NYT:

Specifically, the United States wants Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt to work to drive a wedge between the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army has been behind many of the Shiite reprisal attacks in Iraq, a senior administration official said. That would require getting the predominantly Sunni Arab nations to work to get moderate Sunni Iraqis to support Mr. Maliki, a Shiite. That would theoretically give Mr. Maliki the political strength necessary to take on Mr. Sadr’s Shiite militias.

“There’s been some discussion about whether you just try to deal first with the Sunni insurgency, but that would mean being seen to be taking just one side of the fight, which would not be acceptable,” the administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic practice.

But getting Sunni Arab nations to urge Iraqi Sunnis to back Mr. Maliki in the hopes of peeling him away from Mr. Sadr is a tall order under any circumstances, and it was made even taller last week after the killing of more than 200 people by bombings in a Shiite district of Baghdad, the deadliest single attack since the American invasion. The attacks led to violent reprisals; vengeful Shiite militiamen attacked Sunni mosques in Baghdad and Baquba.

“We’re clearly in a new phase, characterized by this increasing sectarian violence,” Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, told reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Estonia for a NATO summit meeting before Mr. Bush’s meeting with Mr. Maliki. “That requires us, obviously, to adapt to that new phase, and these two leaders need to be talking about how to do that and what steps Iraq needs to take and how we can support them.”

In return for helping on Iraq, the Sunni Arab countries have asked the Bush administration for a new push toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. Mr. Bush has largely shied away from that longstanding demand, but things may be changing.

So one last bid at keeping the Sunnis in, at national reconciliation under Maliki, with presumably the implicit threat to Sunni allies being that if they don't help make it happen, the US can let things take their course, and let the Shiites create the facts on the ground and in the government that the Sunnis will not be able to deny. In return, the US promised renewed effort on the Israel-Palestinian front. The message to Maliki: sideline Sadr and rein in the Mahdi army, while the US focuses on the Sunni insurgency and al Qaeda. And if this doesn't work? What's Plan D?

Posted by Laura at November 28, 2006 12:49 PM