And my personal thanks for offering this forum for homeless foreign policy wonks. I know it’s a lot of work but very valuable to those of us who truly care about America, its place in the world and advancing the cause of freedom.

Ken certainly paints a sombre picture of the underlying factors in Iraq. This shows us that there is much more to the complex situation than whether we should pull out or not. There is also the moral obligation (if you want to call it that) to not let the genocide happen.

Without a doubt there have been mistakes and gruesome tales for the past five years, and while that might seem like enough for us to “get the hell out of there”, the United States and its allies have the obligation to ensure that a mass genocide or civil war are not the outcome of this mission.

I cannot say that I completely agree with Ken, altough much of what he says does have some merit. I still feel with the proper diplomacy, some semblance of an infrastructure can be formed that will at least allow the government to secure itself and the people. But who knows; as a realist, perhaps this scenario is too idealistic…

Keep the comments coming,
Kent

It constantly amazes me how the debate in America over the Iraq war is focused on how Americans feel about the war, not on what is happening in Iraq.

Many of us still seem to think there is still some military “win” we can bring home for the national trophy case. All our debate is about whether we are “winning” or “losing.” It has always been a failing of America that we see the world with ourselves at the center and the rest of the globe revolving around us. But our efforts to impose American realities on Iraq are precisely what prevents us from seeing clearly what is happening there now.

Unfortunately, even our new counter-insurgency tactics in Iraq seem to be teetering toward failure, perhaps because they are too little and too late, or maybe because we have never understood the dynamics of what is occurring in Iraq every day. Yes, the surge appears to be working in a limited way to calm violence in the areas where American troops are concentrated. Attacks and American deaths are up, but Iraqi deaths are marginally down. Other measures of progress, like bringing back power, water and other infrastructure, haven’t budged.

But the real key has always been the Iraqis themselves. Hard as it is for us to accept, the Iraqis are the key. Remember, the purpose of the surge is to provide space for the Iraqis themselves to reach a political solution to their problems. That is the only “success” or “failure” left for us in Iraq. You cannot help people who do not want to help themselves. And the news I have seen recently, like the Iraqi parliament calling for a phased withdrawal of American troops and scheduling a two-month vacation in July and August, is beginning to give us a very clear picture of how this is going to play out.

Bottom line, the Shiite-majority government is preparing for its own kind of victory. It won’t look anything like the 2003 neoconservative vision of a shining, pluralistic, Western-style democracy that will serve as a beacon of freedom to other countries in the Middle East. I think even the Bush administration, having evaded facing reality so long, is beginning to see the grim situation unfolding today. It would explain their sudden overtures to Iran, Cheney’s emergency trip to the region last week and the president’s new-found flexibility on some kind of political benchmarks for the Iraqi government.

What is coming is an endgame where the Iraqi armed forces and Iraqi police forces, sufficiently armed and trained by the U.S., tell us that they can provide stability and we can leave. When this happens, that’s when the real civil war begins.

I think there is an inevitability about this, whether we leave today, tomorrow or three years from now. The Shiite-majority government is just biding its time now, allowing us to do as much of their dirty work as possible. It has become very clear to anyone closely watching the political situation unfold that there is no movement toward national reconciliation, no effort to reach political solutions or sectarian compromises. Once we step aside, the Shiites will commence their ethnic cleansing, making short work of al Qaeda in Iraq and probably untold innocent Sunnis. They will settle blood scores from the long, brutal reign of the Sunnis under Saddam. There will likely be a theocratic Shiite government, the Kurds will either retain quasi-independent status or try to secede in the north, Iran’s influence will expand unchecked and the Middle East will become a more unstable, dangerous place.

Seen in this context, the Iraqi parliament’s move toward asking for a phased withdrawal of American troops (as well as a troop cap now) is much more understandable. The resolution was signed by a majority of Iraqi members of parliament, not because they have all become leftist American Democrats, but because they will have no need for American troops to stand in the way of their “final solution” to this conflict once they are strong enough to enforce it themselves. The move for this resolution was led by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr’s faction, which should be a further clue to its motivation.

Begun with the best of intentions and a minimum of understanding of the Pandora’s box we were opening when we invaded, I’m afraid this will be the result of our efforts. Tragically, we have continued to see this conflict in American terms instead of from the eyes of the Iraqis. We see ourselves battling America’s enemies, allowing American-style democracy, advancing American interests and as an American “victory” or “defeat.” Along the way, we have also used it as a club against each other in our domestic political wars, as if there was some American “liberal” or “conservative” reality we could impose in Iraq. We have never understood the cruel fact that the Iraqis have their own agenda, their own interests and their own political agendas. Increasingly, they could care less about America’s dreams for them. They have their own fish to fry.

Our ability to influence events in Iraq is practically gone. The key has always been persuading the Iraqi people that it is in their interest to reach peaceful solutions to their political and sectarian problems. If we ever had that opportunity, we probably let it slip away over the past three years. Their positions have obviously hardened now and the Shiites are simply biding their time for our withdrawal, now or in the near future. Then it is going to get ugly.