foreign Islamic terrorists in Iraq. If
the war continues, they will have been given a virtual guarantee that
they can continue using Iraq to recruit and train terrorists for an
indefinite period. The time to try peace diplomacy is now, not many
months or years from now, after thousand or tens of thousands more have
died needlessly.

Gareth Porter is a historian and an analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus.
His latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to
War in Vietnam, will be published by University of California Press in May.

In other words, krause doesn't have a strategy,, whether entrance or exit.
Let someone else do it, make the world more peaceful and rid the world of
terrorism. Being the senile old toothless old fool krause is he will simply
criticize what ever direction his leader takes. Do nothing about China,,
that is wrong, do something about Iraq,, that is wrong,, It is no wonder why
krause's life ended the way it did,,, sad,,, very sad,,,, oooo my,,,,










"HarryKrause" wrote in message
...
Jim, wrote:
The Exit Strategy

By Gareth Porter, Foreign Policy in Focus. Posted March 18, 2005.

The United States has an opportunity to negotiate a peace settlement in
Iraq. Will George Bush take it?

It is now time for the United States to pursue the one policy option that
has been missing from the national discussion of Iraq: the negotiation of
a peace settlement with the insurgents that would involve the complete
withdrawal of U.S. troops in return for the surrender of the insurgents
and the reintegration of the Sunni region into the post-Saddam political
system.


The Bush Administration doesn't have negotiators.