I couldn't help stealing that great post title from Patricia Kushlis (PHK) of Whirled View. Her starting point is Elisabeth Bumiller's recent White House Letter ($ req'd), which noted that the Bush Administration is now "on message" regarding the existential threat of an AlQaeda-sponsored caliphate.

Needless to say, both the history and geography contained in the warnings from Cheney et al are more than mildly suspect, as PHK illustrates. But the Caliphate is certainly a colorful way to package the President's claims that the West is engaged in another generational struggle of near-apocalyptic proportions akin to the Cold War. Norman Podhoretz and the World War IV advocates must be highly gratified.

"D" is for Dominoes?

Few would argue that the US is not facing a long-term threat of terrorist attacks on US interests at home and abroad. The debate is rather about the appropriate strategy for addressing that threat, which depends in part on how one views the nature and sources of the enemy's strengths and weaknesses, and the best means to reduce its strength and counter its ability to cause lasting damage. And one of the central points of contention in that debate is the place, within the "global struggle against violent extremism" (yes, GSAVE is actually a useful concept despite its origins) of the current fighting with the AlQaeda-linked insurgents in Iraq.

By introducing the caliphate argument, the Administration seems to be shifting away from crude "flypaper" logic, although certainly not abandoning the rhetoric entirely, based on the President's Sunday speech from the Oval Office. The handy feature of the caliphate argument is that it doesn't simply equate Iraq as the "central front in the GWOT" because that's where the terrorists are fighting. Rather, Iraq is proclaimed to be the main line of defense against the encroachment of a geopolitical enemy. We can't leave Iraq because it could be taken over by AlQaeda -- step one in the march to the caliphate. Echoes of dominoes anyone?

Big Media Justin and his Cato colleague, Christopher Preble, have addressed the Administration's fear of an AlQaeda victory in Iraq in The Daily Star. After examining Iraqi and Arab public opinion, as well as the hostility against AlQaeda of other well-armed Iraqi insurgent groups and sectarian militias, they conclude that if America leaves, AlQaeda will not inherit Iraq.

As Logan and Preble parse recent speeches by Administration figures, what emerges is not only the argument that AlQaeda's defeat in Iraq (by the US or by Iraqi forces?) will be critical to preventing AlQaeda from achieving its goal of a caliphate. That argument is supplemented by the assertion that a withdrawal by the US would be greeted by AlQaeda as a moral victory, which would in turn attract legions of bandwagonning Muslim supporters across the arc of instability.

And "P" is for Peace with Honor?

Shades of Nixon and Kissinger's "peace with honor," the President's Sunday speech expanded on the theoretical costs of America's losing credibility by prematurely withdrawing from Iraq, providing a laundry list of international audiences:

We would abandon our Iraqi friends and signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word. We would undermine the morale of our troops by betraying the cause for which they have sacrificed. We would cause the tyrants in the Middle East to laugh at our failed resolve, and tighten their repressive grip. We would hand Iraq over to enemies who have pledged to attack us and the global terrorist movement would be emboldened and more dangerous than ever before. To retreat before victory would be an act of recklessness and dishonor, and I will not allow it.

Logan and Preble respond to the President's final warning:

The jihadis will certainly claim that the American withdrawal represents a victory for their side, but they will do so whenever U.S. forces leave - be that next year, or 10 years from now. In his Johns Hopkins speech, Rumsfeld declared that a "retreat in Iraq" would tell our enemies "that if America will not defend itself against terrorists in Iraq, it will not defend itself against terrorists anywhere."

That is absurd. An American military withdrawal from Iraq would not signal that the U.S. has chosen to ignore events there; it expects all countries around the world to cooperate with it in the fight against terrorism. The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq must be coupled with a clear and unequivocal message to the people of Iraq, and to the world: Do not threaten us; do not support anti-American terrorists. Meanwhile, the U.S. must continue to pursue Zarqawi and his network, just as it pursues bin Laden and his network. The world can be assured: the U.S. will take all necessary measures to carry the fight the enemy, wherever he might reside, be that in Germany, Afghanistan or Iraq.

An American military withdrawal from Iraq will hardly be a stepping stone for Al-Qaeda's grandiose plan to establish an Islamic super-state from Morocco to Indonesia. The Bush administration ought to stop inflating the costs of leaving Iraq, and take a more serious look at the benefits.

That's not to suggest that the Iraqis, the US and Iraq's neighbors shouldn't be concerned about AlQaeda taking advantage of chaos and low-grade civil war in western Iraq to maintain fluid bases of operations from which attacks outside Iraq could be carried out. The recent bombings in Amman underscore that threat. But that argues more in favor of working on the political dimensions of the non-AlQaeda insurgencies. (More on that later.) Not on casting the conflict in Iraq with Zarqawi's supporters as the battlefield on which the future of a caliphate is to be determined.

As I've argued for a long time, the US needs a "peace with honor" exit for its own political equilibrium, not for its international standing, which will be helped, not hurt, by significantly scaling back its involvement in Iraq. And I'm willing to engage in a few harmless fictions from the Administration if it's helpful to that process. But ginning up new existential battles is a pernicious distortion of the threat from terrorism America is facing as well as of the nature of the conflicts in Iraq and the Middle East. As we should already have learned from the Iraq/WMD fiasco, fashioning and executing sensible strategy is considerably more difficult when the Administration engages in fanciful threat inflation.

cross-posted at American Footprints

Dave Schuler (The Glittering Eye) and I have been exchanging some lengthy comments on his blog about the domestic politics of the war in Iraq. Dave and I have similar perspectives on the war -- not only why it was a bad idea strategically in the first place but how, once the US went into Iraq, the US has had both a responsibility and a strategic national interest that compel it to try to make the best of its intervention. We also share similar views of the dynamics of the on-the-ground situation and the limited options remaining now to the US. And we both get extremely cranky when public debate disintegrates into the false dichotomy of "withdrawal" versus "stay the course." At least rhetorically, Dave's a bit more optimistic than I am. He still talks in terms of possible "victory" in the long-term, whereas I've been in "damage control" mode for some time. Still, I'd say that compared to the wide range of opinions about Iraq that you find in the blogosphere, Dave and I are more often than not on the same page (or at least in the same section of the hymnal).

Which is why I find it interesting that Dave and I have such markedly different opinions about the play of domestic politics re Iraq. At the end of an excellent discussion of assumptions underlying the "National Victory Strategy" presented by the President on Wednesday, Dave "couldn't resist" the following remark about "a good part of the Democratic Party" including at least one of what we might call war-Dems, Senator Clinton:

C’mon, folks. Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.

In response, I too "couldn't resist" -- commenting in part:

Sorry Dave, you should have resisted. The critiques by the “war-Dems” have been the same as the Republican Senators like McCain, Hagel, Lugar (and even increasingly Warner!) — and they’ve been on the money for the last several years in terms of where the big weaknesses have been in the Admin’s abysmal planning and execution. The changes in policy we’ve seen over the past 4-6 months under the Casey/Khalizad team are the sorts of things that “war-Dems” and the more serious of the Republican Senators have been calling for since 2003. Note Lugar-Biden attempts to deal with these issues in hearings that the media have generally ignored.

