Iraq's Turn for the Worse...., Time's Baghdad Bureau Chief

[Rose Siding]

Iraq's Turn for the Worse Brings U.S. and Baathists Closer
TIME Baghdad Bureau Chief Michael Ware reflects on the changes he sees in Iraq after a two-month furlough.
By MICHAEL WARE/BAGHDAD

I've spent the last three years immersed in this conflict, but after only two months away I'm amazed at how quickly this war has mutated into something even worse than it was before. We're now seeing a sectarian element nothing like we've previously seen. Even ordinary families, people who are in no way combatants are suddenly talking about fellow Iraqis in terms of "us" and "them."

On Civil War Danger

A senior Baathist commander of the insurgency told me that while they're maintaining their own focus on fighting Coalition forces and trying to stay out of the sectarian dynamic, they fear that Iraq is on course toward civil war, which they view as being fueled by Islamist extremists on both sides — the imported al-Qaeda fighters and their Iraqi acolytes on the Sunni side, and the militias of Moqtada Sadr and the Iran-backed Badr organization among the Shi'ites. And curiously enough, the assessment of the Baathists seems to be shared by U.S. military intelligence. A senior U.S. officer told me that they see Iraq as still one step away from civil war, because the sectarian violence is not yet self-sustaining, and you're not seeing wholesale "ethnic cleansing" of neighborhoods by militias: It's still hit-and-run stuff, and it still requires prodding and provocation by the likes of Zarqawi and the most sectarian elements on the Shiite street.
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Senior Baathist insurgent commanders are responding positively to the U.S. outreach on the political and military level. One senior commander I spoke to praised the U.S. for the release of some key Baathist officers who had been imprisoned, and later, when I asked a senior U.S. intelligence officer about the releases, he said the men had been freed as part of a calculated effort to demonstrate good faith in dealing with the insurgents. Of course, both sides share the objective of avoiding a civil war.

One senior Baathist talking about the Americans said to me, recently, "In the 1980s we were allies, how did we end up on opposite sides?" The Baathists are secular nationalists, they never allied with al-Qaeda or hardline Islamists when they were in power, and they've always been the sworn enemy of the soon-to-be-nuclear-armed regime in Iran. They share two of America's main enemies, al-Qaeda and Iran. The Baathists and al-Qaeda elements who have worked together in the insurgency have always been uncomfortable bedfellows. And they've left little doubt in each other's minds that once the Americans leave, they'll have to fight each other.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1173647,00.html