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Iraq: U.S. and Iran must seek deal

— PHOTO: AFP

WHEN WILL IT ALL END? A displaced Iraqi Shia boy in his tent in a camp on the outskirts of Baghdad on Monday.

A few months ago, I suggested that all of us who are sceptics about Iraq should subject ourselves to regular brain scans, just in case we were wrong. That is to say, enthusiasm to see George W. Bush’s nose rubbed in his follies must never tip over into eagerness for U.S. failure in Iraq. Its consequences for the world, and above all for the Iraqi people, are far too grave to indulge schadenfreude. There are three reasons today to revisit our thinking about Iraq even if, at the end of the process, we end up back where we started.

The British press in particular has under-reported the success of the U.S. troop surge. It is a notable achievement by General David Petraeus and his forces that insurgent attacks have fallen by two-thirds, and civilian fatalities have declined steeply.

Secondly, Gordon Brown told British troops outside Basra at the weekend that their role was almost over. Within weeks responsibility for security in the southern province will pass to local Iraqi forces.

Finally, last week’s amazing U.S. national intelligence estimate, which declared that Iran had no current nuclear weapons programme, could carry critical significance for Iraq. It removes the overriding obstacle to dialogue between Tehran and Washington, which itself is indispensable to stabilising Iraq.

For years, both sides have been acting irrationally. Iran should perceive neighbourly ties with a peaceful Iraq as a key national interest. Instead, however, its militants have chosen to regard embarrassing and harassing “the Great Satan” as a superior objective. For this, their country pays a heavy economic and political price. Washington, likewise, has preferred to conduct a war of words with Tehran — and to threaten a war of weapons — rather than build bridges with the many Iranians weary of their national isolation as a “terror state.”

Of these strands, the easiest to dismiss is the weekend claim by Mr. Brown. Almost everybody who has recently visited Basra agrees that, far from being on the road to “peace and prosperity,” it is dominated by unpleasant Shia militias, committed to repressive social policies, especially towards women. The Baghdad government’s writ does not run there.

The British — politicians, soldiers and diplomats alike — tacitly concluded at least 18 months ago that Iraq was a lost cause. Everything they have since done has been aimed at extricating British forces from that country as swiftly as possible. The judgment may well prove to have been right. But it seems implausible to dress up U.K. policy as a success. If the U.S. defies probability and amazes the world by delivering a stable Iraq, Britain will be able to claim scant credit for its contribution.

We are still a long day’s march from such a happy outcome, though. Overriding doubts persist about whether America’s military successes, however real, can be translated into lasting political progress. Even the most committed U.S. officers remain dismayed by the stunning incoherence of the Iraqi national government. Its security forces are making negligible progress towards viability; its interior ministry is a byword for incompetence and corruption.

A week after Washington’s release of the intelligence report, there is much uncertainty about its significance. We know that some administration insiders, notably Vice-President Dick Cheney, opposed its publication because they reject its findings. They believe intelligence chiefs have allowed themselves to be fooled by the Iranians.

No one knows whether President Bush supported the document’s publication because it opens new political opportunities, or merely acquiesced because it was bound to leak anyway. All we can say with confidence is that if Iran and the U.S. can contrive a deal in Iraq, there is a chance of a tolerable outcome there. If they do not, there is not.

If the Iranian militants continue to perceive a U.S. military humiliation as their foremost objective, constructive dialogue will remain impossible. But if they are sufficiently eager to see an end of economic sanctions to abandon the promotion of insurgency in Iraq, then the Bush administration might be willing to swallow a torrent of past rhetoric, and deal.

It would be absurd to underestimate the political difficulties of extricating the U.S. from Iraq. In every predicament of this kind, fear that an unknown future could prove worse than a familiar present, however bloody, becomes an overriding influence upon governments.

Let us stick to the fundamentals, which have not changed much. Any tolerable outcome in Iraq demands dialogue between Washington and Tehran, and if possible also Damascus. Conditions for this look more favourable, thanks to the intelligence report, than at any time so far this century. The odds against anything Mr. Bush — or Mr. Brown — can plausibly call “success,” remain great. But there is a window of opportunity, promising much to the Iraqi people, if all the parties can narrow their objectives sufficiently to use it. — ©Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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