Robert Gates, Secretary of Reconciliation?

The news on Iraq today is that U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates is in Iraq to "spur reconciliation" (AP headline). It's good that such a high level Bush administration official is in Baghdad to tell Iraqi leaders that they must not assume that U.S. forces will be around forever, and that they need to figure out a way to live together.

I am not so sure though, that the "secretary of defense," backed up by the strongest military in the world, is the right person to send if what is needed is someone to spur reconciliation among the various Iraqi factions. Right job, wrong person.

Reconciliation among various political and religious factions in Iraq is crucial to the success of the U.S. effort there, and so a focused effort toward this objective should have been launched much earlier.

It is not too late for the U.S. to begin such an effort, but it needs to involve a much broader spectrum of people than just the secretary of defense. Leaders from civil society, particularly religious leaders from the Islamic communities in the United States, must become involved.