Iraq

For U.S., what will finally work in Iraq?

The continued violence seems to signal that it will take more than winning the war to win over Iraqis.

A bloody new chapter has opened in the rebuilding of Iraq, posing more dangers for the United States and ever-more-difficult questions for the administration of President Bush.

Iraqi opposition forces "have learned the lesson of the (Palestinian) intifada - suicide bombings work," said Ivan Eland, senior fellow for foreign policy at the Independent Institute's Center On Peace & Liberty in Oakland, California.

"If the goal is to give the impression that everything is falling apart, that all is in chaos, then terrorism works. (They) are now using bombings of nonmilitary targets to convince Iraqis that they'll be on the wrong side of history if they support U.S. troops. If this effort is successful, the American occupation is doomed."

In just a few hours earlier this week, two explosions and at least 40 deaths threatened to derail the two key U.S. initiatives in the Middle East - the reconstruction of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian road map to peace.

"Terrorists are testing our will," the president said. "Across the world, they are finding that our will cannot be shaken."

Perhaps not, but some questions will have to be answered.

The work in Iraq is costing the U.S. taxpayer about $125-million each day and could reach $100-billion in three years, according to L. Paul Bremer, Bush's appointed administrator. Worse, 61 soldiers have been killed since May 1, when the president stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and all but pronounced the war over.

Does the U.S. government need to spend more? Send more troops? If so, how many and for how long? Does America need more help from other nations?

"It's not a matter of greater or lesser, it's a matter of different," said Judith Kipper, director of the Middle East Forum at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"We need to reconsider the plan because it has not worked. We need to have other nations help share the burden, the costs and the blame. Bush has resisted every effort to involve other nations, but that's wrong.

"If we have to grovel then we have to grovel, but American credibility in the rest of the world is on the line. We must be able to tell the American people why they are losing their sons and daughters, and we must be able to tell the Iraqis why we have made their lives so miserable. There are 38 hospitals in Baghdad, and only a few are functioning. Now what does that say about the American concern for human rights?"

With an election next year, Bush will be mindful of the political consequences of his decisions. "There's an old saying that foreign policy can't get you re-elected, but it can get you unelected." said Eland.

Eland agreed that it's time for the U.S. to call on its friends for help.

"We have to get more countries to come in; we have to lessen our presence there," he said. "The continued presence of some 140,000 U.S. troops is a lightning rod" among an increasingly restless people, he said. One way to accomplish this would be to open up more of the reconstruction contracts, he said. "The U.S. has been hoarding them for itself."

Concern for attacks on civilian targets had been growing.

Last month, Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno of the Army's 4th Infantry Division told reporters, "they are going after softer targets because they know they are unsuccessful against military targets. ... The next step in my mind would be something like car bombs and suicide bombers, and we have had some discussion and prepared for that."

But there's virtually no way to protect all potential civilian targets, and more attacks are likely.

"This certainly does not represent the last attempt to cause catastrophic loss of life to foreigners in Iraq," said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The attack highlights the necessity for coalition forces "to do a large number of difficult things swiftly and simultaneously," he said, including improving security and the local economy.

But doing those things does not necessarily mean more U.S. troops and money, he said.

"It does mean doing things more effectively, turning over to the Iraqis some of the jobs - like sentry duty - that U.S. troops are doing now," he said.

It also could mean more international involvement, he said, perhaps, as Eland suggested, in reconstruction contracts.

"A buy-in was a good idea even before the regime fell," Alterman said. "It would make this seem less like a hostile U.S. oil grab."

According to Alterman, many Iraqis have a basic worry about Americans: "They say, "If you wanted to do this right, you'd be doing this right. The fact that you are not is the same kind of collective punishment that Saddam (Hussein) used to inflict on us.' "

Iraqis must be made to feel responsible for their own destiny, he said, "and that's hard to do in the short term. But in a year you can turn things around. Moods change quickly in the Middle East."

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