Yoshie writes:
Baker, Gates, et al. are engaged in wishful thinking if Tehran or Damascus or anyone can do much in Iraq that is in Washington's interest (supposing that Washington knows what its best interests in Iraq are, which is far from clear either).
======================== I don't think the US expects that the Iranians and Syrians will act on the basis of "Washington's interest." But the Americans are hoping that Tehran and Damascus will see it as being in their own interests to a) normalize political and economic relations with the US and its European allies and b) stabilize the Iraq situation so the ethnic conflicts in that country don't become generalized in the Middle East, possibly leading to wider conflicts involving themselves, the Turks, Saudis, and others. Whether this is "wishful thinking" remains to be seen. If the parties don't know this yet because they haven't explored the possibilities, how can we be so sure?
Moreover, it shouldn't be assumed that the forces within the Shia and Sunni camps which are bent on ethnic cleansing and civil war are stronger than those who want to avoid it. On the Shia side, al-Sadr is trying to head off a civil war, as are the Baathists on the Sunni side who are probably more influential than the sectarian fundamentalist insurgents. The problem is that the more the reprisal killings and population transfers continue in the streets on a daily basis, the harder it becomes to reach an accomodation from above. That is what some US politicians mean, whether they are right or not, when they say they want to impose "deadlines" for a US withdrawal to force the contending parties represented in the Iraqi government to compromise on power-sharing and oil revenues before conditions on the ground completely spiral out of control and engulf American troops. It is not that the major players, including Washington and Tehran, are unclear about their mutual interest - to avoid civil war and, as much as possible, the fragmentation of the country - but that "events, dear boy, events", as MacMillan said, have a way of interfering with what politicians want.
