Iraq: five years of idiocy and still counting

kc — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 07:25:50 -0700

It's statements like this that make me wonder what's in the water supply in Washington that makes peopple so stupid:

Before testimony began, a senior official said Petraeus would likely stick to his guns and maintain that troops reductions should be dictated not by politics, but conditions on the ground.

They still have not figured out that the problem in Iraq is entirely political, that it can't be solved militarily. Before the surge, we had basically one civil war between Sunnis and Shiites, and the insurgency against the American presence. That battle has cooled down as mass areas of Iraq have been cleansed of one sect or the other, and Sunni leaders were bought off to turn against al Qaeda fighters.

Now we have a second civil war between Shiite groups battling for control of the country. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went on the attack against Muqtada al-Sadr's forces ahead of the elections they had just agreed to hold later this year. It was a bold political move to eliminate his main rival, and it backfired. Now this fighting threatens to engulf the entire country.

What Bush & Co. don't seem to understand (or just ignore) is the role American troops are playing in the escalation of this civil war. Maliki could not have moved against Sadr without the backing of American troops. It was American military power that kept Maliki's army from being defeated outright.

It was bad enough that we had taken sides in the Sunni-Shiite civil war. Now we have sided with just one part of the Shiite majority against another. Oh, by the way, the side we are sided with is the one who is allied with Iran.

This is a political war. Try to impose a military solution, and Iraq will make 1980s Beirut look peaceful. Our presence there impedes the political process that must be made to bring peace to the country. America can't be the peacemaker her. We are an active and biased participant in this fight.

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Iraq: five years of idiocy and still counting