Civil War In Iraq

NBC decided to start calling it civil war in Iraq, and other media seems to be following along. The Statesman used that term on today's front page. I guess now that Bush's administration has been weakened by the election, the MSM might not be such lickspittles anymore. Anyway, the point to the story was that we can't really do anything to stop the civil war.

I'm not so sure. The real question is whether we have the national will to do something about it. If we're willing to spend the money, lives and time, I believe we can stop the civil war. First, send more troops. Ask other countries to help out but allow them to get some of the contracts for reconstruction. (You might recall that was a big reason France and Germany refused to chip in some troops.) Appoint a military governor to run the country, and have the Gov appoint Iraqi leaders and hold them accountable for results.

Round up and imprison the militia leaders, including Al Sadr, and you'll go a long way to tamping down the violence. Yes, we'll squelch their attempt at democracy, but who cares? They can't creat a democracy without security, and they can't gain security with the current government. The ministries have been divvied out to the factions and are run as such, and thus don't function.

We rushed Iraq into trying to set up a democracy way before it was ready, because that fit the meme used to make the war palatable to the US public. That is, it would be easy because they'll be up an running before we know it. When you teach a child to ride a bike, you provide training wheels. We should have done something like that in Iraq.

In World War I, the various countries involved poured obscene amounts of money and human lives into the battle, but with very little military result. It was the way the nations tested each other's will to sustain the fight. As long as they were willing to spend their money and kill their sons they could stay on the battle field. In the US, after Vietnam we had a number of military actions (Grenada, Panama, 1st Gulf War, etc.) that didn't involve such a test of national will. This made it easy for the President to committ the military without widespread public support. Now we're in the position of being stuck in a war that is requiring a national commitment, but we don't have the national consensus.

Our choices are: 1) Keep doing what we're doing, and keep getting what we're getting. 2) Pull out and let Iraq work it out. To me that is almost immoral, since the US is the reason Iraq is so messed up right now. 3) Commit the resources to go back and do it right. I think we're talking the better part of a trillion dollars, not counting what's been spent, over the next ten years. Given the needs of US citizens, spending that kind of money in Iraq is also almost immoral.

What a mess. This will be the legacy of President Bush and the Republican Congress. I dunno, maybe they don't care about this. After all, the war sure has been good for business.