Salon: Bush's new friends: The Sunnis

[Kadie]

Bush's new friends: The Sunnis
As plans to stabilize Iraqi politics go nowhere fast, experts warn that the latest U.S. tactics could lead to greater civil war.

By Mark Benjamin

Sept. 5, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- With little progress toward national political reconciliation in Baghdad, and Congress poised to reassess the troop surge, the Bush administration is maneuvering to spin its Iraq strategy in a different direction. Essentially, the argument now goes that instead of sectarian reconciliation from the capital, all politics is local. A series of handshake truces between the U.S. military and Sunni tribes -- including some who not long ago fought as insurgents -- is at the heart of the approach to bringing greater stability to Iraq.

"At some point, there was a switch in the terms of reference for how we evaluate this surge," says Brian Katulis at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. "It was that we were going to get the politics running at the national level. Now the key is local progress. It is not national progress."

The handshake truces between U.S. commanders and former Sunni insurgent groups started in Iraq's western Anbar province in late 2005, and similar initiatives are now spreading east toward Baghdad. Former insurgents agree to halt attacks on U.S. troops and instead, with U.S. backing, fight against forces associated with al-Qaida in Iraq. In return, U.S. forces are also helping Sunnis establish their own local security forces and sign up in predominantly Sunni units of the Iraqi army and police.

This new concept, known as "bottom-up reconciliation," has increasingly crept into White House and Pentagon talking points -- reframing a plan that was originally supposed to tamp down sectarian conflict and pave the way for deal making by securing Baghdad and creating a stable national government.

But while security conditions have improved in some areas of Baghdad and elsewhere in the country, some experts say that the shift toward backing Sunni groups isn't likely to help reduce sectarian strife -- and may well be setting the stage for a greater civil war.

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