WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 — With American military successes outpacing political gains in Iraq, the Bush administration has lowered its expectation of quickly achieving major steps toward unifying the country, including passage of a long-stymied plan to share oil revenues and holding regional elections.
Instead, administration officials say they are focusing their immediate efforts on several more limited but achievable goals in the hope of convincing Iraqis, foreign governments and Americans that progress is being made toward the political breakthroughs that the military campaign of the past 10 months was supposed to promote.
The short-term American targets include passage of a $48 billion Iraqi budget, something the Iraqis say they are on their way to doing anyway; renewing the United Nations mandate that authorizes an American presence in the country, which the Iraqis have done repeatedly before; and passing legislation to allow thousands of Baath Party members from Saddam Hussein’s era to rejoin the government. A senior Bush administration official described that goal as largely symbolic since rehirings have been quietly taking place already.
Bush administration officials have not abandoned their larger goals and emphasize the importance of reaching them eventually. They say that even modest steps, taken soon, could set the stage for more progress, in the same manner that this year’s troop “surge” opened the way, unexpectedly, for drawing Sunni tribesmen to the American side.
A senior official said the administration was intensifying its pressure on the Iraqi government to produce some concrete signs of political progress.
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On Saturday, Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Baghdad, said that the military had created an opportunity for progress, adding that there were some indications that Iraqis on the local as well as the national level want to move forward. But he cautioned against expecting quick results on the core issues.
“We are seeing encouraging signs of movement,” he said, but added, “This is going to be a long, hard slog.”
“It is going to be one thing at a time, maybe two things at a time, we hope with increasing momentum,” he said. “It is a long-term process.” (Unfortunately the anti-war bunch wants everything NOW or the war is lost. -- j)
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While Bush officials once said they aimed to secure “reconciliation” among Iraq’s deeply divided religious, ethnic and sectarian groups, some officials now refer to their goal as “accommodation.”
“We can’t pass their legislation,” a senior American official in Baghdad said. “We can’t make them like each other. We can’t even make them talk to each other. Well, sometimes we can. But we can help them execute their budget.”
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Still, he said, there were some positive signs that Iraqis were interested in making headway on some thorny issues. Provincial governors, he said, were pressing for a law to define their powers. “We are past the point where it is an American agenda,” the ambassador said. “It is what needs to be done in Iraqi terms.”
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... Bush administration officials said they hoped approval of a few initial steps might lead to more substantive agreements next year, including provincial elections, which the White House wants to see held before Mr. Bush leaves office in less than 14 months.
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Perhaps the most achievable of the administration’s short-term targets, American and Iraqi officials said, is legislation that would allow thousands of members of the Hussein-era Baath Party, most of them Sunnis, to return to government positions.
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Other immediate steps the Bush administration is pressing the Iraqi government to take include passing a budget, $48 billion for the coming year, and again renewing the United Nations mandate for the American troop presence before it expires at the end of the year.
