Bush vs. Kerry on Iraq

[adios]

My take on Kerry's position on Iraq:

1. The US can't afford to have the insurgents prevail in Iraq thus the war will continue (he will stay the course) as will the war on terrror.

2. A new government in Iraq should provide stability and security to it's people. A "democratic" type government is NOT necessary thus opening the door to another oppressive dictator ruling the country.

3. The US does not have enough troop strength in Iraq and is bearing too much of the burden for the war. He will seek to increase the number of US troops in Iraq. Also he will enlist the support of the UN security council members and possibly NATO. Even though countries like France and Germany have been unwilling to get involved in Iraq, Kerry stated that he will use "statesmanship" to enlist their support. What are the chances such "statesmanship" will be successful?


My take on Bush's position on Iraq:

1. The US can't afford to have the insurgents prevail in Iraq thus the war will continue (he will stay the course) as will the war on terrror.

2. A new government in Iraq should be a "democratic" type of government as well as providing stability and security to it's people. The door to another oppressive dictator ruling the country should be slammed shut.

3. The US has enough resources to prevail in Iraq. He would welcome more coalition members supporting the cause in Iraq but he won't beg contries that have been unwilling to get involved in Iraq like France and Germany for their help. Certainly obtaining such "help" comes at a cost and that cost is likely to be a prohibitive one.



Kerry has stated throughout the campaign that the US can't afford to "lose" in Iraq and pulling out under the current circumstances would be wrong. Do you think he's telling the truth or is he lying?

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
Kerry has stated throughout the campaign that the US can't afford to "lose" in Iraq and pulling out under the current circumstances would be wrong. Do you think he's telling the truth or is he lying?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think its a mixture of the two. He probably does believe that pulling out under the current circumstances would be a bad idea. But he probably understands that the day may come when it becomes necessary to pull out, leave a shaky puppet regime in place with little long-term viability, and watch from the sidelines as it falls someday, with God knows what replacing it. Kerry as much as anybody probably knows that the Vietnam analogy here - both in terms of our inability to win "hearts and minds" while blowing things up and the political impact of growing domestic disatisfaction - is becoming increasingly valid.

But how is that really different from Bush's approach?

I will say, too, that I would turn the lie detector on the Bush administration regarding point #2.

[adios]

Good post. It looks to me like the Kurds in northern Iraq are more or less autonomous and will stay that way. I read an article today regarding Turkey and how it has changed it's thinking towards an independent Kurdish entity in northern Iraq in that it is much more receptive to the idea. The idea of a united Iraq having all the different factions under the domain of one "democratic" government seems to be a pipe dream at this point to me. In the long run it seems like three separate entitities is the most likely outcome I could be convinced otherwise. The current administration seems to have miscalculated the difficulty of initiating a democratic government for a united Iraq. We've discussed this before and are in basic agreement that the traditions of a "democratic" government take a long, long time to establish themselves. Apparently the current administration believed Chalabi and didn't have other contingincies worked out (is that the understatement of the year?)

I read an article today quoting a Kerry advisor (can't remember the name of the advisor) stating that leaving Iraq now would be a disaster. I think Kerry's goals right now for Iraq are actually fairly close to what Bush's are. The rhetoric is different somewhat though.

[sam h]

I was talking to two academics who are quite knowledgable about the Middle East (albeit very left-wing) the other day and they said they thought the one thing that would never happen would be the creation of a Kurdish state. I don't really know much about it, though if Turkey is really coming around to the idea then I'm sure that will make a big difference. I agree, though, that some sort of partition seems like a likely outcome.

To me, the fact that the plans the two parties are offering are so similar is one sign that nobody really knows what to do at this point.

[adios]

Here's an article I read yesterday:

Influential Turks Urge
Embracing Self-Rule
Of Iraqi Kurdistan

By HUGH POPE and BILL SPINDLE
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
May 19, 2004; Page A17

ANKARA, Turkey -- The deteriorating situation in Iraq is eroding a powerful taboo in its strongest neighbor, Turkey. For the first time, influential Turks are daring to countenance the emergence of a strongly autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan on its southern border -- and urging that Turkey should embrace it.

