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<DIV class=timestamp>January 17, 2007</DIV>
<DIV class=kicker><NYT_KICKER>Editorial</NYT_KICKER></DIV>
<H1><NYT_HEADLINE type=" " version="1.0">The Missing Partner in Iraq
</NYT_HEADLINE></H1><NYT_BYLINE type=" "
version="1.0"></NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT></NYT_TEXT>
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<P>The one crucial assumption behind everything President Bush proposed on Iraq
last week was that Washington would have the wholehearted support of Prime
Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. None of Mr. Bush’s ideas — his plan to send more
American soldiers to fight alongside Iraqi units in Baghdad, his program for
jump-starting the Iraqi economy, his hope of reconciling rival sectarian
communities and heading off civil war — can possibly succeed without the full
cooperation of the Iraqi government. </P>
<P>Yet in the days following Mr. Bush’s address, as in the days before, Mr.
Maliki has demonstrated how far his own goals diverge from America’s best
interests or any reasonable path for containing Iraq’s civil war. Consider, for
example, Mr. Maliki’s designation of Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar — a Shiite officer
known for his combative resistance to American tutelage — to be the overall
military commander of the new Baghdad security drive. </P>
<P>Any hope that this campaign will prove more effective than past failed
efforts depends on soldiers’ being able to finally move against Shiite militias.
If General Qanbar and Mr. Maliki plan to continue shielding militias like the
Mahdi Army, this new drive will be doomed before it begins.</P>
<P>What another failure would mean was underscored in a particularly grim way
yesterday when the United Nations reported that some 34,000 Iraqi civilians died
violently last year, a staggering number in a country of less than 27 million
people. Yesterday, more than 100 Iraqis died in Baghdad alone. </P>
<P>Consider also the grisly decapitation over the weekend of Barzan Ibrahim
al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein’s co-defendant and half brother. Two weeks of
watching how the lynch mob atmosphere of Mr. Hussein’s execution instantly
turned a monster into a martyr throughout the Sunni Arab world should have put
Mr. Maliki on notice to get this one right. But whether deliberately or through
breathtaking incompetence, the Iraqi government did not get it right, once again
fanning sectarian flames.</P>
<P>Unless President Bush insists that Mr. Maliki accept specific and enforceable
policy benchmarks and timelines — starting with the disarming of sectarian
militias — the United States will remain hostage to the Iraqi prime minister and
his radical Shiite agenda. </P>
<P>Mr. Bush needs to make clear to the Iraqi leader that continued American
support will depend on his active cooperation. And that, ultimately, the Iraqis
have even more to lose than the Americans from an unending civil war.
</P><NYT_UPDATE_BOTTOM></NYT_UPDATE_BOTTOM></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>