How do you stop a civil war

Well, right now, I think Bush's current plan has the United States taking an active-passive sort of role (if that makes sense), just letting them kill themselves off, and proclaiming victory.


Good thing he's gone in a couple years. Man, the next president has his work cut out for him. I don't say her, because I don't think Hillary can pull it off...

 

You get one side to quit (like the rebels in the US civil war).

 

all civil wars come to an end eventually. Iraq will be the next lebannon. Bagdad the next Beruit.

Eventually people will tire of the fighting...

I say 5-7 years.

 

You think that war's over? Ha!

 

If you're going to win it militarily (which I think is a very dumb thing to continue trying now that it is without a doubt a civil war) that's the one and only answer. And since Bush is about to announce his decision to throw 20K more American troops into that meat grinder, I'd say it's only fair he pick a side. Sending guys in to kill everything that moves hasn't worked out so well.

StupidMoniker, you voted for Bush right? Maybe you could write him a letter (he won't listen to me) suggesting he finally pick a side -- you know, more than three years and 3,000 dead Americans later. And maybe you could suggest the proper side to pick since he apparently doesn't have an opinion other than sending more Americans into the middle of a civil war he caused but doesn't understand and refuses to acknowledge.

Of course, since he won't pick a side, the troops don't know if they're killing the good guys or the bad guys. Maybe you could help him out. Somebody needs to.

 

Since war-loving neocons have been desperately trying to make comparisons between Bush's disaster in Iraq and WWII, they should appreciate the only comparison based on actual facts and logic.

In his column last week, George F. Will (former hero of the war-loving neocons until he abandoned neocon Fantasyland and acknowledged reality) quoted 26-year State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research veteran, Wayne White, who has begun referring to Baghdad as a "Shiite-Sunni Stalingrad".

Basically, to use the war-loving neocons favorite analogy, WWII; the Decider wants to send Americans to get in between and fight both the Germans and Soviets at Stalingrad.

What's the Decider's "surge" going to be called, "Operation Augment Failure"?

 

Just an aside, The War Between The States was a two sided war with formal governments and uniformed armies. The situation in Iraq is anywhere from 3 to 10 sides (hundreds if you break it down to tribes and intratribal power plays), each with mercurial organization and allliances and hundreds of years of complicating history. Historically I believe that yes, it takes tyranical ruthlessness to acheive some type of order, a snowballing of allegences building to a position of control. But there may be a new paradigm at this point in history where a world wide awareness of the intrigues and atrcocities of tyranny prevents tyrants from acheiving any legitimacy.

(Not true for Darfur, or Belarus etc etc but possibly true for oil rich countries that draw the interest of the more developed world)

 

What is strange is that is exactly what Saddam did. He and the SUnnis rose to the top, and held power.

 

As to your first sentence, yes with great emphasis.

As to your second, if we pick a side, then we piss off the other side for generations. As much as I hate to do it, considering we were the catalyst for this, our national interest is best served by getting out... a course which seems to be the least terrible of the options. But it is a moot point because Bush is President, Cheney is Vice-President, and we're not only going to continue with our screw-up, it looks increasingly likely that we make it truly epic by directly engaging some combo of Iran and Syria.

 

Here is what I'd do, for what it's worth: Many experts seem to think if the US set a timeline for withdrawal, some if not most factions would hole up and wait for the US to leave. That would offer time. So announce a pull-out date 1 year - 18 months away. Make the primary objective of our military from this point until the pull-out date the training of Iraqi soldiers and police. If the violence does subside some, the Iraqi police and military should be pretty well prepared to secure those areas. If not, it never will be, and we just have replaced one autocratic government with another. After our pull out date, we will only assist the Iraqis in the following ways: economic assistance, help in building civil and military infrastructure in secured areas, and training to be done in secure areas. I think by offering a long enough timeline for withdrawal that security is possible (if unlikely), reasonable parties on both sides should accept it.

 

Are we prepared to look the other way if a mass genocide breaks out?

 

I like this plan for the most part.

 

If we're not, then we sit there and spill more blood and waste more treasure with no guarantee that it will make any difference except delaying our exit. So yes, given current circumstances, the least worst thing for our national interest is to leave. Yes, that sucks and it automatically condemns a bunch of people to death and it is cowardly, but the other options as I see them are [shudders] worse.

I'm extremely pessimistic about Iraq and downright scared about the rest of the ME. This whole thing was so unnecessary and screwed up by incompetence and a poisonous ideology in the administration. Regardless of how we solve the problem here or how Dems in Congress solve the problem or how sane Republicans solve the problem or how professors and think tanks solve the problem, it doesn't matter. This cluster can't really be dealt with until the people in the WH are gone or we have a major Constitutional showdown between the Legislative and Executive branches. The former timeline is 2 years and the latter would take about 2 years, so we are effectively screwed (as is the rest of the world) until then and things will only get worse.

 

The problem is that it doesn't take 150,000 people to train, probably less than a 1/3 of that number, so you have 100,000 people too many for no real reason.

Second, the Iraqi army and police are so ridden with problems and sectarian divisions (and not to mention that our troops aren't great at training, especially w/respect to police, because that is not what they are meant to do and they don't speak arabic) taht I can already tell you that expectign them to be ready in 18 months is an extremely improbable expectation, as you realize.

I don't see much point in playing the lotto if you know you're not going to win.

 

It might have a slim chance of being successful... but remember who would be implementing it, so... No chance. We're stuck in the charnel house until at least 2008 and Bush is acting like he wants to build a huge addition.

We're all screwed.

 

I don't think the argument is that they would hole up and wait. They would continue fighting because it's critical to maintain instability for them to eventually "win". The argument is that it would provide them more motivation and more ability to recruit and more finances if there was a timetable for them to achieve their goals. But the insurgency wouldn't slow in the meantime.

 

For those who think we should "pick a side," I would posit that at this point, the only "side" who would want us are the Kurds. The only way we could support the Kurds is by holding a corridor from the Gulf to Kurdistan to supply our bases there. You know, similar to Berlin after WWII. Now look at a map and tell me how we could do that. Kurdistan is surrounded by enemies who want no part of an independent Kurdish state, for reasons too numerous to write here. Who is going to allow us a corridor? We can't even secure the road to the Baghdad airport. And if anyone thinks we could simply supply our bases via air transport, think again. It would be untenable.



D&D. Corridor to the Stars.

 

I should have mentioned that the US's secondary mission until the draw-down date would be to help with security (mostly fire-fighting).

I readily admit that I don't know the magnitude of the divisions within the Iraqi police and army, but it is the most unified group that we have to work with. What I would be hoping for is that with a timeline, the Iraqi leadership would be more willing to work with the US to make it work.

The lotto may be a good metaphor for our chances, but we've got to have some plan right now.