Iraq War: Negotiating or "staying the course"?

Tom Hayden writes about various secret negotiations taking place to work toward some sort of settlement in the Iraq War in U.S. Retreat from Iraq? The Secret Story Huffington Post 11/21/06. He writes:

Underlying these developments are three American concerns: first, the deepening quagmire and sectarian strife on the battlefield; second, the mid-year American elections in which voters repudiated the war; and third, the strategic concern that the new Iraq has slipped into the orbit of Iran. It remains to be seen if Iran will exercise influence on its Shiite allies in Iraq (the Grand Ayatollah Sistani was born in Iraq, and the main Shiite bloc was created in Iran by Iraqi exiles). But that is the direction being taken by Baker's Iraq Study Group and former CIA director John Deutch in a New York Times op-ed. The principal US track, in addition to a declared withdrawal plan, should be to work towards a hands-off policy by Iran, at least for an interval, according to Deutch.

Juan Cole at his Informed Comment blog of 11/22/06 takes note of Hayden's report but adds a caution:

Tom Hayden tries to piece together what he sees as a secret set of US negotiations with Sunni Arab guerrilla groups that might position Washington for a withdrawal from Iraq. It is a valuable piece. But it does not reckon with the weight of the Shiites and the Kurds, who would not put up with talking to violent Baathists.

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