ALWAYS BET ON BLACK:

America's Future Ally (NIBRAS KAZIMI, September 5, 2007, NY Sun)

For the past two months, I've been traveling around the Middle East for this paper, looking for trends, and it's no wonder why I haven't written anything throughout that time — nothing looks certain.

My itinerary has taken me to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey — each of them has ongoing major stories — but it's been one long murky summer where much seems to be in flux. The one trend that seems crystal clear to me is that Iraq will make it; Iraq will turn out fine. [...]

Al Qaeda tried to trigger a Sunni-Shiite war in Iraq for the last four years, but anyone using the term "civil war" to describe the situation in Iraq is grossly misinformed in my book — I'm looking at you, Senator Obama.

During 2006, Iraq witnessed the appetizer course of what a civil war would look like, and Al Qaeda's Sunni shock troops lost their appetite; the Shiites would win easy in case of an escalation. In lieu of death squads and beheadings, Sunni-Shiite tensions now run through the legal channels of parliament and how ministerial posts are allocated. Politics have been reintroduced into Iraqi life, and it's only natural that an issue as thorny and still unresolved as sectarianism would be expressed through political machinations.

The main Sunni bloc withdrew from the government — so what? The worst threat they can administer is a noisy parliamentary opposition since the recourse to armed conflict is no longer an option. No Sunni politician can ask his constituency to carry arms against the new Iraq since this was all they've been trying over the last four years and it ended with defeat.

Doesn't take much knowledge of the Middle East to grasp how Iraq differs from the others.

MORE:
Bush's new friends: The Sunnis: As plans to stabilize Iraqi politics go nowhere fast, experts warn that the latest U.S. tactics could lead to greater civil war (Mark Benjamin, Sept. 5, 2007, Salon)

The initiatives have had some tangible benefits for U.S. troops. Maj. Jeff Pool, a Marine public affairs officer in Anbar Province, said there had been 70 attacks on U.S. forces in Anbar the week before last -- down from 450 during a week from the same time period last year.

"Most of these guys had been shooting at us, so you are virtually certain to show a net gain whatever you do," said Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Kagan has also been a vocal supporter of the surge strategy.

But others analyzing the war worry that the United States is now training, organizing and empowering staunch foes of the Shiite-led central government. Even Lt. Col. Garver, the military spokesman, admitted that the U.S. initiative with the Sunnis has resulted in "some nervousness" among Shiite leaders in Baghdad.

"If what you are doing is strengthening these particular Sunni groups, and they are cooperating with us to get rid of al-Qaida, you give them guns and training," says Marc Lynch, a professor of political science at George Washington University. "Now they are in a better position to fight against the Shiites."

So we'll basically have to help the Shi'a put them down once they help us put al Qaeda down.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 5, 2007 8:14 AM