Deseret News
Crystal ball hazy on Iraq's future
Tad Walch- 1 Feb 2007

But panelists at BYU hold out hope for peace
By Tad Walch
Deseret Morning News
PROVO — Hamida al-Masudi is optimistic about the long-term future of her native Iraq, but she and other members of a roundtable discussion at Brigham Young University on Wednesday said the short-term prognosis is grim.

Hamida al-Masudi talks of sectarian differences in her home country of Iraq during Wednesday's discussion. She said it is crucial to teach love and forgiveness. (Jason Olson, Deseret Morning News)

Jason Olson, Deseret Morning News

Hamida al-Masudi talks of sectarian differences in her home country of Iraq during Wednesday's discussion. She said it is crucial to teach love and forgiveness.

"Despite explosions around them, people keep leading their lives in a normal way," Masudi, a graduate student at the University of Utah, told the Deseret Morning News. "Kids are going to school, laughing in the streets. This makes me optimistic. When I think of those people living in peace, I have a good expectation for the future. Iraqis are eager to live a peaceful life."
First they must navigate the violence that will accompany President Bush's troop surge and its accompanying crackdown in Baghdad.

To get from there to long-term peace, the six panelists who spoke about the future of Iraq at BYU's Kennedy Center said the United States must emphasize political solutions alongside force.

"Everybody sees that what is needed in Iraq is a political as well as a military solution," said BYU journalism professor John Hughes, a former editor of the Deseret Morning News and Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent. "While not to seem too gloomy, I do not see a political solution emerging from the Maliki government."

The panel was organized because some BYU political scientists were concerned Americans aren't engaged in discussions about solutions, said Eric Hyer, a professor who studies international security issues.

Looking ahead proved difficult.

"I can't tell you what's going to happen there," said Hughes, who held three jobs in the Reagan administration and also worked as an assistant secretary-general of the United Nations. "One of the interesting things that we should be concerned about is how what happens — what the ultimate resolution is in Iraq — will affect the Islamic lands of the region, and indeed Iran."
BYU Middle East expert Donna Lee Bowen is concerned about the same thing.

"However bad you think things may be now, things can always get worse," she said. "There are no groups that are uniformly good guys, that are on the side of the angels. Everyone has hands that are somewhat dirty.

"The choices we make are not clear cut. There is no group that is going to lead us into the solution."

The country is fragmenting, with militias splintering into smaller groups. High unemployment is propelling young people into these gangs, Bowen said.

"We also see something even more dangerous, which is an increasing identification in the Middle East and within the Muslim world that this is Sunni vs. Shia and seeing this as a combatant pose."

To counter the problem, Bowen and visiting professor and European security expert Chris Jones said the U.S. government should be talking with numerous small groups to increase American understanding of their concerns so the United States can present scenarios that benefit them and peace.

Several of the panelists urged the United States to bring Iran into the dialogue.

Independent filmmaker Dodge Billingsley, who has been embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq, made one of the strongest predictions.

"I think we're in for a fight in Baghdad in the next 60 to 90 days, a battle for Baghdad," he said. "It probably will be like the battle for Fallujah, where there were 350 to 400 house-to-house fights."

Billingsley said the United States needs to create reconstruction teams that would follow the army.
Former Deseret Morning News editor John Hughes speaks during "The Future of Iraq" roundtable at BYU. (Jason Olson, Deseret Morning News)

Jason Olson, Deseret Morning News

Former Deseret Morning News editor John Hughes speaks during "The Future of Iraq" roundtable at BYU.

"There's been no mobilization of a reconstruction corps. They need to be there one day after the firefight."

He also worried that the Baghdad surge will be undermanned. The Baghdad offensive might have as many as 85,000 troops, he said, even though U.S. General David Petraeus has said he needs 120,000.

One student asked if dividing the country to give Shia, Sunnis and Kurds their own regions wouldn't solve the problem.

Masudi said other than Kurds, Iraqis reject the notion. One problem would be the division of oil revenue between the three groups.

Hughes predicted more violence in the short term but that Bush will draw down troops by mid-2008.

"I don't see how President Bush in political terms could avoid having substantial troop cuts in place by mid-2008," he said. "I don't see how he can lead the Republican Party into an election with the kind of numbers of troops that are there now ... ."
Hughes also expressed concern about future U.S. involvement in the region.

He also observed that "it's absolutely essential that the United States must remained engaged in the rest of the Middle East, whatever the outcome in Iraq."

For Masudi, time is a necessary component for changing the mindset of the Iraqi people, who have lived without peace for decades.

"We need to start teaching kids to love, to forgive," she said. "A national reconciliation needs to happen."

To watch a Webcast or download a podcast of the 75- minute roundtable discussion, visit kennedy.byu.edu. The Kennedy Center also will post a suggested reading and viewing list on Iraq on the Web site.

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