I don’t see what the war-Dems have been doing as anything other than responsible. They’re not in a position to “lead”, they surely shouldn’t be expected to have “followed” the criminally incompetent Admin without insisting on changing course, nor do I see them as “in the way.”

Dave clarified what he had meant by his off-the-cuff slap, I responded with a monstrously long essay in the comment thread, and Dave has now penned a further post that goes to what I believe is the heart of the matter. Rather than continue to bury this discussion in comment threads, and eat up vast quantities of his bandwidth, I figured I'd post my response here.

Dave's new post is appropriately titled “The President proposes, Congress disposes” -- "a play on a much older apothegm: 'Man proposes but God disposes'."

When you realize that in the Washingtonism “Man” has been replaced by “The President” and “God” by “Congress”, the meaning becomes quite clear: the President is the handmaiden of Congress and subject to its will, not the other way around.

Under our system the president has primary responsibility for the military, the conduct of foreign policy, and the administration of the departments of government:

The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

and enforcing the law. The Congress has primary responsibility for the creation, passage, and promulgation of laws (and, of course, raising and apportioning revenue).

Here’s what the Constitution says about the president’s responsibilities in formulating domestic policy:

He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.

It should be clear that ours is a system in which the bulk of the responsibility particularly in the area of domestic policy devolves upon the Congress; we expect leadership and courage from our Congress; when you have cowardice and venality and a willingness to wait for the President to act and then snipe you get, well, what we have now. But that’s not our system it’s a perversion of our system.
[...]
Like it or not Senators are leaders. The slim Republican majority in the Senate doesn’t absolve the Democrats in the Senate from the responsibility to lead.

Let me be very clear: I’m not just critical of Senate Democrats. I think the Senators of both political parties did not fulfill their responsibilities when they authorized the president to go to war with insufficient debate. But I further think that those Senators who voted “Nay” had a responsibility to hold their peace once our soldiers had gone into harm’s way and those who voted “Aye” had an affirmative responsibility to defend their vote and advocate the position to the American people. This is manifestly not what happened and that’s why I’m convinced that many Senators, particularly Senate Democrats, did not vote their consciences but voted with one eye (as Nadezhda pointed out) on the midterm elections and the other on the upcoming presidential primaries. Of course there will be political calculation from Senators. But there should be more than political calculation. Where is the statesmanship? We aren’t just warring factions; we’re all Americans.

I also freely acknowledge that the greatest incompetency of the Bush Administration has been in communicating with the American people, with the Iraqi people, and with the world. But the Administration doesn’t have sole responsibility for communicating with the American people. Congress has substantial responsibilities in that area, too.

I share Dave's visceral commitment to what at times seems like an old-fashioned notion of separation of powers, with each branch responsible for playing its part and protecting its prerogatives in order for the system's checks and balances to work. Since I began blogging, one of my recurrent themes has been that our checks and balances haven't been working properly in recent years.

Dave and I are also certainly on the same page in believing that Congress has not been living up to its responsibilities. In my view, only the courts have provided an occasional check on executive power. I am personally hopeful, with the first small indications of a reassertion by the Senate of its institutional prerogatives, that a rebalancing is starting to emerge.

I don't, however, put Congress' failure down to sheer cravenness on the part of either individuals or their respective parties. Instead, I see several (hopefully transient) structural factors that have recently inhibited the sort of Democratic leadership Dave calls for -- or encouraged the media to ingnore attempts at constructive leadership by either Democrats or Republicans on the Hill -- while producing a quasi-parliamentary arrangement that fits poorly with the US system.

As Jack Balkan points out in a very nice short essay on the subject of checks and balances, James Madison's assumptions didn't include political parties. When US parties start acting as cohesive blocks, the system's potential weaknesses become glaring. Even before 9/11, some political trends had converged to produce a far more disciplined party-based organization (running the House, extending into the Senate once the party took over the White House, and maintaining its power base through especially effective political-financial connections) than has traditionally been the case in our national politics.

When one party hits the rare "constitutional trifecta" as Balkin calls it -- when all three branches of government "are working more or less together to achieve the party's goals" -- a parliamentary-style system is likely to emerge. And today, the power base that supports the GOP's trifecta is unusually insulated from voter sentiments by the current arithmetic of geographic representation. (See e.g. Hacker & Pierson's The Center No Longer Holds in the NYT Mag from a couple of weeks back.) The cohesion of this party-based organization has been more financial and electoral than ideological. It remains to be seen whether it can renew its cohesiveness now that its primary strengths -- electoral (Bush's popularity) and financial (DeLay-KStreet connection) -- are eroding and ideological fissures are widening.

It is my strong hope that we've not been going through a permanent change in America's political system. Rather, I prefer to believe that we've encountered a sort of perfect storm that has produced an excess of executive power which will be soon begin to be corrected. The combination of 9/11's trauma and the peculiar (to the US) polarizing style of this White House and GOP congressional leadership, when combined with the related growth of executive-branch patronage, has overridden the inherently conservative brakes of our system, not only in the legislative branch but within the executive branch itself. It's not simply the problem of the so-called "Mayberry Machievellis" who ignore substantive policy issues in favor of a purely political calculus. We have seen a widespread pattern of the Bush Administration trying to run a government via little groups of ideologically-committed but inexperienced appointees who bypass the bureaucracy (whether civil service, foreign service, military or intelligence). These practices have served neither the Bush Administration nor the country well.

Post-invasion Iraq and Katrina are two sides of the same coin. Organization Theory 101 teaches us that when you don't involve the folks with experience who are going to have to execute policy in your policymaking or planning, then when it comes time for action and you put your foot on the accelerator, you won't get to where you want to go. The engine may reve, but the connections to the gears and steering are missing or broken. This has not been a problem for the Bush Administration exclusively in the realms of military action or homeland security. The Administration has also been hollowing out the most professional and effective, and least partisan, parts of the bureaucracy, such as Justice and Treasury, and seeding the second tier of departments and agencies with political hacks and ideological naifs. The costs to the government and the nation are increasingly visible, and Congress is finally starting to push back on the appointment process.

In recent months, as more buried problems from Bush's first term start rearing their ugly heads in the press and Senators of both parties increase their pointed critiques of Administration policy, we're starting to hear indirectly from government, military and intel professionals who have been bypassed by the White House (or the Vice President's office) and its political apparatus in the departments and agencies. The whole "torture" and "detainees" issue is a perfect example -- the WH, OSD and DoJ ignored the accumulated wisdom of both the government departments and the military. The bipartisan opposition in the Senate, being led as much by Republicans as Democrats, is starting to give voice to those views. The same has been happening with a number of aspects of the Administration's military, political and diplomatic efforts in Iraq and the Middle East more boradly. Jack Murtha, John Warner, Chuck Hagel, John McCain and Joe Biden each have a different approach for the future course the US should take. But though their conclusions differ, they are all reflecting the facts and opinions they are regularly receiving from officials and officers who have been unable to be heard within the Administration's own decision-making processes.

