Give and take

Had another negotiation session with our provincial leadership. We opened up some back-door channels a couple of days ago; we brought in the Governor and the Chairman to meet with one of the generals on Thursday and today was a follow-up with the two-star. We decided not to dwell on the things that have been said over the past week and instead are trying to put our relationship back on track by involving the civilian political leadership in discussions about security. Something we’ve been on track to do anyway, but the events of last Sunday signaled that we should hasten the pace. Our Shia leadership continues to make challenging statements about Ambassador Khalilzad; we’ve been deflecting them from their obvious ploy to limit Sunni involvement in the new government and instead continue to engage them on the merits of trying to establish a widely accepted government for all of their citizens. One of my close contacts, Riyad will now sit in on the weekly security meetings our division holds with Iraqi army and police forces. This is a significant step. Bringing in civilian political leadership to the security apparatus is a fundamental part of building a democracy, but an incredibly complex and problematic issue. The meeting was tense at times; this was perhaps one of the most significant diplomatic moments that I’ve been a part of since being here. It was dramatically reinforced to me how critical personal relationships are in diplomacy. I question whether we could have gone from where we were on Monday to where we are today without the significant amount of tea we’ve been consuming over the past months. Riyad seemed relieved at the end of the meeting; he had contacted me a couple of days ago hoping that I hadn’t taken what the Governor said so seriously- we both felt that we had made significant progress lately and didn’t have time to waste on drama. But it remains to be seen just how quickly our relationship with the rest of the provincial council returns to some sense of normalcy. There is a sense that we’ve just moved into a new phase; like sailors who know that they’ve entered a different sea by the subtle change in the tint or smell of the waves. It’s not drastic or obvious, but it is certain. Things won’t be the same again. Again, the only constant here is change.