Iraq's new chapter
WITH THE selection of a prime minister and the prospect of a national unity government, a page is turning for Iraq. Visits this week from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice presage the beginning of the end of America's full-bore military occupation. Others, too, anticipate a new phase; that was evident in a videotape from the commander of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and the announced opening of an Arab League office in Baghdad.
For all the Bush administration's talk of troop levels being determined solely by the security situation in Iraq, it seems obvious that the primary reason for official hints of troop reductions is that Republican candidates are fearful of going to voters in November as members of the Bush war party. Predictably, this was not the reason given by US Army General George Casey, who said after meeting with Rumsfeld and Rice Wednesday that the formation of a new Iraqi government will create conditions for a reduction in US troop levels.
For Iraq and its neighbors, American reasons for withdrawing troops matter less than the consequences. Zarqawi delivered disparate messages to separate audiences, all oriented to the changed circumstances that are sure to follow from the establishment of an Iraqi government including Sunni Arab parties and a reduced role for the US military.
Although Zarqawi's foreigners make up but a tiny fraction of the insurgency, he struck a triumphalist pose, calling Bush a liar for concealing that US troops had ''failed to fight." His transparent purpose was to pretend that he and his suicide bombers deserve the credit for any winding down of US military activities in Iraq. But his most telling remarks came in the form of threats to Sunni Arab political parties who might join a national unity government, which he described as ''a poisoned dagger in the heart of the Muslim nation."
Not surprisingly, Zarqawi's threats to Sunni politicians -- and, by implication, to local Sunni Arab insurgent groups that have recently taken their distance from the Al Qaeda foreigners -- suggest a fear that his band of jihadists may soon become isolated.
In a similar vein, the Arab League's imminent return to Baghdad is motivated by a fear that prolonged sectarian war between Shi'ites and Sunnis could subtract Iraq from the Arab world. The League's members want to halt the spread of Iranian influence, and there are rumors that Egypt, with Saudi financial backing, might accept an invitation to assist an Iraqi government in stamping out the radical Islamists of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
The imminent US troop reductions that Casey invoked may make it easier, not harder, for Iraqis to overcome the legacy of Saddam Hussein's despotism and foreign occupation. 