Phases of engagement in Iraq

People are pawns in any conflict. They are manipulated by their motivation to serve the ends of the various stakeholders. It is entirely possible to employ Muslims against Islam, Communists against communism, Republicans against the republic - it is merely a matter of making them do whatever serves your ends in the name of their beliefs. This sad fact is evident in the 9/11 obscenity - those responsible denied having anything to do with it, and offered no rationale for the act that successfully catalyzed what might be the most significant global conflict since WW2.

Assume a society is fragmented along lines of association (belief or prejudice). A stakeholder in any conflict then has three phases of engagement:

• The stakeholder establishes an early claim to one or more fragments of society.
  
• As the conflict escalates it yields useful atrocities and outrages. These can be used to accelerate the polarization. This is a critical phase, because man is a social creature who seeks the security of association, and fear soon becomes more significant than belief in securing allegiance.
  
• Establish a hierarchical structure of authority and migrate the conflict into a stable state which supports the stakeholder's hierarchy and eliminates opposition. Purge yourself of the people who aren't malleable enough to conform with the new order.
  

In the second phase what people believe is unimportant as long as their fears drive them into favorable allegiances. The social partitions can redefine themselves in radically new ways.

The second phase is the current phase of the Iraq conflict. People are being driven by fear into the structures that have been created for them. The US would love to eliminate alternative allegiances, but the US is not the only stakeholder. Iran, the other major stakeholder in Iraq, believes it has far more at stake than the US, and by any objective measure it is right; just as the US would resent Iranian involvement in a Mexican conflict, Iranians resent the US meddling in their backyard.

The US has provoked Iran into a state of incandescence. The confrontation has eliminated rational discourse, and militia have become the ante required to play the game. This administration is no doubt toeing at Congress' rather frayed line, covertly supporting select militia, but to win with militia the US will need:

• the stomach for atrocities and
  
• the political mandate to terrorize an entire population
  

Atrocities can always be attributed to enemy action, but the US has limited credibility, and while the rest of the world understands Iran's interest in Iraq there is no similar indulgence for the US, whose involvement is widely perceived as purely venal. Under current circumstances a US victory seems unattainable.

If Iran can hang together politically (in other words, if the US fails to destabilize it) then it will ultimately prevail in Iraq. But the US has arrows other than direct confrontation in its quiver, and Iran risks gaining a poisoned pill in Iraq.

To not lose the US needs:

• brilliant political leadership and
  
• an accommodation with the ultimate victor in the conflict - Iran
  

At this stage there are still many opportunities for rapprochement. To recognize and engineer such an opportunity will require substantially more competence and vision than has been heretofore evident.