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Iraq: U.S. Problems, Saudi Nightmares and the Case for a Settlement By George Friedman Time magazine reported Feb. 21 that U.S. officials were holding back-channel discussions with Sunnis on the possibility of ending the insurrection in the Sunni Triangle of Iraq. All parties are eager to backpedal from the reports, but we regard them as true -- not only because reports of such conversations have reached us for months, but because under the current circumstances, these discussions make complete sense. It also makes complete sense that Ahmed Chalabi, who is trying to resurrect himself as the leader of the Shiite government, would say publicly that the new government would not be bound by these discussions. Everything, inside and outside Iraq, is pivoting around what the Sunnis will do -- and that, in turn, pivots around what the Americans, not the new government, are prepared to offer. It has been the general assumption that the Sunni insurrection is a highly fragmented movement -- answerable to no one in particular and controllable by no one. However, evidence is emerging that the situation is simpler than that. The Association of Muslim Scholars, an umbrella organization for traditional Sunni leaders, has implied -- and on occasion stated -- that it is in a position to control at least large swathes of the insurrection. Put differently, the assumption has been that the Sunni leadership was trapped by the insurgents, unable to make political deals out of fear of guerrilla retribution. But it would now appear that the mainstream Sunni leaders and the insurgents are working more closely together than thought. This does not mean the two are monolithic. Far from it. Nevertheless, there is a basic reality: A guerrilla insurrection the size of the Sunni rising could not be sustained simply through coercion. Pure coercion is enormously inefficient and dangerous to a guerrilla force. In order to operate on the scale seen before the January election, the insurgents had to have active support at the village and neighborhood levels. In Iraq, that support is available only if the leadership is prepared to give it. The Sunni leadership was prepared to give it. Now the discussion is whether and under what terms that leadership is prepared to withdraw the support, leaving the insurrection to degrade for lack of resources. Indeed, the capture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's propagandist indicates the inner security blanket around al-Zarqawi might have been breached. If this is so, it would be because of shifts among Sunnis. The Sunni leadership rose against the coalition invasion of Iraq for three reasons: 1. The initial American policy -- to completely purge anyone involved with the Baathist regime -- was, in effect, a purge of Sunnis from the regime. 2. The Sunnis saw the American relationship with the Shia and Iran -- as symbolized by the role of Chalabi -- as well as with the Kurds, as direct evidence that the United States intended to crush the Sunni leadership and community. 3. Given the first two reasons, supporting the follow-on war plan of the Baathist government seemed the prudent thing to do. In large part, the American will was untested, and there was hope that a massive rising -- potentially joined by elements in the Shiite community -- would cause the United States, if not to withdraw, then to reconsider its administrative policy in Iraq. The United States' response to the Sunni rising was, at one level, confused. First, Washington failed to anticipate the rising, then moved into an alignment with the Shia. After the capture of Saddam Hussein, the United States tried to switch to a more accommodating position with the Sunnis, and then swung back into opposition. It was not that Washington had no policy, but rather that, by the summer of 2003, the policy was tactical rather than strategic. U.S. leaders were looking for a stable basis from which to operate. The stable status was always an alliance with the Shia, but the United States always hesitated for two reasons. First, officials in Washington feared that with the Shia would come the Iranians -- as a sort of package power deal in Baghdad. Second, they were afraid the insurrection would spread against the Shia -- as with, for example, the al-Sadr rising -- creating a complete political meltdown. In the end, however, when U.S. officials decided to go ahead with the election in January, they had made the decision to accept a Shiite-dominated government. Now, extensive negotiations with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani over Tehran's role in Iraqi Shiite politics formed the basis of that decision. The United States put al-Sistani in the position of having to choose between the Americans and control of an Iraqi government, or the Iranians. He chose the Americans, the election was held, the Shia won, and the stage is set for a Shiite government. Washington favors a Shiite government because it wants to turn primary responsibility for Iraq over to this government. Put simply, the Bush administration wants the Shia to crush the Sunni rebellion -- allowing U.S. forces to remain in Iraq in isolated bases, but not responsible for counterinsurgency operations. In other words, the United States wants to Shiitize the conflict, which makes sense. On the other hand -- and in this, there is always another hand -- the administration doesn't really trust al-Sistani or his lieutenants. The hidden fear of is that the Iranians still have their hooks into the Iraqi Shia, and that they are biding their time until the Shia consolidate political power before turning Iraq into an Islamic republic and, far more important, an Iranian puppet regime. Now, there are many reasons this won't happen, including theological tensions between An Najaf and Qom, but there is one reason that it could happen: After a generation of trying, the influence of the Iranian intelligence service (MOIS) in Iraq is substantial and difficult to gauge. It has the goods on a large number of Shia. MOIS is very good at what it does, and it might have enough control to give the United States an unpleasant strategic surprise. The United States does not want Iraq to be dominated by Iran. First, U.S. forces would lose their base in the region. Second, the Iranians would then be the dominant regional power. Nothing would stand between the Iranian military and the entire Persian Gulf except