If carried out, that would amount to a reversal of Turkish policy, complicate the task of the U.S. or any new rulers in Baghdad and worry neighboring states such as Syria and Iran, which have their own ambitions and fears with regard to a breakup of Iraq.

"There is now debate in Turkey about putting an [Iraqi Kurdish] buffer between Turkey and a potentially 'Islamic' Iraq," said Faruk Demir, chief executive of Ankara's Center for Advanced Strategy.

Turkey long has argued that strengthening the autonomy of the 3.5 million Kurds in northern Iraq would act as a destabilizing model for its own 12 million ethnic Kurds, as well as the five million Kurds in Iran and the two million in Syria. Indeed, Syrian Kurds rioted in March, some of them calling for statehood, and three weeks ago President Bashar al-Assad labeled any ethnic federation in Iraq as "dangerous."

MINORITY RETORT



Kurds' Success Makes It Harder to Unify Iraq



Arab Iraqis feel that encouragement of greater Kurdish autonomy will tear apart their country, and many U.S. officials share that concern.

In Turkey, however, Mr. Demir recently broke new ground with an article arguing that Turkey should assume the role of "big brother" to the region's Kurds and become their route to the outside world. Turkish officials also are beginning to overcome their suspicions of Iraqi Kurds, he said. He described discussions about building on a relatively successful decade of cooperation with Iraqi Kurds against Turkish Kurd rebels, expanding the commercial possibilities of northern Iraq and preparing a backup plan in case Iraq splits up.

The increasingly autonomy-minded Iraqi Kurds are warming to the Turks, just in case they one day should need protection against Iraq's Arab majority.

"I need Turkey. I believe Turkey needs us," said Barham Saleh, prime minister of the eastern Iraqi Kurdish canton run by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, where Turkish companies now are building a big airport, constructing university campuses and laying roads. "We love the Americans, we want them to stay forever, but we know they won't. We live in this tough neighborhood."

Turkish officials privately confirm that a discussion has begun about whether to offer protection to the Iraqi Kurds as a policy to keep refugees and other troubles away from Turkey's border if the U.S. can't control Iraq. "Nothing has been decided yet, and it's not what we want. We can't give up on the hope of Iraq's unity. If you start playing with borders, there'll be no end to it," said one Turkish official. Still, a Turkish protectorate "could result in practice. It could be a kind of insurance policy."

Such a policy still is some way off. Some Turkish generals insist Kurdish self-rule could destabilize Turkey. The western region run by the Kurdistan Democratic Party is demanding that Turkey withdraw a garrison from its main city, Irbil. Turkey and the KDP also argue about taxes on Turkish trucks heading into Arab areas of Iraq.

Nevertheless, the mere fact that Turkey is considering helping Iraqi Kurdistan reflects a reality that has been developing on the ground. Much of Turkey's $1 billion, or €832.5 million, a year trade with Iraq is channeled through the Kurds of northern Iraq, and Turkish companies dominate Iraqi Kurdish markets. Along the roads of Iraqi Kurdistan, advertisements for Turkish air conditioners and refrigerators stretch from the Syrian to the Iranian borders.

The main Turkish military checkpoint on the Turkish-Iraqi border was removed this year. Iraqi Kurdish leaders now are well-known and welcomed here in Turkey's capital. Turkey has even downsized a relationship with ethnic Turkoman groups through which it unsuccessfully tried to influence events in northern Iraq in the 1990s.

The Turks "understand that something is going to happen in northern Iraq. They won't like it but will attempt to control it by cooperating with KDP and PUK," said Gareth Stansfield, a Middle East expert at Britain's Exeter University who recently visited Kirkuk, a flashpoint claimed by both Kurds and Arabs. "Ankara has let the Turkoman go somewhat," he said. "The Turkomans are in a sorry state politically, and their militia is poor and run down."

