Terrorists No More

30 January 2006



US Negotiates with Iraqi Insurgents

The standard sound bite from the US government is “America does not negotiate with terrorists.” That is true; when America needs to negotiate with someone, the label gets changed. Thus, the negotiations in Iraq reported on by Newsweek aren’t negotiations with terrorists. They are between the US and “senior members of the leadership” of the Iraqi insurgency. Practicality is finally yielding to ideology, and it is about time.

According to the Newsweek story by Scott Johnson, Rod Nordland and Ranya Kadri, the US has had a back channel to the people planting the car bombs and enabling the suicide bombers for “many months.” The story said, “Now we have won over the Sunni political leadership,” says US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. “The next step is to win over the insurgents.” One of the anonymous insurgents at the talks said, “We want things from the US side, stopping misconduct by US forces, preventing Iranian intervention. We can’t achieve that without actual meetings.”

So, the terrorists and the infidel occupiers are meeting and trying to hash out some progress in ending this conflict. Very little is going to come of these meetings right away. Neither side really trusts the other. Moreover, the rejectionists on both sides (American pseudo-patriots whose attitude borders on genocidal racism and hard-core Fascislamists, who are just about as genocidal and racist) will try to derail the talks at every opportunity. For example, Newsweek says “Sheik Nassir Qarim al-Fahdawi, a prominent Anbar sheik described by other Sunnis as a chief negotiator for the insurgency [was murdered]. ‘He was killed for talking to the Americans,’ says Zedan al-Awad, another leading Anbar sheik.”

War is, of course, politics by other means, and even when there is unconditional surrender, politics continues vafter the conflict is at an end. In this instance, there will be no surrender by either side; the Americans can’t lose, and they can’t kill all the insurgents, so they can’t win either. Instead, an accommodation must be found, and that requires talking.

However, there is a missing party in these talks – the recently elected Iraqi government, when it finally is formed, must have a chair at the table. If the Americans are to get out, they cannot sell out the Baghdad regime that the misguided and bungled Bush policies have created. At the same time, the insurgents need to have that government represented if any deal is to stick; Washington cannot bind Baghdad.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
Produced using Fedora Linux.


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