Today, George Bush lays out his new "strategy for victory in Iraq"

I think 9/11 has ZIPPO to do with Iraq and our safety depends on whether we can get back on focus against Al Qaida.

There are multiple conflicts going on in this Iraq situation and there is a lot of confusion about it. It's far more complex than us against "the terrorists"

USA versus Al Qaida -- This is the war against the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11. Al Qaida was never in Iraq before the invasion. Saddam and Osama did not get along--Saddam was always a secular dictator, not an Islamist. The "Al Qaida in Iraq" is a new organization founded by Zarchawi and is only loosely affiliated with the original, who support him because he is killing Americans. The only reason he has the opportunity to kill Americans is that we are providing him all of these easy targets and he doesn't need a lot of resources to attack us. If we were not there, they would have no targets.

Meanwhile the original Al Qaida and Osama himself have still not been caught even though it is openly acknowledeged that he is hiding with the Taliban remnants in Pakistan. The Afghanistan/Pakistan fight against Osama's boys is the main fight and the Iraqi misadventure is a distraction that has perhaps even prevented us from finishing off Bin Ladin & Co.

These are the only group that has ever attacked the United States directly. All of the others (Zarchawi, Hezbollah, PLO, Hamas, Iranian radicals, etc) have local and regional objectives versus Israel and each other. We are being sidetracked into local conflicts that have little or nothing to do with eliminating the worst enemy--Al Qaida.

This is a fight we must pursue to the bitter end . . . but it ain't in Iraq.

USA versus radical islamists -- Most middle east radicals like the Iranians and the Palestinians do not hate the ideas of American democracy, culture, and free economy, they just hate us coming to their neighborhood and swinging the big stick. So Iranian, Palestinian and other radicals are flocking to Iraq because there is an opportunity to fight the Americans on their own terms, fighting their kind of war--a guerrilla war where we cannot properly utilize our superiority in airpower and technology.

When we leave, they no longer have us to fight. They lose.

USA versus Iraqi insurgents --Among the people we are fighting are Iraqi nationalists that are proud of their country, which is literally the cradle of western civilization. They hated Saddam and are overjoyed at his demise but they are embarrased and humilated by our sacking of their country in three weeks and by our continuing occupation. They fight us because we are there. If we had deposed Saddam and left, they might have been the ones with the gumption to establish a new country. They still might be, but they won't take on their fellows until we are gone.

When we leave, all of the underpinnings for this problem falls apart.

Kurd versus Sunni --Been going on for centuries. The Kurds are spread over three countries and want to be united, but none of their hosts want to give up the land. Turkey and Iran are too strong, but this is an opportunity for the Kurds to establish enough autonomy to be the core of a future Kurdistan.

The Kurds are the only Iraqis that have been with the plan, we must protect the Kurds from Sunni or Shiite oppression in the future, but we can do that with diplomacy likely. If not, we fight a war on our terms, not the enemy's.

Shiite versus Sunni --The big fight. This is the boiling kettle that Saddams brutality kept a lid on for so long. George took the lid off and it is boiling over as a result. This is why I'm quite sure that a democracy will never suceed in Iraq. There are no democracies anywhere in the Arab world--all are controlled by strongmen, some good, some bad. It may take a strongman to control Iraq.

George actually has raised tentions in the region by removing Saddam, who was an effective sectarian counter to the radical islamists in Iran who are now taking over as the regional power. Our former policy of playing these nations off against each other was wise and effective. Because Iraq is no longer a regional power we will end up fighting Iran before it is all over.

Iran will continue to support and inflame the Iraqi Shiite majority with the aim of installling an Iran-style islamic theocracy in Iraq as a puppet state. Our best bet is not pursuing the forlorn hope of democracy for Iraq, but to try and get a sectarian storngman in charge who is sympathetic to the US, as we wisely did in Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc.

The Sunni/Shiite fight has been going on for millenia and will likely continue for many more decades. But it ain't our fight.

Bottom Line--There are several wars going on in Iraq and the sitaution is WAY too complex to "win". We need to win the war with Al Qaida which is happening elsewhere. The fights that remain are just not in our best national interests to pursue. Leaving those fights to the Iraqis is not "letting the terrorists win", it is recognizing what our military commanders have said--that our presence has become the biggest issue at this point. We win by leaving.

"Staying the course" when the course is a labyrinth is "riding the hellbound train". The wise never get on board and the prudent get off at the first stop--not the last.

 

Check again, most of the insurgents are Iraqis. Even George Bush has stated categorically that Iraq was not involved in 9/11.

No, your demographics don't add up. Al Qaida in Iraq are Arabs and they are not there to take over Iraq, they are there to fight Americans at a place where they can get to them and in a situation favorable to them (a guerilla war). When we are gone the Iraqis will boot the foreigners.

The Taliban is not, has never, and will never be a factor in Iraq. The Taliban are Pakistanis, not Arabs and they have no influence there. The Shiites will end up in control of Iraq and they are Persians, not Arabs either. The big question is whether they will be puppets of the radical Shiites in Iran or if they will be proudly independent Iraqi Shiites. Time will tell.

Sure, and it is a valid point. But this must be balanced against the danger in having an open-ended situation. A staged withdrawal with the Iraqis taking over must be a gradual thing, but it need not be slow. And we must have a timetable for turning over the job piece by piece. It is naive to expect that there will be a magic, unspecified day when everything is declared perfect and we can just pullout the whole force at once.

We turn over a province to the Iraqis and let them sink or swim because in a month we turn over another province to them and so on. They have to step up and they haven't done so because they have no incentives. So we give them one. They can rule and we will go home--all they have to do is get their chit together and get the job done themselves. And if they can't . . . we've done all that we can do. These guys may just have to fight some things out and decide how it is going to be over there. Right now they are banding together to oppose us instead of compromising and establishing a new government.

This is the biggest problem in trying to deal with Islamic radicals of every flavor . . . they aren't in their right mind, they don't behave logically, and nothing they do makes sense.