I think Dave and I agree that a more robust system of Congressional (and especially Senatorial) oversight would and should have brought those voices and views to the fore years ago. As I see it, however, better late than never. I think we are starting to see a natural and healthy process of rebalancing, although it will be a noisy and acrimonious process. But then, it takes a good deal of noise and acrimony to effect a rebalancing when the system has gotten so far out of whack.

My principal disagreement with Dave is that I do not see the noise as the actions of a minority political party adopting the role of "parliamentary opposition" or failing to embrace the fact that "we're all Americans" when it comes to issues of war and peace. We should not be surprised by an occasional "parliamentary opposition" stance taken by the Democrats, primarily in the House given the way it's run. And perhaps on the Alito nomination in the Senate, especially if his files keep producing a stream of worrisome evidence of his opinions and habit of thought on some key issues.

But on the Iraq war, I don't see a "parliamentary opposition" emerging or likely to emerge. The Democrats have agreed to disagree among themselves for the past three years. As the debates heat up, they are already reverting to form (and to the incentives of the US system of constituency representation), with a considerable variety of individually-defined and rather nuanced positions. I assume that Reid and Pelosi won't even try for a unified party position on the war, since they know better than anyone it's like trying to herd cats. As the President's power has started to erode, the same phenomenon, by the way, has been emerging on the Republican side in the Senate, though the critiques of the President's performance by Republican Senators are more implicit than explicit.

Instead, we're likely to see more and more highly charged debates over policy positions that are, on close examination, difficult to distinguish. Battles to the death over distinctions without significant differences may simply be the way the American political system deals with disagreements over war, as Ed Kilgore has recently reminded us.

I had one of those old-guy moments today when I suddenly remembered a moment in the debate on Vietnam which reminds me of the odd disjunction between the relatively small policy differences dividing most Democrats and many Republicans on Iraq, and the big tonal and intepretative differences they sometimes convey.

In the famously fractious 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the big platform debate over Vietnam (note to young people: this was back when big platform debates were still possible) involved a majority plank which endorsed free elections in South Vietnam to create a coalition government including the National Liberation Front (the political arm of the Viet Cong), and a minority plank endorsing a coalition government including the NLF that would be required to sponsor free elections. The policy distinctions between these two planks were about as meaningful as today's difference between supporters of a benchmarked withdrawal from Iraq based on estimated dates, and a timetable withdrawal contingent on benchmarks.

Yet at the time, these two proposals were almost universally described by the news media as "pro-war" and "anti-war" platform planks.

The lesson is this: So much as many of us might wish to focus on the policy details of proposals about what to do now in Iraq, you can't take the politics out of politics, and the "tonal" or "contextual" implications of various proposals, despite their substantive similarity, matter a great deal.

The challenge of reconciling policy with political imperatives isn't unique to Democrats. Praktike and I have written repeatedly on the huge gap between the President's political rhetoric on Iraq and the evolving (and improving) policies being adopted by both the military and the State Department in his second term. The primary virtue of what the President accomplished in his speech this week was to narrow the rhetoric/reality gap, as did his spokesman in somewhat disingenously claiming that Senator Biden's proposals represented Biden's embrace of the President's own strategy, as described by Eric Martin.

These sorts of "failures to communicate" that Dave bemoans are, in part, driven by political considerations of the White House and politicians of both parties positioning themselves with the electorate. Let's hope for all our sakes that the politics this time serves a broader purpose than acting as a circular firing squad of Democrats. At the close of Jack Balkin's admittedly partisan essay on the structural reasons for recent failures of Congressional oversight, he asks:

If Congress won't perform its assigned function of oversight, the only recourse is the American people. Will they become sufficiently engaged to put our constitutional system back in order, and once again let ambition counter ambition?

Many media commentators, especially the purveyors of "moderation" and the "pox on both your houses" punditocracy, argue that the Democrats shouldn't run so heavily against the performance of the Bush Administration since Bush won't be on the ballot in 2008. But that misses the point that one of the major political themes running across both domestic and foreign policy is a rebalancing of the system of powers. It's in the interest of the health of the body politic that we "once again let ambition counter ambition."

[cross-posted at American Footprints aka Liberals against Terrorism]

A follow-up to praktike's prior post. Prak points to why I found the recent profile on a group of Sunni insurgents so interesting. You wouldn't know it from listening to our President or Secretary of State, but political participation and violence aren't an "either/or" proposition. In the run-up to the December elections, we shouldn't anticipate that violence will be limited to those insurgents who oppose any Sunni participation in the electoral process. Nor should we expect that a high turnout in Sunni areas would foretell a major reduction in post-election violence.

One reason to expect continued violence is highlighted in the article prak cites: even if Sunnis were more satisfied with their representation in the emerging political system, that would not remove one of the major motives for violence -- the US presence. But even if the US military were to withdraw tomorrow and the December elections produced a more "inclusive" political system, we should not be surprised if violence remains a significant feature of the political landscape.

Just an impression -- sorry, no links -- but it seems to me commentators are starting to use the three-plus decades of Northern Ireland's Troubles to point out a simple fact: political participation and violence are often complementary tactics within a broader opposition/resistance strategy. The "military wing" can be used to enhance credibility or political power for the "political wing."

Some of the patterns we should expect during the run-up to and after the December elections among Sunni groups that aren't total rejectionists of any political participation:

• The "hard men" try to get the government and other political groups to take their "political wing" seriously by, at the very least, holding out the threat of continued violence.
  
• They use high-profile attacks to attract the support (including the votes) of constituencies that agree with their aims and admire their willingness to fight and take personal risks.
  
• They try to radicalize the political process by muscling out of the political space (through intimidation, assassination etc) other politicians who are competing for the same base but who renounce violence.
  
• They use violent criminal activities (robbery, smuggling, kidnapping, protection rackets and other extortion) to obtain important resources for their movement (funding, weapons) or enhance their personal power via personal enrichment.

A number of these observations would also apply in some regions to Shi'a and Kurd militias that are closely linked with formal political groupings.

I'm not suggesting that elections are bad. In fact, one of the reasons I had hoped for elections in Iraq much earlier was to reduce the period of time during which "vested interests" in continued violence, especially criminal connections, were created and became valuable for members of fighting groups. The fact that a large number of individuals have "vested interests" in continued violence means that, at least for many Sunni groups, the "military wing" is likely to outweigh the political side for some time to come. The importance of the "military wing" for the Kurds and some of the Shi'a groups will actually increase in some locations, such as Kirkuk, where key political solutions are yet to be defined.

The continued importance of the "military wings" reduces the likelihood that Khalizad's "national reconciliation strategy" (see Fareed Zakaria) will produce quick, large-scale reduction in the level of violence. We should also expect that any attempts by the US to negotiate with insurgent groups will be an immensely complex and drawnout process.

