When I read Gareth Porter's report, published today here in TomPaine.com and titled, "Victory Is...Negotiable" —I sighed. The thrust of Porter's analysis is that the Bush administration is preparing the table for negotiations with the Sunnis. Ever since the January 30, 2005, elections excluded the Sunni population of Iraq, a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Iraq has required earnest, open-ended negotiations among all the stakeholders in and around Iraq. Indeed, it should have happened in April of 2003. Last month, the Cairo process showed that everyone but the U.S., hardline Iraqi Shiites and Al Qaeda understood this.
Two weeks later, Bush made a major set-piece speech in Annapolis that was based on a new strategy paper. Most Dems and the media dismissed it as nothing new. But there was something new. The seeds of negotiation. And at least for this observer, the signs were obvious.
It was a page out of the Cold War playbook. Agents on the ground likely needed to show resistance leaders in Iraq that the president was serious about negotiating. To prove their bona fides, they got the president to shift his language in a subtle but perceptible and very public way. That, in turn, opened the door for talks...
...And slammed the door on the Democrats.
Democrats have been driven to distraction by four noisy and myth-driven forces within the party. In one corner are the out-now, anti-war folks led by anachronistic organizations like Peace Action and ANSWER, more interested in creating a domestic "movement" than in bringing peace to Iraq. In the other corner are the Democratic hawks, many of whom are veterans of the McGovern campaign, including Hillary Clinton, who are so worried about being called weak on defense that they cleave irrationally to military solutions. In another corner are the poll-driven cynics, like Rahm Emanuel, who are quite willing to let Bush ignite the entire Persian Gulf as long as it gets Democrats elected. And then there are the old-school Dems, including the likes of Jack Murtha, God bless him, whose hard-earned credibility with the military has blinded them to the political requirements and opportunities now facing the Iraq mission.
Had they set aside their myths and ulterior motives, they could have learned the lesson of the 1990s: Well-crafted negotiations transform political conflict. South Africa, Northern Ireland, Mozambique and Bosnia all saw negotiations transform deep-seated, complex conflicts. The Oslo process and the Southern Sudan peace talks, though incomplete, broke new and important ground and changed how those conflicts are managed. Had they looked at this recent history, Dems would have consistently called for a political process to displace the occupation/imposition strategy of the Bush administration. Negotiation remains the only principled solution to the Iraq quagmire.
Now Democrats are facing a real problem. Bush has begun to co-opt the negotiation track, leaving Democrats stuck with supporting unilateral withdrawal. But, withdrawal without a political consensus, as Lawrence Wilkerson has noted, would only mean a larger U.S. involvement in the region later. That leaves Dems holding the bag.
Of course, just because there are signs that Bush is looking to negotiate does not mean that Bush's negotiations are going to succeed. It is hard to believe that the White House could create a peace process that will force their Shiite and Kurdish clients to really make the concessions necessary to make Iraq work. What it does mean, though, is that these American negotiations may suck the oxygen out of the Cairo process. That cannot be allowed to happen.
And this is where Democrats must make a last, principled stand. Assuming that the religious Shiite block is weakened by yesterday's elections, Democrats must call for the Bush administration to align our military, intelligence and diplomatic operations in Iraq to support a successful Cairo process. Yesterday, our own Bob Dreyfuss described what a successful Cairo process would look like here on TomPaine.com. The EU, the U.N. and the Arab League must likewise welcome the new U.S. interest in a negotiated solution and insist that American negotiations aim to support Cairo, not replace it.
Democrats, for too long, have chosen domestic politics over good policy in Iraq. There's still time to avoid a larger conflagration in the Persian Gulf—but only if Dems move beyond the disconnected debate around timetables and focus on the real politics of peace in Iraq.
---Update: December 22, 2005---
An earlier version of this editorial blog described Peace Action and ANSWER as "bolshevist." After an e-mail exchange with Peace Action, I realize this language is inaccurately applied to Peace Action. I admit that I was confused by their role as one of the core organizers of the September 2005 anti-war march permitted to ANSWER, a coalition closely affiliated with the Workers World Party . Peace Action made it clear to me that their current relationship with ANSWER "borders on hostile."
I apologize to Peace Action for this confusion.
--Patrick Doherty |
Friday, December 16, 2005 12:58 PM
