Peter Rodman
Peter Rodman
Peter Warren Rodmanwas a lawyer, government official and foreign policy expert...
believe stakes
The stakes are enormous, the U.S. has a strategy, and we believe it's the right one.
battle coalition forces iraqis less precisely reason space turn visible
One of the reason we want to turn over battle space to Iraqis is precisely so coalition forces can be less visible and less exposed.
capable exist taliban
They're good, but ... the Taliban do still exist and they are capable of doing harm,
face people productive proximity talks
Proximity talks can be enormously useful. There are people who don't want to talk face to face and who, when they talk face to face, they don't have anything productive to say to each other.
interest operate whether year
A year from now, it will be of interest whether you have more (able to operate independently) or not.
maybe speaking violence
Maybe he was speaking to his people, who would like to see the violence subside,
fight knows
We see it that the fight is still on and he knows that,
fight knows relationship
We see this as, the fight is still on, and he knows that, ... Operationally, our relationship with them is good.
improve iraqis lives prove work
We must prove that (economic) institutions can work and improve the lives of Iraqis at the fundamental level.
civil extremists trying
What the extremists are trying to do is to foment a civil war. But we don't see it. We don't see it succeeding.
hope separate
We hope this will separate them from the extremists.
arab elections last pole political population pulling saw successful three
We saw three successful elections last year... In that success of those elections, you can see the gravitational pole working on the Sunni Arab population pulling them into the political process.
forces iraqi large performed security severe
We think that by and large the Iraqi security forces have performed well under a very severe test.
years community leader
Obviously the extremists want to provoke sectarian warfare, and I am struck by the fact that over a three-year period, leaders of the (Iraqi) communities have been quite resistant to this. The test is whether the political process continues.