Word: sectarianism
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...Ambassador Ryan Crocker, representing the U.S. in the talks called by the Iraqi government, complained that the Iranians continue to support Shi'ite militants engaged in sectarian and anti-U.S. violence in Iraq - and charged that such activity had actually escalated since the previous meeting between the two sides in Baghdad, eight weeks ago. His Iranian counterpart, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, reportedly dismissed the U.S. complaints and said they were not backed by any proof. He blamed the security crisis in Iraq on the presence of "foreign forces," and also demanded the release of Iranian personnel being held there...
...leads to further destabilization or even war among Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, three of the world's 15 top oil-exporting countries. Shi'ites who object to Saudi backing of the Sunnis might retaliate inside the kingdom - or Sunnis might take the fight into Iran. "We will have sectarian violence on a level that would likely trigger regional war," says Michèle Flournoy, president of the Center for a New American Security, a nonpartisan think tank. "At that point, you are looking at a path you don't want to go down...
...Given that the current U.S. force has been unable to curb sectarian killings, it's unreasonable to expect that a reduced U.S. troop presence would stop Sunnis and Shi'ites from killing one another. But even with a significantly smaller footprint, the U.S. would retain sufficient firepower on the ground and in the skies to guard against others trying to intervene. After a majority of U.S. troops depart, a military presence of some size will still be needed - not so much to referee a civil war, as U.S. forces are doing now, but to try to keep it from expanding...
...Iraq Study Group, headed by James Baker III and Lee Hamilton - call for retaining a small counterterrorism force there. "No one is going to complain about going after an al-Qaeda target," says Anthony Zinni, former head of U.S. Central Command, who advocates a gradual disengagement from the sectarian conflict. Even so, the U.S. needs to be realistic about what 75,000 U.S. troops can achieve. "I want to blow up al-Qaeda wherever we can, but I don't think we're going to have any particular capacity to do that if we cut our troop strength in half...
...start is Iraq, where U.S. diplomacy will still be needed to bring about a sustainable accord between Sunnis and Shi'ites, should they ever tire of fighting. A State Department official says what is needed is a greater willingness to engage hard-line forces on both sides of the sectarian divide as well as the Iranians and Syrians, all of whom will have a say in Iraq's future. Resistance to this idea comes from the White House, a U.S. diplomat says. "There is a reality on the ground in Iraq that we never really wanted to confront too much...