What Is The Iraq Answer

Don't forget about the Kurds.

You know, like our government did.

 

I don't their are any answers at this point other than shoulda/coulda/wouldas. We either should have not invaded in the first place, or invaded without rose colored glasses on and sent enough force and reconstruction personel to do the job right. We can't pull out or the entire country will fall apart, but if we stay and just hunker down in bunkers the same thing will happen anyway. We need more troops but can't send them because we have a lame duck president and an incoming congress who has an entirely opposite view of the war than he does. It's time to either get serious or go home.

 

Care to elaborate?

After all, the Kurds are the only group that DOESN'T have much to complain about at the moment: "Iraqi Kurdistan" is stable, almost totally peaceful and about to add a "de-Arabized" Kirkuk to its winnings.

Bush didn't forget about the Kurds: His unwillingness to leave Talabani and the rest in the lurch cost the coalition a northern front, because Turkey's scared shitless of an independent Kurdistan.

You're right about Iraq being screwed up (though it's hardly irreparable). But you're wrong about us "forgetting" the Kurds.

 

I think he is either referring to the fact that we gave Saddam the technology (and the weapons) that he used to gas the Kurds in the first place, or possibility to the Shiite uprising after the Gulf War that that that the CIA promised we would support, and then proceeded to abandom them to be massacred by the Republican Guard. In that case it would be the Shiites we forgot about.

 

Fair enough.

I guess that never occurred to me because it wasn't a shot at the current Bush...that's the usual form of criticism of "our government" in these parts, as I recall.

 

The problem is that there is no feasible troop level that will fix the situation. It's not about us getting "serious", it's about the Sunni and Shia not wanting to kill each other, which is NEVER going to happen.

 

I should point out that "never" is a long time.

They may not stop wanting to kill each other any time soon, which would be bad for our efforts there. But to say they're "never" going to stop hating each other is silly.

Protestants and Catholics were "never" going to stop killing each other in Germany in 1648 either. But 50 years later, the era of religious warfare in Europe was dead. Doesn't seem impossible that the same could happen in Iraq.

NOTE: I'm not advocating occupying Iraq for 50 years. I don't think that would be a good idea. I'm also not guaranteeing that Shiites and Sunnis will love each other in a few decades. Just reacting to "never." It's not a very useful word in the real world.

 

Good point. It's been suggested that perhaps we should divide the country up into ethnic provinces, which might work if not for the fact that then each side will want what the other has and and new civil war/ethnic cleansing will break out, much like Bosnia. What a mess.

 

But the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia only broke out because the country WASN'T neatly divided into "ethnic provinces." It is now, with a multinational force keeping the peace.

And it's a hell of a lot more peaceful now than it was before NATO and the EU took over.

Frankly, I could see that being the plan for the future in Iraq, with one HUGE caveat: The Shiites and Kurds would have to give the Sunnis a fair share of oil revenue, and the Sunnis would have to accept minority status (most Iraqi Sunnis claim to believe they're a large majority of the population). That would take some pretty far-sighted leadership on the Iraqi side, and that's in very short supply.

 

The only feasible option I can think, that does not bring all the troops back, or keep them out of harms way, would be to go ahead and divide the country, and then reinforce the borders with an international peacekeeping force. Then make it abundantly clear to whoever is in charge of each province that they will be held accountable for keeping the peace and if they step out of line we will comeback and turn them, and their section of the country into a parking lot. Of course that plan has plenty of flaws and holes in it as well, but it is about the only thing I can come up with at this point.

 

Great minds.

 

Good point.