THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION has been touting a sharp reduction in violent deaths in Iraq over the past half year, and a dramatic improvement in security. But the so-called surge of US combat forces deserves only a minor portion of the credit for this turnaround. The primary agents of change have been Iraqis themselves, particularly those Sunni Arab sheikhs, or tribal leaders, in the western area of the country who were directly exposed to the wanton cruelty of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Motivated by self-preservation, these leaders turned to the Americans for succor.
Recognizing that Iraqis are largely responsible for the current transformation is vital, because recent developments may point the way to an eventual stabilization of Iraq. The Bush administration's calamitous blunders in Iraq derived mostly from a willful imposing of its own doctrinal notions on a society the occupiers did not understand.
If now there is a glimmer of hope for Iraq, it is because the United States, at last, has begun to take advantage of Iraq's political currents, rather than ignoring or resisting them. America's new friends, the Sunni Arab Awakening Councils that have quickly grown to more than 70,000 members, include former tribal insurgents in the west and former Ba'athists in Baghdad. They are acting on the most elemental principle of power politics: that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
The Sunni sheikhs had their own reasons to fight Al Qaeda. The foreign-led jihadists had been supplanting the rule of the tribal leaders, imposing a Draconian version of Islamic law, and even abducting the sheikhs' daughters as "wives" for Al Qaeda's holy warriors.
The success of the US-armed militias in battering Al Qaeda has been stunning. But now comes the hard part. The secondary enemy of the Sunnis' Awakening Councils is the same Shi'ite-dominated government that Washington supports. Furthermore, America's new Sunni allies also despise the Iranian backers of that government; once they rid their areas of Al Qaeda, the Sunnis will want to purge Iraq of Iranian influence.
If American policymakers hope to extricate the United States from Iraq any time soon, they must now play a tricky power-balancing game. They need to use the rise of Sunni Arab forces as a card to pressure the Iraqi government to grant more development resources and a greater share of political power to the Sunnis. The same card can motivate Iran's rulers to help promote stability in areas permeated by their agents and their money.
The sooner Iraq's contending sects and factions accept that none can dominate and that all stand to prosper from a regional power-sharing arrangement like that envisioned in the present constitution, the sooner Iraq's oil wealth will rain down on its people. And the sooner a disastrous occupation can end - and US forces can come home.
