The key to the crisis may lie in Northern Ireland and South Africa
By Kevin Cullen, The Boston Globe, 21 October 2007
WHEN POLITICIANS AND policy makers talk about fixing Iraq, the problem is usually portrayed as an intractable religious conflict among people incapable of putting their sectarian or tribal allegiances aside. And Americans widely assume that we will have to fix it – or simply skulk away and let the Iraqis fight on in perpetuity.
But a new approach to resolving conflicts developed by a small group of negotiators from South Africa and Northern Ireland suggests there is another way to think about Iraq’s civil conflict, one in which the United States doesn’t play a central role, and in which Iraqis simplify and take control of their own resolution process.
This approach is to see Iraq as a divided society, much like Northern Ireland – a country whose people are split by fundamental disagreement and mistrust, but not one irretrievably broken or destined for chaos. Fixing a divided society requires a set of tools not associated with traditional diplomacy: starting small, bringing disparate groups to neutral territory, and not expecting answers to emerge from governments.
“Governments can’t deal with divided societies, because they don’t understand them,” said Padraig O’Malley, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston who has been working on a negotiating strategy for Iraq. “People from divided societies are in the best position to help others from divided societies.”
The process can be slow and incremental, and by its nature is devoid of political sound bites. But if it works, it can pay off in a way that traditional diplomacy cannot: creating a lasting peace from within, rather than a truce imposed by larger powers from outside.