That's not to suggest that a primary focus on political solutions to address violence by insurgent or militia groups is unwarranted. On this score, the Bush Administration is right -- insurgencies are ultimately defeated politically, not militarily. Indeed, pursuing policies that establish reconciliation processes, such as amnesties, are critical and, in fact, probably long overdue. In my opinion, the significance of Saddam's trial is ultimately how it contributes to or erodes the prospects of Iraqis becoming reconciled with their future political system, if not with each other and with their pasts.

In the long run, the fighters have to be either brought "in from the cold" or, if they refuse to renounce violence, marginalized from mainstream political, social and economic life. As is illustrated by the gradual process by which Sein Fein distanced itself from the military IRA, if the political system begins to work, there seems to come a "tipping point" where violence starts working against the political agenda rather than supporting it. But Northern Ireland also illustrates that it's a long, complicated process that demands both the internal development of political institutions and continuing engagement by the international community.

[cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism]

From The New York Times, September 3, 2005
Thanks to Guards, Iraq Oil Pipeline Is Up and Running, On and Off
By James Glanz

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 2 - Saboteurs shut down Iraqi crude oil exports to Turkey for virtually all of the past year, but the oil is flowing again after Iraq's government put in place elaborate new security measures and decided to move its product in what is essentially a clandestine operation.

In the new export system, described over the last two weeks by officials in two state-owned oil companies, the Iraqi armed forces and a deputy prime minister, officials secretly open Iraq's northern pipeline to send batches of oil to Turkey and then shut it down again before insurgents can attack.

The government has recruited, trained and equipped thousands of local tribesmen and stationed them at hundreds of new guard posts along the pipeline. But disputes have already broken out within the government over who will pay the hundreds of millions of dollars it will take to continue that arrangement and expand it to cover all vulnerable points.

World oil prices, now just under $70 a barrel, have recently displayed strong sensitivity to fluctuating supplies, and Iraq's northern oil fields, centered on the city of Kirkuk, can produce close to a million barrels a day, according to estimates by the state-owned North Oil Company and the United States Energy Department.

Oil from the northern fields also feeds crucial refineries and power plants in Iraq. The new system for moving that oil around relies on gradually filling up storage tanks in secure areas near Kirkuk and then, at unannounced times, sending the oil in the tanks as quickly as possible through the pipelines.

Still, as a result of the sporadic operation, a total of only five million barrels of oil flowed from the northern oil fields in August to the Turkish export terminals at the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, said Mussab al-Dujayli, director general of Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization. This year Iraq has exported an average of about 1.4 million barrels a day, mostly from its southern fields.

Drawing on an Arabic proverb, Defense Minister Sadoun al-Dulaimi said the significance of the first trickle of oil from the north should not be dismissed. "One eye better than none, my friend," Mr. Dulaimi said in English.

Even in the south, power failures and other technical problems have limited exports, with serious implications for Iraq's budget, which depends almost entirely on oil.

Just before the invasion by the United States and its allies in 2003, Iraqi oil exports peaked at more than two million barrels a day, and the country's bottomless financial needs have placed enormous pressure on the rich northern fields to pick up the shortfall.

The north has failed to put a dent in the country's needs or to significantly affect the world market, even with the latest advances, said Anne Korin, director of policy and strategic planning at Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington, which closely follows the Iraqi oil industry.

"It's kind of like the Red Queen" in "Through the Looking Glass," Ms. Korin said, "running like crazy just to stay in place. Even when you're managing to get some flow out every once in a while, that's just not going to add up to enough."

The new security measures were evident during a trip along a critical stretch of pipeline between Kirkuk and Baiji last week in an armed convoy accompanying Ahmad Chalabi, the deputy prime minister whose portfolio includes energy infrastructure. From Baiji, 80 miles southwest of Kirkuk, the export pipeline pivots north toward Turkey.

Every mile or two a handful of newly minted Iraqi soldiers wearing camouflage uniforms were standing at attention next to ragged tents and huts as Mr. Chalabi's convoy of about 30 white sport utility vehicles passed. Some four battalions, or more than 3,000 troops, were recently hired in this part of the country from local tribes and given basic military training as part of the new pipeline security program.

"For the time being we have tents and whatever," said Lt. Gen. Nasier Abadi of the Iraqi Army, who supervises parts of the project. "But we are building them camps."

General Abadi said the recruits, paid about $350 a month, were mostly drawn from Sunni Arab and Turkmen tribes. Both ethnic groups have been accused of close ties with insurgent groups in this area of Iraq, but the general said there had been no trouble drumming up interest in the security force since this part of the program began on July 15.

"Lots of people would like a job that pays $350 a month," he said.

In another little-known element of the initiative, the fledgling Iraqi Air Force is flying three surveillance planes over the pipelines to scan for insurgent activity, said Raoul Alcala, an American who advises the defense minister on national security and works from the United States Embassy in Baghdad.

The planes, which originally came as a gift from the United Arab Emirates, have infrared and visible-light cameras in their noses, and "they can fly low and slow enough to actually see things," Mr. Alcala said.

"It's not just a blur."

But such initiatives do not come cheap, he said. The tab just for three months of organizing, training and equipping the first four battalions will come to $35 million, he said. If the initial phase is successful, he said, it will be expanded so that 15,000 new troops will guard pipelines across northern Iraq, all the way south to Baghdad and north to the Turkish border.

That would be in addition to 30,000 men who are already guarding specific installations like power plants and oil wells, though not very effectively. Mr. Dulaimi, the defense minister, estimated that just the program to add the new troops would cost $375 million, and he added that it was unclear whether the Defense Ministry or the Oil Ministry would pay for it all.

So far, Mr. Dulaimi said, "We asked the Oil Ministry to support our budget, and the Oil Ministry just paid four battalions."

The oil minister was not on this trip and was unavailable for comment, but Muhsin Shlash, the electricity minister, did come along. During a long stop for gas, Mr. Shlash said that because the oil and electricity infrastructures were so intertwined, and because high-tension lines often ran parallel to pipelines, a joint protection plan was being explored.

He pointed out that during the previous weekend, for example, coordinated sabotage attacks on power lines around Baghdad had produced a nationwide blackout that had temporarily stopped all oil exports, including those in the south. In addition to all of the other thousands of security troops looking after Iraq's infrastructure, the Electricity Ministry employs 10,000 guards, Mr. Shlash said. "But how effective they are, I'm not convinced," he added.

Clearly relishing the trip through what often amounted to rebel-held territory, Mr. Chalabi repeatedly said that because the oil generated so much revenue, financing for the new troops and surveillance efforts would be forthcoming.

Mr. Chalabi particularly seemed to enjoy a Boris Yeltsin-like moment when he clambered up next to a big tripod-mounted machine gun on the bed of a white Chevy Silverado pickup to survey a grassy area near a stretch of pipeline that had been the target of a mortar attack on Aug. 9. The shells fell harmlessly and the insurgents retreated, the local officers in charge said.

