Responses to "What to Do in Iraq: A Roundtable"

Web Exclusive (posted July 17, 2006)

by Kevin Drum

Kevin Drum is a contributing writer for The Washington Monthly and author of the blog "Political Animal" at www.washingtonmonthly.com.

We all seem to agree that Stephen Biddle is right to call the current conflict in Iraq a civil war. We also agree that Biddle's solution is probably unworkable, and that all the other solutions on offer are probably unworkable too. In fact, there's only one real source of disagreement between us: I think a prudent withdrawal is our best option given the lack of any other workable solutions, and at least on the basis of their first posts, the other participants in this symposium don't. However, since I already discussed withdrawal in my own first post, I don't think it's worth dwelling on here.

Instead, I'd like to widen the focus to the region more generally. In Iraq, Biddle's civil war is proceeding apace. London Times correspondent James Hider writes that West Baghdad has become an "orgy of ethnic cleansing" and the city itself is "verging on total collapse." The New Republic's Lawrence Kaplan, an early and enthusiastic supporter of the war, now believes there is "very little that we can do to dampen the sectarian rage and pathologies tearing Iraq apart at the seams." And Riverbend, an Iraqi blogger who writes from Baghdad, has given up entirely on the American troops there. During last Sunday's carnage in the Jihad Quarter, she notes, "They just sat by, on the outskirts of the area, and let the massacre happen."

And what of Afghanistan? It once seemed to be a success story, but now press reports indicate that the Taliban is becoming increasingly sophisticated and lethal. "We need to realize that we could actually fail here," warns Lieutenant-General David Richards, the British commander of NATO forces in the country. And the much hyped Cedar Revolution in Lebanon? All it took was the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah to put paid to that. Ditto for the Palestinian elections.

Still, these events have had the virtue of clarifying at least one fundamental point: that the key to stability in the greater Middle East—including Iraq—lies in Iran. The kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Iran's proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, has been widely viewed as a signal from the mullahs that Iran can make life hard for George W. Bush in more ways than he suspects, while America's near-silence in the face of Israeli retaliation is equally widely viewed as tacit approval of an escalated war against Tehran. Iran's dogged pursuit of nuclear technology is probably the single most destabilizing development in the world today. And the war in Iraq itself has increasingly become a conflict between Shiite parties aligned with Iran and secular and religious parties aligned against them.

Things didn't have to work out this way. It's unlikely that anything would have turned Iran into a genuine American ally in the Middle East, but after 9/11 Tehran was nonetheless helpful, providing Washington with useful assistance against both al Qaeda and the Taliban. A few months later, according to James Dobbins, Iranian diplomats and military officers offered to expand cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan and launch a broader dialogue. And in 2003, shortly after the invasion of Iraq, the Iranians drafted a letter offering a "grand bargain" on a stunningly wide array of issues, including "decisive action" against terrorists, a dramatic reorientation of Iran's sponsorship of Hamas and Hezbollah, support for the Saudi initiative for a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and concessions on international monitoring of Iran's nuclear program. American diplomats who have seen the letter say that it was detailed and genuine.

Needless to say, the Bush administration turned Iran down flat, even going so far as to admonish the Swiss ambassador who had passed the offer along. Since then, the Iranians have gained influence in Iraq, elected a firebrand anti-American president, accelerated their nuclear program, and given Hamas and Hezbollah a green light to ramp up terrorist attacks on Israel. All of this has affected the civil war in Iraq, where American success now requires at least a minimal level of cooperation on Iran's part.

This means that, like it or not, Washington has to engage seriously with Tehran. Are serious negotiations still possible? It's hard to say. Thanks to the hardliners in the White House, the United States is in a significantly worse position than it was three years ago. Iran's nuclear program is further advanced, its alliances with Russia and China are more substantial, and U.S. regional military leverage is far more tenuous. Still, there are cards Washington can play. Iranian cooperation in Iraq can't be forced by sanctions and threats of military action alone, but it might still be purchased with genuine security agreements and acknowledgments of legitimate Iranian interests in the region.

Of course, there's no way to know unless Washington starts talking with Tehran, something the Bush administration apparently believes is by itself sign of weakness. But as Nelson Mandela said (and Ronald Reagan understood), you negotiate with your enemies, not your friends. It's time to recognize that serious negotiations with Iran might not guarantee success, in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East, but refusing them certainly guarantees failure.