Word: consensus
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...Maliki. For the Iraqi leader - who was informed of Bush's presence in his country only five minutes before meeting him - the President's surprise trip may have been more of a nuisance than anything else. That's because Prime Minister Maliki's effort to achieve a national consensus that can turn Iraq around requires, among other things, that he distance himself, in Iraqi eyes, from the U.S. But the furor over reports that his government plans to offer an amnesty to insurgents who have killed Americans highlights the tightrope he must walk between his own political objectives...
...death of Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi last week allows both the government and the insurgent mainstream to adopt a new narrative in which sectarian bloodletting can be blamed on a foreign element that is being liquidated, leaving Iraqis to resolve their differences politically and forge a new consensus. In fact, Zarqawi's elimination - and claims that U.S. and Iraqi forces have followed up with a damaging crackdown on Qaeda cells around Baghdad - has coincided with Maliki's moves towards reconciliation with the Sunnis, including the release of some 2,500 prisoners suspected of aiding the insurgents...
...Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has repeatedly emphasized the importance of drawing in nationalist Sunni insurgent groups to achieving a workable consensus in Iraq. The flip side of that equation, as Khalilzad has also made clear, is that the Shi'ite militias must be brought under government control. Maliki has signaled that he plans to achieve this by integrating the militias into the national security force. But the Sunnis, backed by the U.S., insist that existing militias must not simply be turned into units of the national security forces - their fighters must be dispersed across the existing security forces...
...help them choreograph their way out of such a crisis. The Western powers left a diplomatic vacuum when the gave up their traditional mediation role following the election of the Hamas government in January. And the usual mechanism for restraining violence between rival Palestinian groups on the ground - a consensus at the top over the need to maintain national unity - has been replaced by a virtual collision course between Hamas and President Abbas...
...with. Occasionally Billy lumbers over to another part of the yard--his massive gray body, wrinkled skin and billowy, fanlike ears intimidating yet at the same time irresistible. Some of the kids have never been this close to a real, live elephant, and their gasps and laughter convey the consensus: he's cool...