How Do Civil Wars End ?
A Civil War is combat between peoples within a previously delineated political boundary, over the question of "who is to rule where" and by what "method". Civil Wars are notoriously intimate, intricate, and bloody. They typically end with the almost complete vanquishing of the exhausted side. If they do not end so, the seeds of a future conflagration are sown.
Thus the conflict within Iraq will not end until all of the foreign interventionists, uniformed and un-uniformed, have been diminished to the point of insignificance, and the warring Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish factions inflict and sustain sufficient casualties as to cause one or more of them to accept subsidiary status instead of complete annihilation.
All of which points to today's situation being much more likely to be the 'end of the beginning' versus the 'beginning of the end' of Iraq's process of artificially-induced transformation.
So what is the next step? The next step is up to the United States.
1. Spend more money and send more troops, in an attempt to accelerate and control the killing until a 'satisfaction' point is reached.
2. Continue current policy and hope.
3. Get out of the Iraqi's way and let them have at it. (re-deploy to "enduring" bases and Kuwait while employing the "Israeli Model" for the use of force within Iraq... i.e. airpower)
All three choices are "bad", as they all carry the expensive baggage of compounding previous mistakes. But only 're-deployment' has any realistic chance at accomplishing strategic U.S. long-term goals in the region. (The "protection" of Israel and OIL production and the "containment" of Shiite/Iranian influence)
"Re-Deployment" also gives U.S. forces the ability to interdict Al Quaeda's efforts within Iraq through the use of airpower (although the likelihood of increased 'collateral damage' will be great, it would compliment the intra-Iraqi killing while simultaneously reducing American casualties and would allow at least 50,000 U.S. troops to come home)
The hesitancy, derived from U.S. domestic political considerations, for the past two years should no longer be continued. The sooner the painful decision to 're-deploy' is made and implemented the better.
stephenhsmith
15nov2006
