Sunnis Withdraw From Negotiations For New Iraqi Government

In our Iraq crisis watch this morning, the feared upswing of violence following Friday prayers seems not to have materialized.

However, some other bad developments have occurred, including the withdrawal of the Sunni bloc from talks on forming a new "unity" government.

(Yesterday's) surge in violence, sparked by the destruction of Samarra's gold-domed Askariya shrine, comes at a time of political transition and uncertainty, with leaders of Iraq's largest factions mired in negotiations over the composition of the next government. Prospects for a political resolution suffered Thursday when Sunni Arab political leaders abruptly withdrew from talks with Iraq's Shiite ruling parties, blaming the police and army for failing to prevent retaliatory attacks -- and, in some cases, for participating in them.

The possibility of civil war in Iraq continues to be downplayed at the highest levels of the U.S. government:

President Bush yesterday commended Iraqi leaders for urging calm and reaffirmed a U.S. pledge to help rebuild the Askariya shrine in Samarra. "I'm pleased with the voices of reason that have spoken out, and we will continue to work with those voices of reason to enable Iraq to continue on the path of a democracy that unites people and doesn't divide them," Bush told reporters after a Cabinet meeting.

Similarly, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveling to Beirut, stressed moves underway to try to bridge sectarian differences and avoid a more serious rupture.

"I don't think we do the Iraqi people any good, or really that we are fair to them, in continually raising the specter that they might fall into civil war," Rice told reporters. She noted that U.S. officials were engaged in "a lot of contact" with Iraqi authorities "about how to deal with the situation."

Some U.S. officials likened the tensions to the spring of 2004, which saw simultaneous Sunni and Shiite uprisings in Iraq. But other officials involved in shaping administration policy on Iraq disputed that, saying the violence has been less extensive and that Iraqi security forces and political institutions are better prepared to restore order.

Wishful thinking meant for domestic U.S. consumption only is coming from the Pentagon:

In the event conditions spiral out of control, U.S. military officers said, forces in Iraq could be quickly enlarged by a U.S. army brigade of about 3,500 troops on standby in Kuwait and by the deployment of other strategic reserve elements from the United States. But the officers said violence in Iraq would have to reach a much higher level to trigger such moves.

Optimism can be useful in "denial and deception" operations, but U.S. military officials are privately much more realistic about the adversity they are facing if Iraq descends further into civil war.

A more reasonable quote is from a member of a well-known Washington security family:

"This isn't a bump in the road, it's a pothole," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a senior policy and planning officer with U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the region. "And we'll find out if the shock absorbers in the Iraqi society will hold or whether this will crack the frame."

To give our leaders the benefit of the doubt, maybe different officials are interpreting the available evidence differently.

Coincidentally, Kimmitt's brother Robert--a former U.S. Ambassador, now second in command at Treasury--was on the hotseat about the Dubai Port controversy yesterday in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee:

Yesterday, it emerged in the committee hearing that the administration may have skirted the law by not granting a 45-day review of the Dubai ports deal. The law says such a review is mandatory if a sale to a state-owned company "could affect the national security of the United States" -- a standard the administration seemed to acknowledge the deal met because it required special safeguards.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who wrote the 1992 law, demanded to know "why that investigation was not carried out."

Warner asked Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt to "clarify."

"Senator," Kimmitt told Byrd, "we have a difference of opinion on the interpretation of your amendment." The administration, he said, views it "as being discretionary."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), reading the statute to Kimmitt, said the law "requires -- requires -- an investigation."

"We do not see it as mandatory," Kimmitt repeated.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) grew irritated. "If you want the law changed," he told Kimmitt, "come to Congress and change it. But don't ignore it."

"We didn't ignore the law," Kimmitt again maintained. "We might interpret it differently."

The Bush administration has a bad habit of "interpreting" things (such as, inter alia: pre-war Iraq WMD intel, FISA requirements, torture prohibitions) "differently" than a reasonable person would.