Going forward in Iraq
November 30, 2006| By Nathaniel Ward
Just days after Iraqi President Jalal Talabani visited Iran and normalized relations with Syria, President Bush is in Jordan to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. “President Bush has good reason to wary of these developments,” Heritage foreign policy expert Peter Brookes writes, “and to hear what Maliki has to say about where these bilateral relationships are going.”
“It’s clear that both Iran and Syria are trying to co-opt Iraq into their sphere of influence,” Brookes explains. “From Tehran’s and Damascus’ perspectives, the fewer Americans in the region to check their plans for hegemony, the better.”
In a new paper, Middle East scholar Jim Phillips elaborates on what President Bush should emphasize at the summit.
The United States did not intervene in Iraq to remedy historic Shiite grievances against Saddam’s Sunni-dominated regime or to build democracy (although this became a supplementary goal after the war). President Bush should return to the basics and remind Prime Minister Maliki that the U.S.’s primary goal was to neutralize the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and to keep such weapons out of the hands of terrorists.
Phillips continues with recommendations for restoring stability in Iraq.
Bush’s message should be that the United States will play an important supporting role but that Iraqis must take the lead to contain and ease sectarian strife, to build a broad-based ruling coalition that can undercut Sunni Arab support for the insurgents, and to marginalize, demobilize, and disarm the various sectarian militias that threaten stability and the rule of law.
Bush must be clear that the United States can help build state institutions, but only the Iraqis can build a nation.
The United States should not lose faith in its mission in Iraq by recent media assertions that Iraq is now in a civil war. “This brouhaha about civil war is kind of politicized, a way of delegitimizing the U.S. effort in Iraq,”' Phillips explains to The Miami Herald. He warns that “the situation in Iraq could worsen quickly if the United States succumbs to wishful thinking about the consequences of a rapid withdrawal.”
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.