Ilnur Cevik, a Turkish newspaper columnist who favors stronger ties with the Iraqi Kurds, turned contractor to build a $38 million international airport for Mr. Saleh's PUK. For years, he said, the Turkish-Iraqi Kurdish relationship was dominated by the Turkish military, which was keen to crush Turkish Kurd rebels who took refuge in the mountains along the border. Now that the rebellion has subsided -- although 5,000 Turkish Kurd guerrillas remain in northern Iraq -- he said the pro-Islamic government that took power in Turkey in November 2002 wants to tackle such problems in greater partnership with the Iraqi Kurds. "The Kurds are now a reality, and they are the Americans' friend in Iraq. If you need a problem fixed, the Kurds are there," he said, noting that Ankara sent unprecedented messages of condolence after suicide bombings hit both Iraqi Kurdish leaderships on Feb. 1, and treated casualties in Turkish hospitals for free.

Just last year, the KDP canton warned it would fight hard against any attempt by the Turkish army to enter its territory, a threat Turkey began to take seriously after seeing the difficulties even the U.S. has had in Iraq. Now Nechirwan Barzani, the KDP premier, says the two sides are turning over a new leaf. "Turkey has changed its policy. The government talks to us in a language that is more useful and logical. We want the language of business, not that of fear," he said. "We prefer Turkey to the others."

Another one about the Kurds in Iraq:

Kurds' Success
Makes It Harder
To Unify All Iraq

The North Is Seen as a Model
For Rest of the Nation --
But It Demands Autonomy
Fears of Radical Muslim State
By HUGH POPE and BILL SPINDLE
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
May 19, 2004; Page A1

DOHUK, Iraq -- On a recent afternoon in this northern Iraqi city, children romped about a lawn and adults munched cake on land that was once a base for Saddam Hussein's military. The crowd had gathered for the grand opening of a new home-furnishings outlet in Dream City -- a megastore and amusement-park complex.

Entrepreneur Hamid Hajji Mashod rattled off his plans for the former military site: twin office towers, a hotel, a Coca-Cola bottling franchise. Standing amid carefully tended violets and marigolds, Mr. Mashod saw the blossoms symbolizing a new era for the region, home to most of Iraq's ethnic Kurdish minority. "Our homeland is like a flower," he said.

Unabashedly pro-American, secular and democratic, the Kurdish north is the one part of the country that's living up to the Bush administration's vision of postwar Iraq. The problem: The Kurdish population is showing little interest in converging with the rest of the country -- and its strong independent streak could hamper efforts to bring Iraq under one central government.


For more than a decade before the war, international sanctions aimed at Mr. Hussein insulated the rebellious northern region from the rest of the country. Since Mr. Hussein's ouster, the Kurds have pulled even closer together, and turmoil to the south has hardened their determination to set up bulwarks against Iraq's ethnic Arab majority.

"We're afraid of participating in a larger Iraq," says Fadil Omar, a Kurdish writer and physician. "We can't stand up for long against Arab culture."

The Kurdish leadership has vowed that the region will remain part of Iraq -- but only if it is granted autonomy from the central government. Meanwhile, popular sentiment for full independence appears to be rising. About 1.75 million Kurds -- half the population of the north -- have signed a petition demanding a referendum on Kurdish independence.

"We were forced to merge with Iraq 83 years ago," says Sherko Bekas, a leading poet and Kurdish nationalist who started the drive. "Now we want to be free in our own land, like other nations."

For the Kurds, full independence would bring great peril. Iraqi Kurdistan is surrounded by Turkey, Syria and Iran, all of which historically have been hostile to Kurdish independence -- as have the non-Kurdish populations in Iraq. After crushing a rebellion among its own restive Kurds in the 1990s, Turkey now could be rethinking its opposition to the aspirations of Iraqi Kurds. But a sudden move by Iraqi Kurds to grab the oilfields around the city of Kirkuk -- disputed territory the Turks have always vowed to never allow the Kurds to have -- could quickly reverse opinion in Turkey.

The north's assertiveness underscores how Iraq's three roughly defined regions are increasingly developing on their own paths. The south is under the sway of Shiite Muslim clerics, most of whom want some form of an Islamic state. The Sunni Muslim center, meanwhile, is increasingly influenced by members of the former regime, many of them Arab nationalists.

