WASHINGTON - While Iraqis are optimistic about the future, car bombs and assassinations have shattered the post-election honeymoon of Iraq's first elected government in a half-century. There has also been political chaos. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari took months to piece together his Cabinet, and several key posts remain unfilled.
Despite the relief of a milestone achieved, many U.S. officials are concerned about the lack of Sunni participation in the government. Senior U.S. officials continue to discuss a Sunni strategy, meant to deflate Arab Sunni support for the insurgency and encourage Sunni participation. While well-intentioned, such efforts will backfire.
The core of the Sunni strategy is political and material outreach to Iraq's Sunni Arab population. Material support has a spotty record. The chief political problem with a Sunni strategy is not the message, but the messenger. Across the political spectrum, Iraqis are nationalistic. They resent outside lectures.
When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited Baghdad on April 12 and told reporters that "it's important that the new government be attentive to the competence of the people in the ministries and that they avoid unnecessary turbulence," he undercut existing homegrown reconciliation efforts. Any U.S. outreach to Iraqi insurgents fans more violence by implying Iraqi government impotence.
Newly inaugurated Iraqi ministers also resent recent procedures by senior diplomats in Baghdad opposing de-Baathification.
U.S. officials say de-Baathification victimizes the Sunni population and undercuts security gains. They are wrong.
Ordinary Iraqis - Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds - say former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi lost the election largely because his re-Baathification policies failed to bring the security he promised. His tenure coincided with the worst of the insurgency.
In the weeks before the election, many Iraqis said their main issue was not ethnicity, but security. Many Iraqis labeled Mr. Allawi a hypocrite because he used U.S. security guards, an indication he had no confidence in his own forces. Any Iraqi politician who accepts U.S. protection will hemorrhage support.
It is also a mistake for diplomats to conflate Baathism with a single community. Iraq's mass graves hold a number of Arab Sunnis. Conversely, many Kurds and Shiites were Baathists. Any former Baathist who wants to participate in the new Iraq should declare his past activities, who reported to him and to whom he reported. When several dozen Iraqi recruits are stopped, taken off buses and executed, Iraqis suspect an inside job.
