| Changing minds. Lamb believes real progress on reconciliation can be made this year. To skeptics, he notes that the current peace in Northern Ireland would have seemed impossible not long ago. Iraq, he says, "has the potential to re-establish itself as a formidable economic power and force for good in the region."
Negotiators see the opportunity to wean large numbers of Sunnis away from the armed struggle, as increasing numbers are fed up with al Qaeda's relentless bombing campaign against civilians and its foreign influence. Tribes in Diyala and Salahuddin province now want to follow the lead of Sunni tribes in Anbar province, who joined provisional militias called "emergency response units" last year and began fighting al Qaeda.
Still, there is the problem that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki resists dealing with key Sunnis. Moreover, Maliki governs by relying almost entirely on a small coterie of Shiite advisers from his Dawa party. Only Maliki and his advisers are in the room for his weekly video teleconferences with President Bush.
In a surprise visit to Iraq on May 9, Vice President Dick Cheney met with Maliki behind closed doors to urge him to move forward. The message from Congress is also loud and clear: U.S. support will evaporate at summer's end if the Iraqi government has not made any progress on political reconciliation. But two formidable obstacles stand in the way. One is the Shiites' desire for power after years of oppression. They are the first Shiites to head an Arab state, and the temptation to play winner-take-all politics is strong. The other obstacle is Shiites' deep fear, paranoia even, that the Baathists will come back to power if they yield an inch.
Those sentiments are powerfully reinforced every time a car bomb explodes. After a recent attack near the most important Shiite shrine, Ambassador Crocker said, "We have got to do everything we can to keep them from hitting a target of cataclysmic proportions. There is a limit beyond which society just begins to come unglued."
The mounting pressure from Washington may help prod Iraq's government. But officials here say that the American bargaining leverage will be fatally weakened if the United States is determined to withdraw from Iraq at all costs. The various Iraqi factions then have no incentive to compromise and instead will seek safety in their own sect's armed camp. Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd, appeals for Americans' patience. "This is not a battle that could be won in any cycle of any administration, and it will not be subject to American political timetables," he says.
Short-term goals. Still, Petraeus and his subordinate generals in Iraq know that to buy more time for the plan to work they need to show some progress by September--when Petraeus is due to report to Congress on the Iraq situation and the impact of deploying the additional nearly 30,000 U.S. troops. A Joint Strategic Assessment Team, led by one of Petraeus's informal "brain trust" members, Col. H.R. McMaster, has just completed a study assessing what goals are achievable in the short term. (President Bush's new war czar, Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, is supposed to help push Petraeus's and Crocker's requests through the bureaucracy.)
Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, Petraeus's West Point classmate, heads the training of the Iraqi security forces. He believes that by year-end, Iraq will be able to defend itself everywhere but Baghdad and Diyala province with help from coalition aircraft and intelligence. The National Police, a wayward Shiite force formed without the U.S. military's oversight, is farther behind the Army. Dempsey reports that half of the eight brigades have been retrained and five brigade commanders suspected of sectarian crimes have been fired. "They have not been prosecuted, but they are out," he says.
The unfolding Baghdad security plan will test just how ready Iraq's forces really are. While one quarter of Iraqi troops are on leave at any time, some units have shown up with half the troops on their rosters. Some officers have been fired for taking on Shiite militias. But there are also good Iraqi officers who take their subordinates to task when they do not perform. A real question is whether Iraq's Shiite-led government wants a professional force, or whether it intends to use the security forces as an instrument to consolidate Shiite control of the country.
There is a newly realistic air among top officers. "There are several reasons why the policy may not work," acknowledges Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, who leads day-to-day military operations. "If so, there will come a time when we have to make adjustments." Petraeus knows well just how short that time may be.
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