U.S. may negotiate with Iraqi insurgents

[babylonsister]

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/05/us-may-negotiate-with-iraqi-insurgents.html

U.S. may negotiate with Iraqi insurgents

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. officials said Wednesday that a "joint campaign plan redesign team" is preparing a new diplomatic and military strategy for Iraq, which is expected to be approved by the end of the month.

The team, led by Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, is laying out a new course for how to proceed in the four-year-old war, the officials told CNN.

One element of the plan is to try to identify groups of people -- including possibly Sunni extremists and militia groups -- with whom U.S. officials feel they can do business, such as negotiating power-sharing and cease-fire agreements and granting economic aid, the sources said.

But those with whom officials feel they cannot do business -- such as determined suicide bombers -- will remain targets of military forces, the sources said.

The officials cited an inability to maintain current troop levels into the summer as a reason for the changed course.

"We have been focused too long on defeating the enemy," one official said. "We need to bring them to the negotiating table."

The announcement is an acknowledgment that the traditional war-fighting stance of trying to capture or kill all insurgents is failing, that the country may have devolved into a civil war, and that the only way to proceed is to use military force sparingly and attempt to bring many insurgents into the fold.

[ShortnFiery]

1. Yes, they'll probably select Chalabi or Alawi as "thug figurehead" who they can control ...

And call this brutal monarch "The Shah of Iraq" :puke: :grr:

[Strelnikov_]

2. This appears related to the 'Redirection' Seymour Hersh wrote about

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x946082

The Administration’s new policy for containing Iran seems to complicate its strategy for winning the war in Iraq. Patrick Clawson, an expert on Iran and the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argued, however, that closer ties between the United States and moderate or even radical Sunnis could put "fear" into the government of Prime Minister Maliki and "make him worry that the Sunnis could actually win" the civil war there. Clawson said that this might give Maliki an incentive to coöperate with the United States in suppressing radical Shiite militias, such as Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

[dave_p]

3. Recommendation 35

"The United States must make active efforts to engage all parties in Iraq, with the exception of al Qaeda. The United States must find a way to talk to Grand Ayatollah Sistani, Moqtada al-Sadr, and militia and insurgent leaders." - ISG Report, 6 Dec 2006

Nearly six months later and BushCo's only now getting round to facing the obvious, with another needless 520 US and 140,000 Iraqi dead. Impeach the traitors.