The divergence between northern Iraq and the rest of the country is already threatening to upset the transition to Iraqi sovereignty at the end of June. Kurds are clamoring for more control over a wider area, while leaders in the Shiite south and Sunni middle are threatening to try to revoke guarantees of autonomy for Kurds that are included in Iraq's interim constitution. Shiites and Sunnis have complained bitterly that the provision amounts to the first step in a plan to break up the country.

L. Paul Bremer, U.S. administrator for Iraq, has refused to consider any changes to the interim constitution. The U.S. government opposes Kurdish independence and has played down Kurdish claims to Kirkuk. U.S. officials say that once tensions recede in the south and a central government is established, it will be workable to integrate the north as an autonomous region.


But the longer an effective central government is delayed, the longer the country's three regions will continue on their diverging trajectories -- and the harder it will be to pull them back together. Some argue it may already be too late to keep the country intact, and the best option may be not to try.

"In terms of ethno-political conflict, it's the calm before the storm," says Gareth Stansfield, a Middle East expert at Britain's Exeter University. He argues that the least troubling U.S. strategy at this point would be to partition Iraq into two states, one Arab and the other Kurdish.

The Kurds are one of the world's largest peoples without a state, counting 25 million people whose mountainous homeland is split among Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. An ancient people whose ancestors were mentioned by Greek historian Xenophon, the Kurds have traditionally lived in valleys between remote mountains; it is speculated that the difficulties of communication enforced loyalties to individual tribes and prevented them from founding a state. In recent decades, especially in Turkey, the Kurds have been forced into towns by economic circumstances and military sweeps.

Over the centuries, the Kurds have made a living on the margins of other societies, doing jobs as diverse as herding and smuggling. Despite periods of tribal autonomy in remote valleys, their history is mostly a long run of betrayals, inter-Kurdish rivalries and short-lived uprisings against central governments. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslim, but they have a strong secular streak: They don't normally speak Arabic, the language of the Quran, and they have been oppressed by Arabs throughout their history. Some Iraqi Kurds are Shiite, others in Turkey are schismatic Shiites, and still others in Iraq and Turkey are Yezidis, a religion loosely related to mainstream monotheistic faiths.

There are estimated to be five million Kurds in Iraq, about one-fifth of the population. For decades official use of their language was banned by Baghdad, and Mr. Hussein's regime treated them brutally. Government forces leveled 4,500 Kurdish villages and killed as many as 5,000 Kurdish townspeople with poison gas in 1988.

After a 1991 uprising against Mr. Hussein in which Kurds played a major role, the U.S. and United Nations effectively established a protectorate in the north. Fighter jets kept Mr. Hussein's forces at bay, and under a U.N.-administered program the Kurds were guaranteed an allotment of Iraq's oil revenue.

The Kurds used their protective bubble -- and the influx of international aid -- to make remarkable strides. They built roads, schools and cellphone networks, and nurtured Kurdish culture in ways that were never allowed by the Arab regimes that have ruled Iraq.


Entrance gate to the Dream City amusement park and shopping center in Dohuk, Iraq


When U.S. forces arrived last year, Kurdish militiamen known as peshmerga fought alongside them. Freed of Mr. Hussein for good, the Kurds built on foundations they had already laid. A residential building boomlet is creating jobs and business for the home-furnishings store at Mr. Mashod's development. Salaries of public-sector employees and the local Kurdish militiamen have quadrupled under the new U.S.-backed government.

Once bitter rivals, the two Kurdish factions that dominate the north have reunited their parliament and plan to form a unified government. The last election was in 1992, but new democratic elections to be held by January will likely include a sizable number of women. The parliament already has voted to ignore a section of the interim constitution that Kurdish legislators viewed as limiting women's rights.

Kurdish unity has also intensified a cultural awakening. Until Baghdad compromised to end a long-running civil war in 1970, the Kurdish language was banned in schools and public places, and even after that it was discouraged. Now Badran Habib, a prominent publisher, says his company will bring 150 books to market this year, including Kurdish short stories and poetry and a book, in Kurdish, about the philosophers Heidegger and Descartes.

Mr. Habib is currently working on a definitive dictionary of the Kurdish language, and he supported a recently released Kurdish translation of the Quran. Demand for books in the Kurdish tongue surpasses what his company can produce. "We don't have enough printing presses," he says. "There's a huge growth in Kurdish culture."