"Attacks have been reduced dramatically since you took over," Mr. Chalabi said, standing in the back of the Silverado. "We congratulate you."

But perhaps the most telling moment came at another stop, where he was surrounded by a crowd of soldiers who said they had not been paid their salaries in three months. "Send me your names," Mr. Chalabi said, promising that they would be paid.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

From the New York Times, August 30, 2005
By Eric Schmitt

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 - The Air Force's top general said Monday that American warplanes would have to support Iraq's fledgling security forces well after American ground troops eventually withdraw from the country.

Gen. John P. Jumper, who is to step down this week as the Air Force chief of staff, predicted that American fighter and reconnaissance aircraft would continue flying missions over Iraq for a long time, until Iraqi forces are capable of fighting insurgents on their own.

"As I see the transition into the hands of the Iraqi military, I will continue to see the need for them to require the support from the air until they're able to set up their own ability to support themselves," General Jumper told reporters at the Pentagon. "And that's going to take a while, even after some future withdrawal of ground forces."

In an interview earlier this month, General Jumper was even more explicit when asked about the Air Force's future in Iraq. "We will continue with a rotational presence of some type in that area more or less indefinitely," he said. "We have interests in that part of the world and an interest in staying in touch with the militaries over there."

American and other allied combat aircraft, including remotely piloted Predator drones, now fly about 50 close-air support and armed reconnaissance missions every day. Iraq's tiny air force consists of just a few cargo and reconnaissance planes; the main allied effort has been to rebuild the Iraqi ground forces.

A small number of the American planes are in Iraq, and if they remain there, they would have to be protected, probably by United States ground forces. But many American warplanes also fly missions over Iraq from other countries in the region.

In the wide-ranging interview with reporters on Monday, General Jumper said the loss of access to an important air base in Uzbekistan could be offset without hurting combat operations and relief missions in Afghanistan.

"We have plenty of alternatives," he said, without identifying them. "From a political point of view, I'm disappointed we've been asked to leave. From a mission point of view, we're going to get the mission just fine."

He also said that despite a decision last week by the military base-closing commission to keep Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota open and to delay the closing of Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico, as well as to restore some proposed shifts of Air National Guard units, the panel approved about 70 percent of the Pentagon's recommendations affecting Air Force bases.

"That's still a considerable amount of change," General Jumper said. "I don't look at it as a severe blow. I look at it as getting actually most of what we asked for."

Four previous commissions each endorsed about 85 percent of the Defense Department's recommendations to close, consolidate or shift military sites. A Pentagon spokesman, Glenn Flood, said Pentagon analysts were still calculating the results of the panel's decisions last week.

General Jumper, 60, whose first day at the office as chief of staff was Sept. 11, 2001, will be succeeded Friday by the Air Force vice chief of staff, Gen. T. Michael Moseley.

Via AP, More Changes Said Likely to Iraq Charter:

The U.S. ambassador suggested Tuesday there may be further changes to the draft constitution in order to win Sunni Arab approval, saying he believed a "final, final draft" had not yet been presented.
[...]
"I believe that a final, final draft has not yet been, or the edits have not been, presented yet, so that is something that Iraqis will have to talk to each other and decide for themselves," Khalilzad told reporters.

The law says the version signed off on by parliament Sunday cannot be amended. But Khalilzad said the door could be open for changes declared as "edits" to the approved text. There was no official comment from the Shiite parliamentary leadership on whether it shared that opinion.

However, influential Shiite lawmaker Khaled al-Attiyah, a member of the constitution drafting committee, insisted that "no changes are allowed to be made to the constitution" except for "minor edits for the language."

Shiite leaders consider some of the Sunni objections — especially on federalism and references to the Baath Party — as matters of principle.

An Arab League official in Cairo, meanwhile, said Arab diplomats were urging the Iraqis to amend the constitution to strengthen references to the country's role in the Arab world.

Iraqi Sunni Arabs cited the phrase among reasons they rejected the draft, . Although the law forbids further changes in the draft, the stakes are so high that Iraqis may overlook legalisms in a bid for unity. A Sunni constitution negotiator urged all opponents of the constitution, including radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, to join a national front against the charter.

Khalilzad spoke alongside prominent Sunni leader Adnan al-Dulaimi, who urged Sunnis to reject the constitution in the Oct. 15 referendum as it stands. He also denounced the Shiite-led Interior Ministry for allegedly murdering Sunnis.

It was unclear if negotiations among the factions were actually under way. But the presence of Khalilzad with a respected Sunni figure was a clear sign the Bush administration has not given up on its campaign to win Sunni endorsement before the referendum.

"With regards to the constitution, as I said before, if Iraqis among themselves, in the assembly and those from outside, decide to make some adjustments compared to the draft that was presented three, four days ago, it's entirely up to them," Khalilzad said.

Let's set to one side the awkward detail that the draft has already appeared in the local newspapers and may already have started coming off the printing presses for public distribution.

What seems clear is not just that the Founding Fathers shtick isn't playing very well, in either Baghdad or Peoria. The US is understandably getting mighty uncomfortable being in the position of defending a constitutional process that's seen by many Sunnis, in and outside Iraq, as a declaration of civil war. And of building the capacity of an army and police force that are viewed as already engaged in "soft cleansing." Standing next to a Sunni leader, it's becoming harder for Zal Khalilzad to maintain even a figleaf of an "honest broker" role. Yet the grand irony is that the US military will be fighting "anti-Iraqi forces" to try to ensure security for Sunni voters to get to the polls to defeat the draft constitution.

Meanwhile, the Arab League is, of course, typically late to the party. And futhermore, if the Arab League actually wanted to be relevant to the whole process, they could focus a bit more on substance. The "Arab nation" issue is certainly important and hot-button, but the legitimate problems the Sunni negotiators had with the draft go to the structure of the country, their role in it, and whether the majority is going to steamroll them on a regular basis, not Arab identity. The Daily Star, no fan of Amr Moussa in any event, argues that the League's General Secretary and the League itself are worse than useless.

[Moussa's] current criticism of the Iraqi charter offers no tangible solutions and therefore does little to ease the volatile situation in the country. Given the fact that the only hope for Iraq at this crucial juncture is the political process, Moussa's statement, which undermines that process, only serves to fuel sectarian aggravations in the country.

Sadly, Moussa has never made an effort to take the Iraqis under the wing of the league. This paper urged the Arab League to become actively involved in the drafting of the Iraqi constitution by offering guidance, advice and expertise. Discussions over the draft charter could have taken place under the auspices of the Arab League, but the organization never managed to rise to the level of the challenges in Iraq. For months, as the debate over federalism and Arabism has been raging, the Arab League has said nothing. If these issues were of such great Arab concern, one wonders why Moussa didn't visit Iraq and meet with the various community leaders to urge consensus on the matter.

