Iraq Strategy: Withdraw or Fight On?

Online Media Focus on Talks With Insurgents as an Alternative

In the wake of President Bush's speech on Iraq, international online commentators are talking about something American pundits are not: political negotiations to blunt the militant insurgency in Iraq.

The U.S. media reaction to Bush's televised address, as Aljazeera.net noted, focused on the president's effort to link the Iraq war to the September 11 attacks. By contrast, many foreign pundits emphasized recent revelations that the United States is seeking to open lines of communication to Iraqis fighting the U.S. occupation.

The BBC says "US dwindling options in Iraq." Baghdad correspondent Jon Leyne wrote that the American people, "have simply not been prepared for this sort of long-term commitment. . . . a confused American public is asking where it all went wrong, and, increasingly, calling for the withdrawal of American forces."

The Bush administration's tentative talks with factions linked to the insurgency, as well as the training of a new Iraqi army, have made little headway, Leyne added. "That leaves Washington with only two options," he concluded.

"The White House can either prepare Americans for a very long haul -- or it could start work on an exit strategy, with all the humiliation that would entail, and the very real danger of an Iraqi civil war."

Mark Coultan, U.S. correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald said U.S. policymakers are caught in a "Catch-22."

"If the US withdraw[s], it leaves Iraq to the mercy of the insurgents. If it stays, it gives Osama bin Laden the best recruiting tool he has ever had."

But for other commentators, the talks with Iraqi insurgents, first reported by the Sunday Times in London on June 26, signal that Washington is exploring other options between military victory and withdrawal.

The editors of the Khaleej Times, a pro-U.S. news outlet in the United Arab Emirates, encouraged such talks.

"The US administration and Iraqi government should do everything possible to end the violence even if it means talking with the insurgents," the editors said.

So did the editors of the Daily Star in Lebanon. Although they characterize the insurgents as "piranhas," the editors go on to say that "dialogue is not a policy of which America ought to be ashamed."

"Ultimately, dialogue and persuasion will go much further than brute strength in tackling the problem of insurgency," they wrote on Tuesday. "The key to success for the United States in Iraq is the same as it is for Israel: Security and stability depend on a wider approach to peace than merely stomping on the militants."

The editors of Le Monde (in French) wondered if U.S. officials would have more success than the Iraqi government, which has already proposed an amnesty for insurgents who put down their arms.

Their conclusion: "The prospect of a political solution, linked to a determined military action and pressure on Syria, which serves as a refuge for armed bands operating in Iraq, may be the only escape route between engagement without end and departure without glory."

But Aljazeera.net raised the possibility that the talks are a sign of American weakness.

"Is Donald Rumsfeld's acknowledgment of talks between the US and Iraqi fighters an admission of defeat?" the Qatar-based site asked its readers in an online survey. As of Wednesday night, 44 percent of more than 10,000 respondents said "Yes" and 19 percent said "partially." Thirty two percent said "No."

Patrick Cockburn, Baghdad correspondent for The Independent of London, suggested that "the talks may indicate a growing sense among US military and civilian officials that they cannot win this war," he wrote.

Debkafile, an Israeli news site specializing in security issues, portrays the negotiations as central to Bush's Iraq policy.

Former Iraqi interim prime minister Ayad Allawi is spearheading a "U.S.-backed peace mission" involving talks with Sunni leaders, tribal chieftains and insurgent commanders, according to the Tel Aviv-based site, whose reliance on Israeli sources has sometimes distorted its reporting.

Mark LeVine, a UCLA professor writing in the Hong Kong-based Asia Times asked a question rarely heard in the U.S. media: "Are the only options in Iraq maintaining an unpopular and costly occupation, or handing the country over to 'former members of Saddam Hussein's regime, criminal elements and foreign terrorists' (as Bush describes them)?

"The answer is manifestly no," he argues, "and the fact so few people within the corridors of power can imagine an alternative policy reveals a powerful yet fallacious line of reasoning at the heart of arguments to 'stay the course' in Iraq: that a US troop withdrawal would automatically leave a security vacuum in its place."

There is an alternative, he says.

"Apologize to the Iraqi people for an invasion and occupation that (whatever our intentions) has gone terribly wrong; ask the United Nations to take over the management of the country's security, lead negotiations to end the insurgency, and oversee redevelopment aid; and leave as soon as a sufficient number of replacement forces are in place."

Clearly, the debate about the merits of negotiating with Iraqi insurgents has begun in the foreign media. Whether that debate comes to the United States remains to be seen.