Kurdish militiamen have exchanged their baggy native trousers and turbans for the uniform of the Iraqi national army, but many now sport a shoulder patch with their own Kurdish flag. Kurdish leaders serve on the U.S.-appointed national Iraqi Governing Council, but they use their influence largely to ensure Kurds can opt out of whatever system governs the rest of the country.

Kurdish leaders have simultaneously fanned nationalist sentiment and demanded autonomy, while acknowledging that an independent state is not possible for now. "Independence isn't a realistic approach," says Nechirwan Barzani, prime minister of the western half of Iraqi Kurdistan. "But it doesn't mean we should never have it. A Kurd has never felt like an Iraqi."

Kurds have reached out to the rest of Iraq at times, but those efforts sometimes haven't been well received. The Kurdish leadership in Baghdad recently dispatched a team of 18 doctors and medical personnel to the besieged Sunni Arab city of Fallujah to offer residents medicine and aid -- despite a long history of persecution at the hands of Sunni Arabs.

Insurgents briefly took the team hostage and accused Kurds of fighting alongside the Americans. In the end, the group was allowed to deliver its supplies, but stayed only three hours. "They said, 'Thank you very much, but we don't want Kurdish people, because they're with the enemy troops,' " says Farhad Barzinji, who led the medical team.

Professional associations in the north have also received a harsh welcome. The head of the Kurdistan Lawyers Union recently traveled to Baghdad for talks with a national lawyers organization. Kurdish lawyers groups had been part of the group until Saddam Hussein cut all official links with the north in 1992. Sherwan al-Haidari, head of the Kurdish group, wanted to offer a new partnership and share what the Kurds had learned about reform in the north.

The Baghdad group rebuffed what it regarded as a breakaway Kurdish organization. In April, the Baghdad group initiated a Justice Ministry order banning lawyers licensed by the Kurdistan group from appearing in court anywhere in Iraq.

Sitting in his office in the city of Irbil, Mr. al-Haidari waves a copy of the order in frustration. "I tell them, 'We'd like to join you,' and we get a response like this," he says. Still, "we're not angry. We're just going our own way, keeping an eye on our goal." On his desk sits the flag of Iraqi Kurdistan -- a yellow sun set between bands of red, white and green. His television set is tuned to a Kurdish channel, featuring a Kurdish singer playing folk songs on a traditional instrument.

The Kurds also have raised tensions with attempts to expand the area they control. With Mr. Hussein's regime gone, Kurdish organizations of all kinds -- women's groups, religious groups, civil-society proselytizers, the peshmerga militia -- have reached out to Kurds who were left outside the 1990s zone of protection. Kurds returned to homes from which Mr. Hussein's regime had chased them, demanding their property back.

Arab leaders in the city of Mosul, which contains a large Kurdish population just south of the region under Kurdish control, have complained that Kurdish leaders are encouraging this policy of "Kurdification." Kurds say they are just reversing decades of Saddam Hussein's policies of "Arabization."

No city has been more nettlesome than Kirkuk, also just south of the area under Kurdish control. Turkomans, Assyrian Christians, Arabs and Kurds all stake claims to the oil-rich city. In December, Kurdish demonstrators poured onto the street chanting, "Kirkuk, Kirkuk, the heart of Kurdistan." Responding with a protest of their own a week later, Arab and Turkoman demonstrators shouted, "Kirkuk, Kirkuk, an Iraqi city." At least five residents were killed in the latter demonstrations, and the city remains very tense, with bombings and killings of foreigners. Populations in Kirkuk and Mosul are now segregating themselves into dueling ethnic ghettos.

Despite their relative isolation, even the northern Kurds haven't escaped the violence plaguing the rest of Iraq. On Feb. 1, unidentified suicide bombers sneaked past security guards at two large celebrations for a Muslim holiday and killed more than 100 Kurds, dozens of them among the top leadership.

More recently, the Kurds have expressed concern about how Fallujah has fallen under the control of former members of Mr. Hussein's Arab-nationalist Baath Party. And they worry about the south of Iraq, where the Shiite-dominated population is following the lead of religious leaders hoping to establish a nation guided by an Islamic government.

