Crystal ball hazy on Iraq's future

PROVO — Hamida al-Masudi is optimistic about the long-term future of her native Iraq, but she and other members of a roundtable discussion at Brigham Young University on Wednesday said the short-term prognosis is grim.

"Despite explosions around them, people keep leading their lives in a normal way," Masudi, a graduate student at the University of Utah, told the Deseret Morning News. "Kids are going to school, laughing in the streets. This makes me optimistic. When I think of those people living in peace, I have a good expectation for the future. Iraqis are eager to live a peaceful life."

First they must navigate the violence that will accompany President Bush's troop surge and its accompanying crackdown in Baghdad.

To get from there to long-term peace, the six panelists who spoke about the future of Iraq at BYU's Kennedy Center said the United States must emphasize political solutions alongside force.

"Everybody sees that what is needed in Iraq is a political as well as a military solution," said BYU journalism professor John Hughes, a former editor of the Deseret Morning News and Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent. "While not to seem too gloomy, I do not see a political solution emerging from the Maliki government."

The panel was organized because some BYU political scientists were concerned Americans aren't engaged in discussions about solutions, said Eric Hyer, a professor who studies international security issues.

Looking ahead proved difficult.

"I can't tell you what's going to happen there," said Hughes, who held three jobs in the Reagan administration and also worked as an assistant secretary-general of the United Nations. "One of the interesting things that we should be concerned about is how what happens — what the ultimate resolution is in Iraq — will affect the Islamic lands of the region, and indeed Iran."

BYU Middle East expert Donna Lee Bowen is concerned about the same thing.

"However bad you think things may be now, things can always get worse," she said. "There are no groups that are uniformly good guys, that are on the side of the angels. Everyone has hands that are somewhat dirty.

"The choices we make are not clear cut. There is no group that is going to lead us into the solution."

The country is fragmenting, with militias splintering into smaller groups. High unemployment is propelling young people into these gangs, Bowen said.