for U.S. forces. The last thing Washington wants is to tie down its already stretched military in a blocking operation against Iran. >From Washington's standpoint, the best solution is not the destruction of Sunni forces by the Shia; the best outcome would be a change of policy on the part of the Sunni leadership, allowing them to join the Iraqi government with their forces officially disbanded but truthfully intact. The Sunnis might be a minority, but they are strategically located. The Shia can hold Baghdad in a coalition government with the Sunnis, but if the Sunnis rise up, the center can't hold. Unless the Shia want to split Iraq, they cannot refuse an accommodation with the Sunnis. Unless the Sunnis want to become the victims of the Shia, they cannot refuse accommodation either. Deals have been built on less. There is another player out there that is vitally interested in the outcome: Saudi Arabia. The Saudis were deeply traumatized by the rise of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his Shiite regime. The fear of a powerful Iran, dominating Iraq, is Riyadh's primal fear. The Saudis helped to underwrite Iraq's war with Iran precisely because, though they were scared of Saddam Hussein, they were terrified of Khomeini. A Shiite-governed Iraq is a nightmare for Riyadh because it creates two possible scenarios. In one, the Iranians move through Iraq and invade the Saudi oil fields, moving as far south as they wish, supported by Shia living in the region. In the other, the United States comes to Riyadh's aid and stations divisions in Saudi Arabia -- thus resurrecting the nightmare that led to the radicalization of the Wahhabi clerics and the rise of al Qaeda. Either outcome stinks. Therefore, it is in the kingdom's best interest to prevent a purely Shiite Iraqi government or the collapse of Iraq into three countries, with the southern route to the western shore of the Persian Gulf in the hands of the Shia. In fact, this is not merely "the best interest" of the Saudis -- it is a burning issue. We can even extend this a little more broadly. If one divide is between Shiite and Sunni, the other is between Arab and Iranian. Arab Shia occupy a special position, of course, but the Sunni Arab world does not want to see Iran emerge as a regional superpower. Riyadh holds one of the keys to the situation. Among the foundations of the Sunni insurrection has been the sense that the struggle is joined to a broader Arab interest. Buttressed by Saudi money and recruits, this has been an important dimension of the insurgency. It also has given the Saudis influence among the insurgents. Saudi religious leaders have links to al-Zarqawi. Riyadh has been surprisingly successful in coping with Saudi Arabia's own militant insurrection by co-opting its leadership, particularly the religious leaders. The Saudis have the means to whittle away at the insurrection in Iraq and the motive to do so: Less than anyone do they want to see an Iraqi government simply in the hands of the Shia. That is why Shiite figure Chalabi, still singing Iran's tune, recently insisted the new government would not be bound by any negotiation with the Sunnis. It also is the reason that, as improbable as it might appear, Chalabi seems to have a chance at being prime minister of Iraq, or at least a major figure in the government. In recent days, there has been a media blitz aimed at rehabilitating him by portraying him as a secular technocrat. That he might be, but he also is adopting a line on the Sunni guerrillas that, if followed, works directly against American and Saudi interests and toward Iranian interests. It is interesting to observe how over the past two years, American and Saudi interests have converged and American and Iranian interests have diverged. It is no surprise, therefore, that the Iranians should have reached out to the Syrians over the past few weeks, trying to forge a strategic alliance. The Syrians' primary interest is retaining their position of power in Lebanon, just as the primary interest of the Iranians is in building up their position in Iraq. The Americans are systematically whittling away at both of these interests. Tehran has asked for a united front with Syria. Damascus views Iran with suspicion. First, Syrian leaders are not sure what Iran can do for them; second, they are not sure Iran won't negotiate a deal with the Americans, leaving the Syrians wide open. Our guess is that the regime in Syria responded to the Iranians with the demand for a down payment -- some indicator that the Iranians were prepared to cross the Rubicon. The price we believe they asked was the life of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. Hezbollah is an Iranian-founded and -controlled Shiite group that is permitted to operate by Syria. The Syrians wanted al-Hariri out of the way and, if our conjecture is accurate, wanted Tehran to do this via Hezbollah. The Iranians would have accommodated the Syrians -- first, because they needed some international support; and second, because they wanted to throw Hezbollah into the pot. Hezbollah invented suicide bombings and, even more than al Qaeda, it is a global organization. It has grown fat and somewhat complacent in the past decade -- cutting deals in booming Lebanon and elsewhere in a range of businesses -- but the group still knows its craft. And in the al-Hariri affair, Tehran signaled the United States that it has more cards to play than just nuclear weapons. Indeed, Hezbollah is more frightening to the United States than Iranian nukes. As the Israelis put it, the Iranians will know how to build a nuclear device in six months. Put into English, that means the Iranians still don't know how to build a nuclear device, but in six months they might have a clue. Hezbollah, not nukes, is the Iranian wild card -- and with al-Hariri's death, Tehran threw the card on the table. A Syrian-Iranian entente is a worry to the Americans and a nightmare for the Saudis. A pure Shiite government is a problem for the Americans and nightmare for the Sunnis. The Bush administration has created an interesting situation: We are all in a place where the United States has problems and others have nightmares. Therefore, a lot of people are more interested than even the Americans in a settlement of the Iraqi insurgency. Now comes the hard part -- getting all the moving pieces tied together. ------------------------ Yahoo! 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