Despite U.S. calls, little hope for Iraqi consensus

By Ibon Villelabeitia and Mussab Al-Khairalla - Analysis

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S.-backed security clampdown in Baghdad might bring short-term successes in combating violence, but the spectre of all-out civil war in Iraq will remain a real threat until its leaders make tough compromises.

Yet some politicians and analysts see little hope in national reconciliation, saying rival political groups have privately abandoned the goal of a unified Iraq and are waiting out a U.S. exit to push their competing claims by force.

"The will of national reconciliation is not there in Iraq," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent legislator.

"The security plan might bring some calm but there is no guarantee it will bring reconciliation. None of the governments since the fall of Saddam Hussein believed in reconciliation. Each group in Iraq thinks it can defeat or marginalise the other side," said Othman, who is an ethnic Kurd.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Iraqi leaders during a surprise visit to Baghdad last weekend to use gains of a U.S.-Iraqi offensive against militants in the capital to make progress on reconciliation benchmarks.

Such benchmarks, seen as guarantors for the survival of Iraq as a united country, include finalising an oil law that would distribute revenues evenly among Iraq's population and easing restrictions on former members of Saddam's Baath party.

A senior source in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite- led government admitted wrangling between coalition partners was impeding agreements despite the gravity of the situation.

"There has been a lot of talk of reconciliation but little action. We must all accept there can be no military solution in Iraq without national reconciliation."

"BREATHING SPACE"

U.S. commanders say the aim of the Baghdad push, which many see as the last chance to avert total civil war between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs, is to create some "breathing space" to allow politicians to reach a consensus.

But sectarian reprisals since the bombing a year ago of a Shi'ite shrine have blighted the political atmosphere, creating what Othman called a "spirit of revenge" in the political class.

Some Western diplomats are skeptical Shi'ite and Sunni leaders will overcome entrenched sectarian mistrust in just a matter of months.

A long-awaited draft version of the oil law is now being discussed at cabinet level, but lingering disagreements between Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds over the powers of the federal government versus regional authorities in controlling contracts and reviewing deals have held up its approval.

With Iraq's oil wealth concentrated in the Kurdish north and the Shi'ite south, the division of oil is a key factor in communal tensions. Once dominant Sunni Arabs, now the backbone of the insurgency, fear that an unfair deal will cut them off from billions of dollars in revenues.

Washington is also pushing for changing debaathification, a law passed by a U.S. occupation authority shortly after the invasion and which fired tens of thousands of Baath party members, many of them Sunnis, from public employment.