"History, geography, politics have made us part of the country. Instead of erasing history, we've said, 'Let's try to make this work,' " says Barham Saleh, the Prime Minister of eastern Iraqi Kurdistan. But "if Iraq turns into an Islamic state, or an [Arab] nationalist state, we'll have no way to accept such a country."

Here's an interesting piece IMO about a possible exit strategy in Iraq given that the Bush administration exit strategy is unclear, at least to me [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. Kerry's is also unclear to me but we've covered that ground somewhat.

COMMENTARY

What Comes Next?

By LESLIE H. GELB
May 20, 2004; Page A12

The strategic tide in Iraq is turning inexorably against us. Now, insurgents challenge our forces openly by occupying cities. Now, our legitimate moral high ground totters under the shock of Americans pictured abusing Iraqi prisoners. As the June "transfer" of political sovereignty to Iraqis nears, it reeks of improvisation and illegitimacy. Now, coalition partners murmur about extracting even their small forces. Now, a huge majority of Iraqis sees us as occupiers and wants us out, despite many knowing the good we do. Stunningly, last week, Chairman of Joint Chiefs Richard Myers, with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at his side, said: "There is no way to militarily lose in Iraq. There is also no way to militarily win in Iraq."

* * *
No one of goodwill or good sense would or should want the United States to lose. For all our errors and shortcomings, America remains the only center, the only hope, in the world-wide struggle against terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

To leave Iraq with our heads high and our power intact, we need a new strategy. President Bush's present strategy -- maximum ends with limited means, tossing political responsibility to the United Nations, no plausible exit plan, and prayer -- will not allow us to prevail, or leave.

The new strategy has to begin with a hard-headed rethinking of U.S. interests and goals. That means descending from the dreams of Iraqi democracy to the nightmares of Iraqi history and politics and of regional rivalries. It will require a relentless focus on a political solution. And to buy ourselves the political support necessary to carry out this new strategy, we will have to set a date certain for our military departure, say two years. It is critical for all to see that we will not remain occupiers. If we do less, demands will sprout irresistibly for a quick American withdrawal regardless of consequences.

Ousting Saddam was essential to our national security. We can argue about Mr. Bush's unsuccessful gathering of international backing for the war or his careless postwar planning or Saddam's disposing somehow of his weapons of mass destruction. But to me, he was clearly a serious threat to his neighbors and to us.

But it is by no means critical for us to build Iraq once again into a strong unitary state with a strong central government in Baghdad. Recent history shows that Iraq, given its powerful ethnic and religious divergences, can be ruled from Baghdad only by massive and brutal force. We have no interest in exercising that kind of force, nor in seeing anyone else do so. Nor would Iraq's neighbors rejoice in the rebirth of a strong Iraq.

As for transforming Iraq into a democratic, free-market paradise, that's more frosting on a cake that hasn't been baked than it is a core U.S. interest. It took over 200 years for the United States to reach its current state of perfection. We might at least give Iraq and other Arab states a generation or two. Democracy requires that losers of elections believe they will not lose their essential values or their lives. Such trust and confidence takes decades to develop. It is Utopian to believe otherwise. It is dangerous as well because it makes our commitment open-ended, and thus unacceptable in America and Iraq. If Mr. Bush clings to this goal, he will continue to drain our blood and treasure, and still fail.

But our interests and our sacrifices do impel us to put Iraq plausibly on the path to democracy. We can secure this interest best by protecting minority interests throughout Iraq. Minority rights are the foundation of democracy and a bulwark against violence. The so-called general elections solution, without minority rights and without a political deal will produce a Shiite majority, with Shiite religious laws, and thus provoke civil war. The only other core interest we have is to ensure that Iraq does not become a power vacuum. Otherwise, greedy or worried neighbors will pick off pieces and set off a Gulf-wide war, perhaps even with weapons of mass destruction.

Thus, our core interests -- protecting minority rights and avoiding Iraq becoming a tempting target -- are limited and achievable. On such a base, a new strategy can be mounted. The strategy proceeds from the notion that our problems in Iraq are far more political than military. We have been trying to use force to solve political problems, and that never works.

