On a solution to the Iraq mess

There can be a start to a solution to the Iraq mess if Washington truly considers thinking out of the box to see what might be best for the Iraq’s unfortunate people rather than how to lighten the load on America.

There can be a start to a solution to the Iraq mess if Washington truly considers thinking out of the box to see what might be best for the Iraq’s unfortunate people rather than how to lighten the load on America. The starting point is to trust Iraqis to find their own solutions without Washington’s paternalism. These are resourceful people. Their fighters are fierce enough to hold the US military juggernaut at bay used home made bombs and light weapons. Their small businesspersons are so dynamic that Iraq’s economy has picked up considerably despite the chaos.

Iraqis are skilled both at internecine warfare and at working out compromises among their factions, including tribes, religious sects and warlords. They have done both for centuries.

Their current problem is that American incompetence destroyed indigenous structures of conflict resolution, administration and law and order. It also interfered with the mechanisms used traditionally to create the factional balances required for civil society to function without violence.

Now, a measure of modesty is in order. Washington should recognize that only Iraq’s native leaders have the know-how required to design power sharing among factions, no matter how violent or chaotic the process might appear to be. Neither the US military, nor Washington politicians nor conciliation with al Qaeda, Iran and Syria, nor an international conference can achieve that indispensable base for peace.

To argue that American soldiers have a duty to fight on the side of the Iraq’s elected government is specious. That government is a patchwork of enemy factions whose politicians argue in parliament while their militants kill one another and Americans in the streets. Ultimately, US troops end up fighting on behalf one set of factions against the others.

That allows those engaged in civil war to pretend they are fighting a nationalist war to prevent American domination of the region. It also allows powers exogenous to Iraq, including al Qaeda, Iran and Syria, to use the chaos to conduct proxy war against the US.

The new American message to Iraq’s native warring factions should be, “We will not referee your fratricide. If you want us to leave, you must reach your own sustainable political settlements. You can not push us out through insurgency and chaos. We will leave when the fighting stops. In the interim, we will not favor any group or fight alongside it.�

A concurrent message is: “Our military mission in Iraq will be to disallow three things. First, the creation of an Iraqi government hostile to the US and its allies or one that harbors global terrorists. Second, exogenous interference if that is hostile to the US. Third, partition of Iraq among Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites.�

A third message is: “If you take the route of this kind of beneficial political settlement, we will help you with massive aid for reconstruction and development.” The aid is required to repair some of America’s blunders in this war.

This hands-off approach within clearly set parameters may sound cynical but it would be the least bloody option for both Americans and for Iraqis.

At the moment, there is only one element in favor of the US. It derives from the fact that no faction is strong enough to prevail over others without American military help or help from some other foreign power. Nor can any community impose partition on Iraq without support from Washington or other foreign powers.

Each warring faction will be forced to seek political compromise, if Washington refuses military help and interdicts help from any other foreign power. Destroying an Iraqi militia like the Mahdi army is of little use politically. The need is only to prevent a militia from militarily defeating any other.

Americans should no longer kill alongside the government but they should stay for as long as it takes its components to realize that none can successfully dominate the entire government through violent conflict on the streets or capture power over any oil-rich region of the country for its own benefit.

That realization is the only way to bring them to the point where they recognize the futility of fratricidal warfare and the self-destructiveness of allowing Iran, Syria or al Qaeda to meddle in their homeland.

The Kurd, Sunni and Shiite divides are not insurmountable. Local conflict resolution held the peace allowing the communities to intermingle and intermarry for generations.

Traditional methods are failing now because various factions think they can exploit American military power to gain precedence over their rivals. When that possibility is removed, they will be forced to make their peace through workable power sharing. But such arrangements will remain unstable so long as Washington seeks to manipulate them.

This hands-off approach would allow Washington to design a successful exit strategy from Iraq, without leaving it in chaos or creating power vacuums for al Qaeda and Iran to fill.

It would also place the needs of peace and security of the unfortunate Iraqi people above those of a graceful exit for the US from a historical blunder. If more Iraqis die before there is peace it would be at the hands of other Iraqis, not Americans. No further young American women and men would die as servants of any Iraqi factions, including those in government, trying to take advantage of the chaos to secure power and wealth.

The probability of Iraq escaping hands hostile to the US would also be increased because one element would be certain for all involved, namely, that there is no way of getting rid of the US invader other than satisfying the above-mentioned conditions.