Global Policy Forum

By Robert Dreyfuss*

Link to Part I

Getting out of Iraq, it seems, is a lot harder than going in. In the previous installment of this two-part series, I suggested that the only way to get out of Iraq is to make a deal with the Iraqi resistance. That is a difficult task at best, implying as it does a 180-degree about-face in U.S. policy thus far. Naturally, there is little indication that the Bush administration is thinking about such a step, although from time to time there have been reports—such as those mentioned by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld this week—of exploratory talks between U.S. authorities and some resistance forces. To the extent that such talks are geared toward bringing insurgents into the current interim government, the administration is just extending the war.

It has not dawned on Washington yet that talking directly to the resistance (and bypassing the current Iraqi interim government) is the only real exit strategy—but that is what it will take. The United States can do it now, i.e., sometime in 2005, or will do it—with a far weaker hand, and after thousands more die—in 2007 or so. The war itself is lost—only the White House doesn't know it yet.

The fact that Bush, Cheney, et al. aren't calling for talks with the insurgents is bad enough. What's worse is that the left, liberals and mainstream Democrats aren't calling for such talks to begin. Many Democrats, even those who opposed the war, are now among those calling for the United States to stay in Iraq until victory, whatever that is—and no matter how unlikely it may be. Others, who are willing to consider an early exit strategy, victory or not, are held back by other fears. Many of them seem persuaded by the argument that whatever the merits of invading Iraqi in 2003, we are now engaged there and cannot abandon Iraq to the mess that we've made. They worry that if the United States withdraws from Iraq, the result will be an all-out civil war among three major ethnic and religious blocs. (It's facile to argue that Iraq is already wracked by civil war; yes, there is widespread terrorism, a guerrilla war against the U.S. occupation forces, and periodic clashes between Sunnis and Shiites. But it hasn't reached anything like civil war proportions yet, and it might: Things could get far, far worse.) Maybe it's too late for the United States to be able to do anything to prevent the outbreak of such a catastrophic civil conflict. But because there is so much at stake, it's worth a try.

So here is my take on how to do it. First, we have to offer unconditional talks—like the Paris peace talks in 1972 with Hanoi—with the other side. We have to assemble all the intelligence we have about the insurgency, its leaders and its various factions to make sure that when we end up in talks we are, in fact, talking to the right people. In this case, the "right people" will be mostly Baathists, both civilian and military, along with tribal and clan leaders. There have been scattered reports about the emergence of a neo-Baath party in various Sunni strongholds, and there is at least one report that a rudimentary Baathist newspaper is being published clandestinely in Iraq. (See Juan Cole's "Informed Comment" blog for more on this.) Some former senior Baathists, such as Naim Haddad, are said to be involved, and other former top Iraqi officials are widely believed to be coordinating parts of the resistance. Some of them are allegedly based in Syria, and some in Jordan, according to the Iraqi National Congress and other (more reliable) sources. Some are in Europe. But most lead forces rooted deep in Iraq. If King Abdullah of Jordan, backed by the United Nations, were to make an unconditional offer to host a gathering of vetted resistance leaders in Amman, in order to begin talks with the United States, it is likely that, over time, the majority of the secular (non-jihadist) resistance would send representatives.

Second, to demonstrate good faith in the talks, and to create room for a Sunni leadership to emerge openly, we must issue an amnesty that is as wide-ranging as possible. It should cover tens of thousands of former Baath and Iraqi government officials for pre-2003 charges, except for a handful of very senior Iraqi officials and those who can be convicted of atrocities with hard evidence. And it should cover resistance fighters, except for those terrorists convicted of atrocities against civilians. The United States needs to take the death penalty off the table for Saddam Hussein and other top officials, free some of the high-value prisoners who cannot be specifically linked to killings, and release most, if not all, of the more than 10,000 detainees held in Abu Ghraib and the two other prison camps in Iraq run by U.S. authorities. (Despite Iraq's so-called sovereignty, the United States still runs these facilities.) Ironically, when the previous and current Iraqi interim governments sought similar, but smaller, amnesties, the United States moved to block them.

Third, with regard to the Kurds, the United States must make clear that an independent Kurdistan is out of the question. Period. The Kurds can exist happily in a federal Iraqi structure, but a land-locked, oil-free Kurdish state is not viable. Such a state would necessarily be expansionist, needing to absorb Iraq's northern oil fields and key cities such as Kirkuk and Irbil. That, in turn, would be an intolerable provocation to the vast majority of Iraqis—Sunni and Shiite—and to Iraq's neighbors, especially Turkey. The way to do this is for the United States to proclaim its commitment to a unitary Iraq, meanwhile telling the Kurds privately, but in no uncertain terms, that they must abandon any hope of declaring independence.

Fourth, the Shiites. What the United States has done since 2003 is to catapult to power two fundamentalist Shiite parties, SCIRI and Al Dawa, who do not represent the majority of Iraq's Shiite population of 15 million. Anyone who understands Iraq knows that Iraqi Shiites, especially its urban contingent, are not religious fanatics. However, by supporting SCIRI and Al Dawa and their armed paramilitaries, first in exile as part of the Iraqi National Congress and then as puppets of the occupation, Washington has imposed a thuggish religious caste on a largely secular population. It's not too late to reverse this. The Kurds are strongly secular, and many Sunnis have multiple ties to important Shiite figures. The confessional ethnic and religious partition of Iraq since 2003 is mostly of America's doing, and to undo it the United States must create room for Kurdish leaders and Sunnis to make alliances with Shiites not loyal to the minority SCIRI-Dawa hard core. Simply halting the favoritism that the United States has shown toward the two Iran-backed Shiite parties would get the process underway.

These steps would all serve as confidence-building measures to allow U.S. talks with the resistance to move forward. The central demands of the resistance leaders will be for an American withdrawal and a fairly distributed share of power in Baghdad. Once the talks are underway, attacks on U.S. forces—from snipers, explosive devices, etc.—would halt almost overnight, isolating the Zarqawi-style terrorists whose brutality and fanaticism have already alienated many Sunni resistance leaders.

Most Iraqis know that the idea of partitioning Iraq—the "Yugoslav solution"—is not viable. An expansionist Kurdistan would be a formula for unending conflict. A rump Sunni state, also landlocked, would not be viable, either. And who would control the Iraqi capital? Control of Baghdad, a legendary Arab city and the very symbol of Iraq, would pit Sunnis against Shiites in an urban struggle that would make the division of Beirut look like a picnic. Sunni Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt would intervene militarily to support the Sunnis, and Iran would back the Shiites. It would be bloody in the extreme.

To start it all, the United States should support the idea of postponing the Iraqi constitutional process until a new constellation of powers emerged in Baghdad. (Most analysts believe that the constitution process cannot solve many of the thorny problems Iraq faces now anyway. And the three-province veto built into the process means that the three Kurdish provinces can shoot it down. Alternately, the two Sunni provinces and Baghdad can combine to block the constitution, something that looks more and more likely.) President Talabani and Prime Minister Jaafari can continue to run the puppet government until a real one is established, but no one should have any illusions that the Talabani-Jaafari regime has any legitimacy.

At the conference in Amman that I've proposed, the United Nations should run the show. Europe, Russia and Iraq's six neighbors can participate as observers. And the United States ought humbly to take its place on one side of the table, as it did during its retreat from Vietnam.

About the Author: Robert Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone. His book, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, will be published by Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books in the fall.