This inaction on the part of the Arab League is also nothing new. The league was silent when thousands of Sudanese were being slaughtered by government-backed militias in Darfur. It did nothing to help resolve the dispute between Qatar and Saudi Arabia over their shared border, nor did it act to reduce tensions between Syria and Lebanon after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

A harsh assessment, yes. But unfortunately, a fair one. With Khalilzad openly taking the risk of keeping a crack open for some accommodation with the Sunnis, it remains to be seen whether outsiders like the Arab League can avoid the temptation to grandstand and instead play a useful role. Based on past performance, the odds aren't good.

Of course, if our pal Zal were listening to Jim Hoagland do his best Charlie McCarthy imitation, channeling the voice of Ahmad Chalabi, Zal wouldn't be making another "risky intervention" like the President so foolishly did last week with his famous phone call to Shi'a leader Hakim. Instead of sticking his neck out for Sunni participation, Khalilzad really ought to be joining in with the Iraqi spirit of democracy and self-governance. Instead of standing next to a Sunni leader, he ought to be signing on to the strategic alliance between Najaf and Washington advocated by another DC pundit, David Ignatius, who thinks Washington should place its bets on the Shi'a version of a "grand plan" for democracy, even if it does involve a bit more untidiness for another decade or two.

Count me a cynic, but I won't complain if Bush can relinquish his typical "we've got the votes so we call the shots" approach to politics and show some sympathy for the importance of consensus. More power to Khalilzad if, by tinkering a bit with the Iraqi democratic process, he can obtain an outcome that at least a portion of the Sunnis might be willing to endorse. Unfortunately for the US, its leverage is increasingly weak. And the position in which the US is finding itself is being dictated by local contending factions, not by US choice.

A couple of months ago, Joe Biden offered four options for the future course of the US engagement in Iraq: (1) stay the course/muddle through, (2) withdraw with or without a timetable, (3) limit US losses by throwing in with the Kurds and Shi'a, or (4) "do more, better." Biden was advocating steps he thought would make up the fourth option, but he recognized that the third option "may end up being our only option if we don't do the right thing in the near term." Increasingly, it's looking like Door No. 3 by default.

cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism

Justin Logan, sitting in at Unqualified Offerings, has fun with the pro-war folks who remain fantastically (in all senses of the word) upbeat about what the war in Iraq has wrought, no matter the evidence. He points specifically to Reuel Marc Gerecht's recent "don't worry" commentaries on the likelihood that Sharia law will have a prominent place in the new Iraq.

Gerecht's performance this weekend on Meet the Press has attracted considerable attention:

DAVID GREGORY: Fast forward to this morning. Gentlemen, we put this on the screen from The New York Times. "[American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay] Khalilzad had backed language [in the constitution] that would have given clerics sole authority in settling marriage and family disputes. That gave rise to concerns that women's rights, as they are annunciated [sic] in Iraq's existing laws, could be curtailed. ... [The] arrangement, coupled with the expansive language for Islam, prompted accusations from [a Kurdish leader] that the Americans were helping in the formation of an Islamic state."

Mr. Diamond, is that a change of position?

LARRY DIAMOND: It would be, I think, a substantial change if it's true. We need to wait and see what exactly is true. All of these are just reports. Let me say, I don't think we have--and I think Reuel would agree with this--we don't have the power anymore to foreclose this, to veto this. We're not a veto player there anymore. But neither do I think the United States should be endorsing it. And I think our clear stand should be in favor of individual rights and freedoms, including religious freedom, as vigorously as possible. So I hope the ambassador on the ground is standing up for that principle.

MR. GREGORY: Mr. Gerecht, the consequences of this?

REUEL MARC GERECHT: Actually, I'm not terribly worried about this. I mean, one hopes that the Iraqis protect women's social rights as much as possible. It certainly seems clear that in protecting the political rights, there's no discussion of women not having the right to vote. I think it's important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States, it was a democracy then. In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we'd all be thrilled. I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy. We hope they're there. I think they will be there. But I think we need to put this into perspective. [emph supplied]

I will give Gerecht this -- he's a bit more credible on this score than the johnnie-come-latelies who have recently discovered that Sharia law doesn't matter. For more than a year on the "expert panels" circuit, Gerecht has been making the case for aggressively supporting democratization in MENA, not just in Iraq, even though it will most likely involve Islamist parties gaining significant political power. And he's also been one of those pointing to ">Shi'a jurisprudential traditions (of which Sistani is a leading example) as in many ways more promising than Sunnis' in helping Islam to come to terms with the 21st century.

Gerecht argues against the sort of policies pursued with respect to Algeria when the government halted the electoral process as Islamist parties were winning victories at the ballot box. He argues that political transformation will not happen through liberal reformers taking over -- they won't get the votes -- or hoping that the current entrenched authoritarian regimes get hit by a bolt of enlightenment and suddenly transform themselves into liberal systems. Instead, transformation to a more democratic order will only occur if the Islamist politicians and clerics are made part of the system.

Gerecht is of the "give them enough rope they'll hang themselves" school. Leading Islamist political groups in most countries right now don't really have a platform -- they're mostly just opposing the current regime with vague calls for a system based in Islam which would magically be more harmonious and virtuous. Gerecht's theory is that when the Islamists have to face the hard facts of governing, they'll also have to face the reality of keeping voters happy. So democratic accountability will serve to moderate the Islamist parties over time.

I have a lot of sympathy for the broad approach of bringing the Islamist parties into the system rather than continue to try to marginalize them -- that's just putting off the inevitable and increasing the odds that when regime change finally happens it will be violently revolutionary with decades of turmoil to follow. I have also long shared Gerecht's admiration of Sistani. I must add, however, that I think Gerecht puts an excessively high premium on political freedoms relative to other freedoms.

But I'm far less relaxed about the mechanisms by which Sharia law is incorporated into a system -- it's hard to keep it limited to just dealing with "social" rights and freedoms. The temptation becomes great to have the clerics involved in the "judicial review" of the whole shooting match, which is what the really critical debate has been about over the past few days in Iraq. It's all well and good to say that the system has to be consistent with Islamic law -- the key is who decides and under what mechanism. Billmon, in his recent series on the realpolitik of Iraq's constitutional process, details the threat of a slippery slope to theocracy when clerics start getting rights of "judicial review."

The other Iraq-specific objection I have to Gerecht and his fellow-travelers is that Iraq is decidedly different from other countries in the region on the women's rights front. It's one thing to take a gradualist approach to securing and expanding women's rights as the political, social and economic cultures evolve. For example, some Arab "feminists" have had more success achieving changes in women's status laws through an appeal to Islamic principles than Western-style liberal concepts. But it's another thing altogether to take a giant leap backwards, as is being proposed in Iraq, and expect women to start all over in a gradualist process. If the proposed reversal of women's legal status is accepted, it will serve as a strong rationalization of the severe extra-legal restrictions and intimidation that, since the US invasion, have been increasingly felt across all spheres of women's lives.