Thus, step one is to begin cutting a political deal. That deal must be based upon the fundamental political reality of Iraq: that none of the three largest ethnic/religious groups -- Arab Shiites, Arab Sunnis and Kurds -- will allow itself to be dominated by the others. Each will fight if its core interests are jeopardized.

The only arrangement that might satisfy all three groups is a loose federation with three largely self-governing regions and a relatively weak central government. The central government would oversee border defense, sharing of oil revenues and matters such as health. Thus, and paradoxically, the only way to keep Iraq whole is to allow maximum autonomy to its constituent parts.

The Shiites won't be happy with this idea. The Bush administration promised them countrywide democratic elections, and, with a majority of Iraq's population, they now want to run the whole show. They will insist on this form of democracy -- unless and until they understand their real choice: endless and fruitless warfare with Sunnis and Kurds, who will never tolerate Shiite rule, as opposed to being left to run their own affairs in southern Iraq.

Sunnis also will resist. Many still harbor illusions about resuming their historic role as masters of Mesopotamia. Sunni warriors and bureaucrats of old sold themselves to the Ottomans and British as swords and civil servants. So, today, Sunni generals in Fallujah offer themselves to Americans as reliable pacifiers of insurgents. But Sunnis must be pressed to see their real future choice: continuing their quest for dominance and being denied their share of Iraq's considerable oil wealth (which lies almost exclusively in the Kurdish north and Shiite south); or peacefully playing to their civil-service strengths and sharing the oil wealth. Americans, Shiites and Kurds can provide incentives, positive and negative, for the right decision.

The Kurds will celebrate the retention of the regional autonomy they've enjoyed these last 13 years. In that time, they've made good headway toward democracy and a market economy.

The federation/autonomy solution can be maneuvered through the procedures already agreed upon by the U.S. and the U.N. In other words, let's work with willing Iraqis to plant the idea with the interim government, projected for June, to embody federalism in the constituent assembly set to follow, and then gear the general elections scheduled after that to conform to "federal democracy."

• First, this would mean holding elections in the three regions, with the resulting three regional governments then sending representatives to the national government in Baghdad on a proportional basis. What's our leverage to do this? Essentially, it's telling the good Iraqis of all stripes: "You have two years to use U.S. military and economic power to make this work . . . or buy a flat in London." Moderate good guys are notoriously impossible to fire up. But if this doesn't work, nothing will.

• The second part of the new strategy is to focus almost all American leverage on the protection of minority rights. To some extent, minorities in the three regions will be protected by mutual deterrence: Hurt my people in your region, and I'll hurt yours. We can reinforce this by tying our economic aid directly and solely to protecting minority rights.

• The third part of the new strategy is to make an all-out effort to share the military burden during the two-year phaseout period. If we have a political deal in process with a safer security environment, those important peacekeepers might be forthcoming. Presumably, we'd also have a U.N. imprimatur. Our only condition should be that a U.S. general command all peacekeepers.

• The fourth leg of the strategy is to launch a regional conference aimed at nonintervention commitments. Specifically, all parties would agree not to attack Iraq or supply arms and funds to Iraqi insurgents. For their parts, the three Iraqi regions would pledge to protect minorities and not establish independent states.


The U.S. should use this conference to announce the timetable for its military withdrawal from Iraq. This will assure the parties that the end of American occupation is near. It will also foster support in America for keeping U.S. forces in place until essential interests are secured. Although the U.S. leverage and common sense arguments in this strategy are not overwhelming and are debatable, they may be the best we have at this point. Not debatable is that we must have a coherent and plausible strategy or we will lose.

* * *
America today is a house politically divided against itself. And the American house is increasingly derided by too many around the world. Iraq aggravates the nastiness enormously. We can help lance the nastiness by letting all know that the U.S. presence in Iraq will end soon and well: Soon, meaning within two years, to blunt pressure for precipitate withdrawal and allow time for diplomacy. Well, because all must see that we helped make Iraq a better and safer place, and that the bitterly questioned sacrifices of war possessed value.

Mr. Gelb is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.

[sam h]

Thanks, Adios. Those were interesting articles.