http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/05/breaking2453389.0680555557.html The World Tribune is a fun site to read, that's for sure. If this guy is only 50% right (and I think that's being very generous to our media) the elections are going to end up being a tremendous success.
This is really starting to sound familiar to Vietnam. Yeah, 7 died but we got 50. The media is aiding the enemy. The light is just about to be at the end of the tunnel...... This insurrection looks like the Intifada, except that the people we've got in charge aren't as clever as the Israelis. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see a good way out of Iraq. Unless they've managed to find the spooks who put the Shah on his throne. Alas, the guys we've got now are the same ones who said we didn't need many occupation troops because Chalabi says we'll be welcomed as liberators. It will be a miracle if they stumble onto a successful conclusion to this.
IMHO, it was never a plan to leave Iraq. It was a plan to make post war Iraq the new Germany. That plan probably has to be scrapped now, but I believe that was truly part of the plan (and the one part I truly agreed with more than others)
Actually, I agree with you. I think the plan was originally that Iraq would be the democratic front line state against Iran/Syria and, worst case, a fundamentalist Saudi Arabia. Much the same way Germany was the democratic front line state against the Soviets. And I think you are also right that t will not happen that way now. What will happen is that the Iraqis will establish some sort of consentual government (at least between the Shia and Kurds) and low level warfare will go on for years until eventually, the Ba'athists and fundamentalist Sunnis run out of soldiers and decide to form political parties instead. Best case, instead of Germany, we get El Salvador. Not a bad ending, but it will take more time and more dead bodies flashed across the world media.
I think you're being pessimistic, but I think the worst-case scenario is Yugoslavia. The Sunni population is bullied and cowed by murderous thugs and is unable to become part of the whole, the Shiites get tired of restraining themselves from responding to being killed (and their patience is wearing thin) and the Kurds just go off and say "screw all of you" So the country is essentially partitioned. Some call this "Lebanon, but to me it'll be more like Yugoslavia. Either way, we win, since they'll be too busy with each other to bother us. The Iraqi people, particularly the 80 or 90 percent of the Sunnnis who just want to lead normal lives, will be the losers, but we can't fix everything. We are giving them a chance. We aren't in charge of giving them 10 chances. But I honestly think it'll turn out OK. It'll be messy for awhile, but the Iraqis are bright people and they'll come through. It's on them now.