What to Do in Iraq: A Roundtable

Larry Diamond, James Dobbins, Chaim Kaufmann, Leslie H. Gelb, and Stephen Biddle

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2006

Summary:  Can anything -- international mediation, regional collaboration, decentralization, or constitutional negotiations -- save Iraq from a full-fledged civil war and the Bush administration from a foreign policy fiasco?

Which settlements need to be defended and which communities need to be evacuated are questions that would largely determine the location of the de facto line that would separate Sunni and Shiite communities. Protection and relocation would have to be coordinated with the strongest forces in Iraq, the main Shiite factions. These groups would not be enthusiastic: two of the main uia factions -- the Dawa Party and the Sadrists -- still want a unitary Iraq. But sober Shiite leaders would also realize that such a policy would save many Shiite lives and bring the Shiite-dominated government greater control over more settlements than it could manage otherwise.

Little active cooperation would be required; all that would be needed is enough forbearance on the part of the Shiite militias to let temporary defensive garrisons and evacuation convoys complete their tasks without having to fight. Washington would have to explain its intentions clearly and establish firm limits to its mission both in aim and in time. The tolerance of the Sunni militias would also be needed in areas under their control. But if U.S. forces were scheduled to depart shortly -- leaving the affected settlements in Sunni hands -- the Sunni militias would have little reason to oppose the evacuation of those Shiites who wished to go. So far, few groups have displayed such bloody-mindedness as to suggest that they would take the risk of attacking U.S. forces solely to murder refugees in flight. (Afterward, the number of minorities living on the wrong side of the separation line would be small, which would limit incentives for "rescue" offensives.)

In the longer run, it will be important to ensure that the Shiites remain the stronger side militarily, as any change in the balance of power could encourage Sunni factions to challenge them again. The outcome of a civil war tends to be more stable when the party that is most satisfied is also the stronger one.

Some might say that this policy will legitimate ethnic cleansing. But they would have to face squarely the costs of not protecting refugees; to the extent that the policy did succeed, Iraqis would experience less suffering than if it failed or was never attempted. Others will object that the current U.S. administration is unlikely to adopt these measures. Perhaps, but saving at least some lives would require getting only a few brigade commanders in a few places to think seriously about refugee protection.

Such protection would not mollify the Iraqi Sunnis, who would still be out of power, or angry Sunni Arab governments. But no policy can prevent such discontent. It is also inevitable that whatever rump Sunni statelet remains will continue to be poor, disorderly, and unable to prevent terrorists from operating on its soil. Three years of counterinsurgency in Iraq has stimulated more terrorism than it has suppressed. But if Iraq's sectarian wars were ended, ordinary Iraqi Sunnis might come to realize that the greatest threat to their well-being is not Iraqi Shiites or U.S. troops, but foreign jihadists in their midst. Then, perhaps, they would begin to work at restoring order in their country.

Chaim Kaufmann is Associate Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University.

Last Train From Baghdad

Leslie H. Gelb

The United States' way forward and out of Iraq now comes down to a fatal choice between President George W. Bush's policy of simply staying the course even as security in Iraq slowly deteriorates and his critics' policy of quickly withdrawing U.S. forces even with civil war looming. The Bush approach looks like an attempt on Bush's part simply to avoid defeat and pass the tar baby on to his successor, Democrat or Republican. The alternative looks like a way to have the United States escape from a quagmire, whatever the consequences. Either way, Americans and Iraqis lose.

There is a third way: for the United States to stop its futile resistance to the inevitable sectarian tides now rolling over Iraq and help the Iraqis channel these forces into a viable political settlement -- uniting Iraq by decentralizing it. This deal would be driven into place by bringing the Sunnis in with an offer presenting them with prospects far better than any of their present ones and by promising U.S. troop withdrawals and redeployments before 2009, all backed up with regional diplomacy.