Handshake Defuses a Standoff in Baghdad

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/world/middleeast/04iraq.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=handshake%20defuses%20a%20standoff%20in%20baghdad&st=cse&oref=login

- Hide quoted text -

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 9:24 AM
Subject: Handshake Defuses a Standoff in Baghdad
To: letters@nytimes.com

- Hide quoted text -

To the Editor:

   Two years ago, the U.S. changed tactics in Iraq. Instead of emphasizing non-sectarian national institutions, we poured money into sectarian groups who offered to pacify their own people in their own areas. Now that the national government wants to extent its sway, there is tension. Should we be surprised? Those who have hailed this last year as "progress" need to define where we're heading. This is progress towards an Iraq partitioned. To hold it together as a nation-state would require an indefinite presence of Americans to keep prevent sectarian violence and ethnic cleansing.

Barry Levine