The U.S. strategy to date has focused on “security” – stopping armed attacks against its forces and the Iraqi government. The latest U.S. moves, with Iraqi government backing, are destined to detonate more mines if not plant new ones. Specifically, the setting up of barriers around Sunni neighborhoods are seen as attempts to isolate the Sunni community and impose a siege on what are expected to be enclaves of Sunni insurgency. Putting up walls to ward off attacks does not win support for political progress and a promising Iraqi future.

While the administration pays lip service to opposing sectarianism, the barriers are a living symbol of renewed and reshaped physical sectarianism in Baghdad. The government’s approval of these barriers will further fuel division among the population and strengthen armed opposition groups. One has to bear in mind that an increasing number of Sunni politicians, including within the Iraqi parliament, now recognize the armed Sunni groups as legitimate popular resistance. Even the Sunni parties that participate in the political process deal with “the resistance groups” and distinguish between them and al Qaeda.

The ongoing unification of these different groups and their separation from al Qaeda’s Islamic State in Iraq show how centers of political leadership are continuing to develop and shift within the country. Such developments are totally ignored by the administration as it focuses on a security solution. These groups are making inroads by declaring publicly that they oppose sectarianism, in some cases dissociating themselves from both al Qaeda and the government of Nouri al-Maliki.

To “defuse the situation,” one of the immediate steps must be to halt and reverse the U.S.-backed moves that isolate the Sunni population, which effectively promote sectarianism in Iraq. But such a reversal, which I think do not expect this administration is capable of, should be part of a long term vision of how to end the occupation in all of its forms.