Gerecht seems to think that as long as women have some minimal rights of political participation, they'll be able to eventually demand and reclaim the legal, social and economic status they enjoyed under the previous regime. But he ignores how, once the overall status of women has declined and their ability to protect themselves reduced, those minimal participatory rights to which Gerecht refers are unlikely to be very effective vehicles for making themselves heard.

Butterflies and Wheels provides the example of this problem in practice -- this week's local elections in the North Western Frontier Provinces in Pakistan. Women are legally entitled to vote, and in fact over a quarter of the candidates are women. But tribal elders took it upon themselves in some areas to ban women from voting. The national government seems to have tried to intervene to halt the denial of women's suffrage, but one would expect that there was a significant suppression of women's participation, and a number of irregularities were noted in women's (segregated, of course) polling places.

Even where women's participation is not so severely circumscribed, it's a giant leap to assume that they will be able to effectively reclaim through the political process their prior status and freedoms. A recent study of women in parliaments in Egypt, Syria and Tunisia identified a number of reasons why they have had "little legislative or political influence." First, of course, is that in most such legislative bodies, they represent a small percentage of total members. But other factors are also involved that won't be "cured" simply by mandating a certain percentage of seats go to women.

• Second, female MPs tend to avoid focusing on gender-related legislation such as women's labor rights and family laws, and instead direct their efforts to less controversial [read safer] matters....
  
  
• Third, because most women MPs belong to the ruling party, and in some cases have gained their seats through presidential appointment, they overwhelmingly support regime policies and rarely challenge the government through questioning ministers or a vote of no confidence. [This has certainly been the case for most of the women who won seats in Iraq's interim parliament as part of the national electoral lists, and it would be surprising if that pattern did not continue under the new constitution .]
  
  
• Finally, women do not coordinate among themselves on legislation, further diluting their influence. [Lack of coordination is not surprising, given the second and third factors identified above.]

If the clerics dominate "social" law and acquire strong influence over the legislative and judicial systems, then whatever pretty "equality of rights" language may be contained in the constitution will be worthless window-dressing. "Just be patient little ladies" or "go spend decades fighting to get back what you used to enjoy" isn't an adequate response.

We're looking at a tragedy, quite simply. Larry Diamond is almost certainly right -- the US doesn't have a "veto" anymore. The outcome may, by now, be unavoidable. And in the great grand "perspective" of trying to tamp down the further spread of inter-tribal warfare, sacrificing the lives of the women of Iraq may be collateral damage. But Larry Diamond had the good sense and basic humanity to hope that the US would not endorse this "compromise."

Gerecht & co should be ashamed of themselves for so lightly dismissing the terrible costs that will be borne by Iraqi women in the years ahead.

cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism

And now, moving back from politics to policy again. One of the interesting points about Juan Cole's "plan" that I linked to previously is the distinction he makes between withdrawing US ground forces based in Iraq and total disengagement. He sees an ongoing need for American military support for the Iraqi government and to deter an all-out "set-piece" civil war.

Rob Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money, in reviewing Cole's proposals, raises a good caveat on the limits to the efficacy of US air power as a guarantee.

Some similar thoughts on a "withdrawal-lite" that provides for continued engagement has been offered by Daniel Byman of Georgetown/Brookings. Brad Plumer discusses in a series of posts here, here and here.

And Kevin Drum chimes in that we have to take the risk of a failed state or civil war seriously. The debate should therefore be over how best to achieve what I've called "mission damage control." He argues for his preferred approach -- an announced timetable.

UPDATE: Fafblog has the definitive cunning plan. Check out those permanent bases!

cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism

Further on the Iraq front, shifting now from US policy to domestic politics. The Armchair Generalist picks up on press coverage of Democratic disunity on the Iraq war and how it benefits the GOP. Frustrating, agreed. A fatal flaw, not necessarily.

I'm less concerned about Democratic disunity than is the Washington press corps, which loves the "Democrats squabble" script. The main threat from disunity isn't the failure of Democrats to offer an alternative "plan" (the favorite prescription of the punditocracy, see Social Security). Rather, the threat of disunity is only if Democrats waste their ammunition on each other rather than keep it aimed squarely on Bush.

The best candid version of this argument is Digby's "pincer" strategy earlier cited by Eric Martin as an interesting perspective on the political gavotte.

I think that we are seeing a Democratic pincer movement that is going to fatally squeeze the Republican policy. On the one side we have the growing Cindy Sheehan withdrawal movement, very emotional very compelling. It's the right argument, but its main purpose is to weaken Bush --- there is no chance in hell that it will force a complete troop withdrawal. On the other side he has the Democratic establishment calling for more troops and a greater effort to gain international support. Bush cannot do that either. He is trapped. All he can say is "stay the course" which is not adequate to win and ensures that we lose slowly and painfully.

I'm sorry to have to reduce this to politics. It is an absolutely horrible situation that should have been prevented and wasn't. That was our failure. But it has happened and it is what it is. The only thing we can do is ensure that Republicans are held accountable for this failure and prepare the ground for the future. If I thought we could convince the GOP to do anything different, I would put politics aside and say that we should all work together. But that is clearly impossible. They will not listen. They will not admit that they've made any mistakes.

Rodger Payne at Duck of Minerva takes Digby's insight one step further. He explains the merit of advocating escalation as a way of peeling the "Jacksonians" away from their unconditional support of the Bush Admin. It's a way of demonstrating that the Bushies aren't really "fighting to win" -- a mortal sin in the Jacksonian scheme of things. Given the practical impediments to escalation, it's a strategy that's hard to sustain, but it's an interesting way to get past the key first step -- overcoming the "denial" stage that the President's policies are working. Payne's proposal also suggests how Democrats can join their voices to Republicans critics in attacking the objectives and conduct of the war -- a good way to counter attempts by the White House to use Iraq as a wedge issue.

Finally, I continue to try to make the case that "withdrawal" vs "stay the course" is a phony debate, and it's one to be avoided by opponents of the Bush Admin's conduct of the Iraq war. The real challenge is to shift the discussion to how best to achieve the mission -- which has already become one of damage control, despite the rhetoric of the President and Vice President -- while at the same time holding the Bush Admin accountable for the mess they've created.

From the perspective of damage control, the steps being taken by DOD and State in recent months reflect on-the-ground reality and are for the most part moving in the right direction. The risk of a widening gap between rhetoric and reality is that major decisions, such as the constitutional drafting process, will be driven by White House political imperatives rather than best judgments of what's good policy. [caveat -- there are credible arguments for pushing for a constitutional draft on schedule, but the White House's need for "progress" quite naturally raises unhealthy suspicions -- both by Americans and Iraqis -- that US politics are dominating the Iraqi constitutional process.]

As I've argued for months, Bush is out on a limb. I agree with Digby -- since Bush can't admit mistakes, all he can do now is ramp up the "noble cause" and "stay the course" rhetoric. Where I disagree with Digby is that I think the Bush Admin policymakers have already abandoned the "stay the course" strategy -- they're trying to stage manage a gradual withdrawal while minimizing damage to US interests, with an occasional photo-op to boost the claim that "we're making progress" and the phony "stay the course" strategy is working.

