Iraq ‘Divide and Rule’ Strategy Called Shortsighted

RINF.Com, May 5, 2008

Inter Press Service Five years since U.S. President George W. Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech, critics say the administration has yet to show a credible way to actually “accomplish” the mission that could see a peaceful Iraq and a return home of U.S. troops.
Though the 2007 revamping of the counter-insurgency strategy, known as the “surge,” has markedly reduced violence, political turmoil and ethno-sectarian strife still plague Iraq.
The U.S. surge and its concurrent positive developments did create political space, but meaningful moves toward comprehensive political accords and reconciliation have yet to follow, said a pair of new Iraq reports from the International Crisis Group (ICG).

For example, the Sunni Awakening, or Sahwa movement, that helped to slow violence in much of Baghdad and Anbar province by bringing in former insurgents and incorporating them into U.S.-funded militias, for example, leaves a new Sunni political landscape.

But that landscape, with all of its advantages for bringing stability – and thereby aiding the U.S. occupation – has failed to transition into the politics of the Iraqi central government. Frustration with those failures creates a tense atmosphere that even U.S. officials acknowledge as being “fragile and reversible.”

Continued . . .