SALVAGING IRAQ

Tim Hames, squares up to that J'accuse by fellow Times columnist, Matthew Parris:

The problem has not been the Bush Administration underestimating how much Iraqis might come to loathe the West for the "occupation" but a failure to grasp the extent to which, thanks to Saddam, Iraqis had come to fear and hate each other.

...What needs to be done now, as James Baker, a former US Secretary of State, appreciates, is to secure a decentralised settlement and convince the Shia majority to divide the oil revenues in a way that each camp will consider fair. In such a situation, as Kim Howells, the Foreign Office Minister, has outlined, US and British forces could be withdrawn steadily throughout 2007 without chaos.

It wasn't just the Bush team that made mistakes, of course. Didn't we all underestimate the challenge? In that respect, Parris is right. George Will, long sceptical about the war, considers what options are left in the months ahead. He's not exactly brimming with confidence:

What limits on U.S. aims are set by the character of the Iraqi people, as we now understand that? Bing West, a former Marine who frequently visits and writes about Iraq, wrote in the October issue of the Atlantic Monthly about accompanying coalition forces that seized an oil pumping station near Basra in March 2003:

"The engineers were appalled to find open cesspools, rusted valves, sputtering turbines, and other vital equipment deteriorating into junk. Heaps of garbage lay outside the walls of nearby houses. Yet inside the courtyards, tiny patches of grass were as well tended as putting greens. That defined Iraq: a generation of tyrannical greed had taught Iraqis to look out for their own, to enrich their families, and to avoid any communal activity that attracted attention."