How to solve Iraq.

My fellow Rockheads. My Holiday hiatus at an end, it is time to begin posting to my blog once more.

Over the Holiday break, the war in Iraq weighed heavily on my mind as it always does. With the Democrats taking over the majority in Congress it is time for the Bush Administration to do something bold or the Democrats will most assuredly doom any future attempts to bring the operation to a successful close. The mindless anti war crowd in America continues their inane screaming, and it's giving me a headache. So, here is my proposal.

What do we have in Iraq today? Who are we dealing with? Well we are essentially dealing with the same groups. We have the Kurds in the oil rich north and their region is relatively peaceful but for tension with Turkey, nothing that level headed people can't deal with.

In central Iraq we have the Sunni, Saddam Hussein's people. They are the ethnic minority in Iraq, but enjoyed most favored status while Hussein was in power. The area of Iraq in which the Sunni live however, is resource poor. The Sunni made up the bulk of the insurgency, at first because they actually harbored the illusion that Hussein would come back. Now, they are fighting for their survival.

This brings us to the Shia. For over four decades they were governed and abused by Hussein, Hussein's tribe and his fellow Sunni Muslims. Now, the Shia (in my opinion) want to be the only real power in the new Iraq government, I don't think they are into any kind of power sharing with the Sunni. The Shia have the Sadr Army, militias and death squads who are prosecuting a sort of ethnic cleansing of Shia neighborhoods and towns of the minority Sunni. This isn't good. While the Shia are the majority in Iraq, it is the Sunni that are the majority in the whole of the middle east. The Shia simply are in no mood to relinquish a thing to the Sunni and I think Prime Minister Malaki is one of those people, but that's just me, and I could be wrong but I don't think I am.

We are reaching the limits of the American publics support for the effort in Iraq. I have to confess that as a supporter of the effort my will has been tested too. But, it is the essence of war to have ups and downs, victory and defeat. But like a football game, you don't know who the winner is until it is over. For the anti war crowd to say we are not winning is to forget this concept because you can also make the claim that we are not losing either. A classic case of is the glass half empty or half full?

Nobody had presented to me a good case for why we should leave Iraq now. Or that we are losing. And I'm still of the opinion that most of the anti war crowd is composed of people who hate President Bush. And I think they hate him because they have not been able to put the 2000 and 2004 elections behind them. In 2000 the election results were contested and we waited weeks for ballots to be examined, we saw the election issue go to the US Supreme Court and Bush prevailed. 2004, most of the main stream media was forecasting a Kerry victory, but by next morning Bush had made a furious comeback; he won by a hair. Losing elections that way has to be disappointing but it is no reason to turn into a Bush hating moron. And due to this and more it is my opinion that the left simply can't stand to see Bush get credit for anything and they are willing to suffer defeat in Iraq to prevent it.

But what to do about Iraq? The most basic component that is missing is resolve from the folks on the home front. But it is also a fact of history regarding counterinsurgency operations that the local populace must get involved. We seem to be missing both in Iraq. So, I must admit that we have gotten to the brass tacks of the issue. Prime Minister Malaki is going to have to prove he is serious about sharing power with the Sunni, he is going to have to take on his Shia militias, the death squads, insurgents and terrorists that are feeding upon the people of Iraq. Malaki must preside over a national reconciliation process and spread around the oil revenue. Short of that there is always the option of creating three autonomous sectors in Iraq, Sunni, Shia and Kurd with perhaps a central government in Baghdad.

We must put training and equipping the Iraqi Army on the fast track. The Police force is an unmitigated debacle and I think General Patreaus will have to address that issue with a clean slate, because the police are key to ending the insurgency, more so that the military.

Let me close by saying that this effort would be over more quickly if the American public stood shoulder to shoulder. It is our infighting that is encouraging the enemy to continue the fight. To be quite honest about it, I'm ashamed of the American people. We have our kids over there in Iraq trying their level best to accomplish a mission that we approved of initially. We shouldn't have (we don't deserve) the luxury of changing our minds in the middle of the fight or when the going gets tough. Americans used to be made of tougher stuff. I think we can all agree that our troops have proven their mettle. How about you?