USIP: MORE THAN ‘SHIITES’ AND ‘SUNNIS’:POST-SECARIAN STRATEGY IN IRAQ

On March 3, 2009, USIP hosted Jan Egeland, Director of the, NUPI and Reidar Visser, Research Fellow at NUPI, to present the findings of his report, “More than ‘Shiites’ and ‘Sunnis’: How a Post-Sectarian Strategy Can Change the Logic and Facilitate Sustainable Political Reform in Iraq.” Sam Parker, Iraq Program Officer at USIP, offered a response on the paper.

Iraqi society has a rich history of coexistence between Sunnis and Shi’a.US policy in post-2003 Iraq created, or otherwise deepened, division among Iraq’s various communities — first by invading Iraq with a misguided vision of Iraqi society, framing the evolving conflict through an ethno-sectarian paradigm, and finally pursuing a reconciliation strategy based on the fulfillment of communitarian quotas. This process yielded political gains to opportunistic leaderships by bolstering the appeal of communitarian interests and polarizing an otherwise coexistent population. The Iranian government, whose interest lies in preventing a nonsectarian Iraq, has ultimately benefited from American missteps. The US government and international community must now work to reverse this trend, in order to facilitate a timely and unproblematic withdrawal of US forces.

Foremost among the paper’s eighteen recommendations is that the US government should publicly acknowledge the negative consequences of its policies to date and clarify its future aims in Iraq. Other specific recommendations include: tying further international development assistance and withdrawal of US troops to the completion of a revised or new constitution; offering campaign assistance to political parties running on non-sectarian platforms; opening bilateral US-Iran negotiations with intentional disregard to Iran’s role in Iraq, so as to downplay this issue; guaranteeing the KRG internationally recognized autonomy; and discouraging foreign investment in the oil sector in Kurdistan until its status is agreed upon.

Click here for audio from the event and the full executive summary

Question to the Blogosphere:  Now that the United States is scaling back its involvement in Iraq, do you think that a unified Iraqi identity can emerge again?  Is the U.S. solely do blame for the fracturing of Iraqi society, or was Saddam’s Ba’athist party also responsible?  What do you think the role of Iran should be in Iraq?  Should the United States be involved in Iraqi politics?