How to Prevent Iraq From Getting Even Worse

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Yes, that's been tried, but much of the hard slog U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad put in last winter to bring the Sunnis into the political process was undone last month when Shi'ite and Kurdish parties forced through legislation that brings Iraq closer to a partitioned state, which Sunnis fear would leave them without access to the country's main resource, oil. "The Shi'ites and Kurds used their combined parliamentary majority to bully the Sunnis," says a Western diplomat in Baghdad. "They need to understand that a big part of democracy is about reassuring the minority that its worst fears won't be realized."

Sunni parties boycotted the vote on the federalism bill and are threatening to withdraw from the all-party government. The risk is that more Sunnis will join the insurgency, which is being driven by extremist jihadis who have taken over parts of western Iraq. The Mujahedin Shura Council, an umbrella of jihadist groups that includes al-Qaeda's Iraqi wing, last week announced the formation of an Islamic state in "the Sunni provinces of Iraq." Scores of white-clad jihadis staged a brazen show of force in several towns in Anbar province. Although the majority of Sunnis want no part of an Islamic state run by jihadis, they may feel they have no option if the political process seems rigged against them.

One option, says the Western diplomat, is to use U.S. leverage with the Kurds to "get them to stop pushing the Sunnis into a corner." That would isolate the Shi'ites, who won't have a large enough majority in parliament to pass legislation. Khalilzad can draw on the fact that the Kurds, although committed to their own autonomy, owe their very existence to American arms. And the growing number of jihadist attacks on Kirkuk, a northern city coveted by the Kurds for its rich oil deposits, shows that they too stand to lose by radicalizing the Sunnis.

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WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS

Since Syria and Iran are a big part of Iraq's problems--Damascus shelters and funds Sunni insurgents; Tehran arms and trains Shi'ite militias--they will have to be a big part of any solution. That has always been clear in Baghdad, where leaders like President Jalal Talabani maintain that the U.S. needs to engage Iraq's neighbors in some sort of dialogue, through unofficial channels if no other options exist. Talabani told the BBC last week that "if Iran and Syria were involved, it will be the beginning of the end of terrorism and securing Iraq within months."

But talks with either country remain anathema to the Bush Administration, which has consistently accused Syria of harboring terrorists and is currently engaged in a war of words with Iran over its nuclear program. "We'd be very happy for them not to foment terror," White House spokesman Tony Snow said last week. "But it certainly doesn't change our diplomatic stance toward either." Given the U.S.'s predicament, the Administration needs all the help it can get in Iraq. "Dialogue is what everybody does--enemies and friends," says former Marine General Anthony Zinni, a former chief of the U.S. Central Command. "It's neither good nor bad."