Every now and again I catch up on the Thomas Friedman articles. Yes,
he's a bit Pollyanna, but I think every now and again he really nails
a topic.
This is interesting from a negotiation and arbitration standpoint: he
works out how to use a date and a price to turn the current losing,
powerless situation into one where the US has leverage. (Not unlike
how George Mitchell used a date to force the Irish agreement.) From
the article:
Today in Iraq, none of the key parties have to make any choices,
and we don't have any choices. That is the definition of ''stuck.''
Now, if only our administration had a brain.
-- Owen
Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net
"You can do Anything, but not Everything!"
Yes, We Can Find the Exit
Copyright New York Times Company Feb 7, 2007
Listening, from Moscow, to the debate in Congress about Iraq is
troubling: it sounds as if the American people are being offered two
routes to a dead end: either follow President Bush and have troops
surging into a roiling civil war, or go with one of the Congressional
resolutions and denounce the surge, but without any alternative
strategy for securing U.S. interests.
I believe there is an alternative strategy, but it will take two
concrete numbers to implement: a date -- Dec. 1 -- and a price --
$3.50 cents a gallon. Let me explain.
What is the U.S. interest in Iraq right now? It's to quell the civil
war enough so the parties may eventually reach a negotiated
settlement, and if that proves impossible, to get America out of Iraq
with the least damage to our interests.
We will not quell this civil war with a surge of troops alone. The
only thing that will do that is a power-sharing, oil-revenue-sharing
deal between the parties. The only way we will get serious
negotiations going is with leverage that America does not now have:
leverage on the parties inside and outside Iraq. Negotiating in the
Middle East without leverage is futile. These folks know how to
calculate the balance of power down to the last ounce.
So how do we get leverage? The first way to do that is by setting a
firm date to leave -- Dec. 1. All U.S. military forces are either
going to be home for Christmas 2007 or redeployed along the borders
of Iraq, away from the civil war.
Right now everyone in Iraq is having their cake and eating it -- at
our expense. We have to change that.
The Sunnis, who started this whole murderous cycle, participate in
the government, negotiate with us and also indulge the suicide
bombers and the insurgents. The Shiites collaborate with us, run
their own retaliatory death squads and dabble with Iran. The Saudis
tell us we can't leave, but their mosques and charities funnel Sunni
suicide bombers to Iraq and dollars to insurgents. Iran pushes its
Iraqi Shiite allies to grab more power, while helping others kill
U.S. troops. Ditto Syria.
O.K., boys, party's over: we're leaving by Dec. 1. From now on,
everyone pays retail for their politics. We will no longer play host
to a war where we're everyone's protector and target. If you Sunnis
want to go on resisting, we'll leave you to the tender mercies of the
Shiites, who vastly outnumber you. You Shiites, if you want to run
Iraq without compromising with Sunnis, fine, but you'll have to fight
them alone and then risk having to live under the thumb of Iran.
You Saudis and other Arabs, if you don't use your influence to
delegitimize Sunni suicide bombers and press Iraq's Sunnis to cut a
deal, we won't protect you from the consequences. And Iran, you win
-- yes, if we leave, you win the right to try to manage Iraq's
Shiites. Have a nice day.
But at the same time, we have to impose a tax that creates a floor
price of $3.50 a gallon for gasoline -- forever. This is also about
leverage. It says to all the parties: we are going to conserve enough
gasoline and spur enough clean alternatives to fossil fuels that no
matter what you all do in the Middle East, we will not depend on you
for energy.
Today in Iraq, none of the key parties have to make any choices, and
we don't have any choices. That is the definition of ''stuck.'' Right
now we can win only if all the parties in and around Iraq act in the
most farsighted and flexible manner. Otherwise we lose in our attempt
to democratize Iraq, and we're left holding the bag. We need to be in
a win-win situation that we control.
''I don't think at this stage that the promise of 20,000 more troops
will change any minds in Iraq,'' said Michael Mandelbaum, author of
''The Case for Goliath.'' ''But the threat of a lot fewer U.S. troops
might conceivably get everyone focused. Right now, the U.S. is the
passenger in a car that other countries are driving -- and it's not
going in the right direction. We have to change that dynamic.''
Indeed we do. Once we've set a date to leave by and a gas price to
live by, we, for the first time, will have choices in Iraq. We can
stay to broker a deal if the parties want to be guided by their
better angels or, if they want tribal instincts to reign, we can
leave by Dec. 1 and insulate ourselves from Islam's civil war with a
new energy policy.
To put it another way, if setting a date to leave miraculously brings
them to their senses, our aspirations for the Iraqis will have been
achieved, and we'll be stronger. And if it doesn't, but we have set
an exit date and a gas price, we'll be out of Iraq and more energy-
secure -- and we'll also be stronger.
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