With his recently announced schedule of Iraq speeches, Bush will certainly try to turn the war into a wedge issue a la Vietnam. He may succeed again, but it's not going to be nearly as easy as it was in the 2004 elections. The portion of the public that can be mobilized with standard flag-waving is declining, not just because the news from Iraq has been depressing but because the stated objectives (freedom on the march and the 9/11-flypaper theory) are less and less credible. With the growing rhetoric/reality gap, the old arguments aren't going to satisfy an American public that is getting increasingly frustrated, whether they think withdrawal or escalation is the better direction to go in.

I'm not sure what sort of Democratic "plan" would serve to both unify the Democrats and counter the wedge politics of the White House. And I don't think one's necessary. There's an old principle that when your political opponent is drowning in public, don't throw him a lifepreserver by shifting attention off him and onto yourself. Surely the Democrats can remain united on two core arguments against the Bush Admin: competence and credibility.

cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism

As the past week or so of high-volume debates about Iraq has demonstrated, you don't have to have been a supporter of the US invasion of Iraq to be equally wary of the consequences of a withdrawal of US forces, whether you're Juan Cole or Dan Darling. As we've argued repeatedly on this site, the "withdraw" vs "stay-the-course" debate is artificial, although that may be the inevitable way that it's framed for partisan political purposes. The real challenges are how to manage the US military presence, which will inevitably decline in sheer numbers over the next several years, and American diplomatic and reconstruction efforts in order to minimize the risks of Iraq descending into the anarchy of a failed state or a full-scale civil war.

It may come as somewhat a surprise that Sunni political figures are talking about the same issues and sharing similar concerns. Although usually presented in the US media as implacable opponents of any US presence, Sunni leaders aren't necessarily clamoring for rapid withdrawal or even a timetable for exit. That's the picture painted by Robert Collier in the San Francisco Chronicle (via Steve Clemons).

"It's impossible for them or us to fix an exact schedule" for troop withdrawal, said Isam al-Rawi, a leader of the Muslim Scholars Association, a group of 3,000 Sunni clerics. "That is not the important thing right now. There are other steps that are much more necessary to calm the situation."

Largely unnoticed amid the U.S. political debate, al-Rawi and other Sunni leaders close to the insurgency have reached tacit consensus over the broad outline of an interim program to reduce the violence, stabilize the country and thus enable the U.S.-led coalition troops to begin a gradual withdrawal. While differences remain on some points, there is wide agreement on these steps:

• A troop pullout from most urban areas and an end to military checkpoints and raids [...]
  
  
• Overhaul of the Iraqi Army and National Guard. Although the White House and Democrats alike say they want to turn over security duties to the Iraqi Army and National Guard as soon as possible, Sunni Arabs point out that these two institutions are almost completely composed of members of their ethnic enemies -- the Kurdish peshmerga and the Shiite militias. "These people want to humiliate the Sunni," al-Hashimi said. "The Army and National Guard must be professionalized. They cannot be dominated by members of the party militias." [...]
  
  
• Release of prisoners. The number of Iraqi prisoners in American military custody has grown rapidly in recent months, with as many as 15,000 Iraqis behind bars, according to U.S. estimates.
  
  Military officials have admitted that many of the prisoners have simply been swept up in neighborhood roundups. Because there is no formal trial process, the process of vetting prisoners and releasing those found innocent is very slow. Military officials have reportedly expressed worry that the sprawling prison camps are serving as recruiting camps for al Qaeda and the most extremist insurgent groups.
  
  "There are many thousands of prisoners and there is no transparency, there is no accusation list," said Wamidh Nadhmi, the leader of the Arab Nationalist Trend, a secularist group that boycotted the January elections. [...]
  
  
• Amnesty for pro-Baathist, radical Islamist and hard-line nationalist groups, while excluding al Qaeda [and Ba'ath party leaders with blood on their hands such as Saddam Hussein].[...]
  
  
• Negotiations with the "resistance." Sunni leaders have frequently met with U.S. officials in Baghdad to try to coax them to talk with the guerrillas. They draw a line between what they call the "resistance," by which they mean Iraqi fighters who attack only U.S. and Iraqi troops, and the Sunni extremists linked to al Qaeda who have spread terror with car bombs and suicide attacks against Shiite civilians.

Of course, some items on the list aren't exclusively in the control of the Americans. In fact, a close reading of media reports over the past several months suggests that the sentiments of US military commanders on the ground aren't opposed to the items on the Sunni list, at least in broad principle although the devil is always in the details. There's also a substantial overlap between this list and an interesting set of quite specific proposals from Juan Cole today. Like an earlier discussion of options by Brad Plumer, Cole's proposals help sharpen the definition of US objectives and various approaches to meeting those objectives.

As the figleaf of "national consensus" among Iraq's major ethnic groups has dropped away in the final bargaining over the constitution, Sunnis are increasingly calling on the Americans to intervene to protect their interests. Via the CSMonitor today:

[Saleh Mutlak, a lead Sunni negotiator] says he'd despair completely of the process if it weren't for the help of a surprising new ally: the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalizad.

"Zalmay is the boss,'' says Mr. Mutlak, who himself has received death threats from members of his own community for participating in the process. "He's played a very good role slowing the other parties down, in talking to those who are asking for too much."
[...]
"We are not getting any impression that they are with this side or with that. We feel they are trying to help our side as much as the other side," says Iyad al-Sammarai, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni political group whose leaders have been arrested by American forces in the past. "I'm sure [the US] has a feeling that if a constitution is approved only by the Shiites and Kurds, they will not get what they want. What they want is stability."

Still, Mr. Sammarai says it's unclear how much US pressure can bring in this process, or if the desire for fast results will lead the US to sign off on a constitution without Sunni backing. Iraq's interim parliament is at least nominally sovereign, though reliant on the protection of 130,000 American troops.

If the draft is approved by parliament over the objections of the Sunnis, they will try to defeat the constitution in the referendum. But that means getting their voters to the polls in the four provinces where they are a substantial majority.

But if the resistance prevents Sunnis from going to the polls at all, they won't be able to vote down an unsatisfactory constitution.

"We'll appeal to the resistance to let our people vote,'' says Shakr al-Falluji, a Sunni on the drafting committee. "Hopefully they'll listen."

It would be quite an irony if it takes US forces to protect Sunni voters from intimidation, not by Sunni insurgents, but by armed groups of Shi'a and Kurds in and out of the official security forces. But as power and interests continue to shift in a highly fluid and unstable environment, we should expect that the alignment of US interests with various Iraqi groups will similarly shift back and forth. In the best case scenario, Ambassador Khalizad and the US generals will be called on increasingly to side with one group over another, all the while trying to preserve a semblance of "honest broker" status. In the worst case, the US will be caught in the middle of a shooting war.

cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism