First, nearly half of all ongoing civil wars (46 percent) involve religion in some form. Second, Islam has been involved in more than 80 percent of all religious civil wars. Third, religious civil wars are less likely to end in negotiated settlement. Instead, combatants tend to duke it out until one side achieves victory.

Trust an academic to be breathless about the obvious. Yes, the 2 main Islamic sects frequently come to blows and not just in Iraq but in many parts of the Islamic world. This has been happening for centuries. Long term, after(hopefully) a stable Iraq emerges and the region is a bit more balanced in regards to democratic governments rather than primarily a region run by hostile dictators some thought can be given as to how Western nations may assist with peacemaking between the 2 sects. However, in the end I think it is a problem that will have to be resolved by Islam itself. But first things first – the winning of the Iraq war should take precedence over all else.

Despite the author’s false characterization of the war as one of liberation the war was actually undertaken primarily for strategic reasons – to destroy Saddam’s regime because it was troublesome and a threat. The author seems to believe that if Saddam had not invaded Kuwait or that if Saddam had tried to adhere to the post-war stipulations following his defeat in Kuwait that the US would still have invaded Iraq in order to liberate the Iraqis. I can’t buy that particular unstated assumption – I believe that if Saddam had never invaded Kuwait or had acquiesced post-Kuwait he would be still be brutally ruling Iraq. The democratization of Iraq represents icing on the cake – important for a really nice cake but not as important than the deposing of Saddam.

In Iraq, a negotiated settlement is going to be very difficult …

But why should a negotiated settlement between hostile Islamic sects be undertaken in the first place? The violence in Iraq has been in steady decline since Petraeus’s tactical implementations; there has been significant improvement on the political front and the Benchmarks; you would think from reading the author that the opposite were true. Let us at least see if the trend toward Iraqi civil control continues.

What then can the United States and its allies do to bring about a negotiated settlement? Ironically, the best way to support a negotiated settlement would be to leave Iraq.

Academics LOVE irony like a bee loves pollen. Tragically leave Iraq, or shamefully for sure, but “ironically”? Oh, the stale detachment of the arrogant academic.

The withdrawal of US forces would allow Iraq’s predominantly Arab Shiites and Sunnis to find common interest in opposing their two more classical historical adversaries: Kurds and Persians. The longer the US and Britain stay, the more they facilitate a shift away from the identity that long unified Iraq to the religious identity that is tearing it apart and facilitating its manipulation by Iran.

By “Persians” she means Iranians. Ah, yes, “common interests” between Iran and Iraq. I know what Iran’s main interest is and it’s not good for the US. What she’s attempting to gloss over with bland language is that in her feckless scenario Iraq may ally itself with a virulent state, a state that imports terror like Japan imports cars. Yikes!

The author seems to assume that the Coalition will lose the Iraq war. But this is a pre-surge assumption. I consider that outcome probable if Obama is elected but I also think McCain and Petraeus, if McCain is elected, may well win it. My guess is that in the author’s frame of reference the on-going success of the surge is an annoying, dark spot on the x-ray of the basic assumptions of her analysis.

In essence what she proposes is to abandon Iraq, let whatever factions that may want to do so fight it out, that the US deal the best it can afterwards with whoever emerges the victor of the religious civil war that will ensue after the US bails. She must be advising Obama because that’s what he wants to do.

It would be a death sentence to many who have helped the US in Iraq, but no matter. If the refugees are a problem now they would only be a greater problem as the result of a civil war due to the US pulling out of Iraq prematurely. She grudgingly acknowledges that the hypothetical new regime may be unfriendly and may have garnered some hostile-to-the-US allies along the way – but oh well, that’s life – la de da.

There are three obvious downsides to this approach.

First, the end of violence in Iraq following a US withdrawal would lead to the emergence of a nonsecular, nondemocratic government in Iraq.

How can she be sure that a new Iraqi regime emerging from the civil war she postulates may happen when the US leaves be non-secular? She’s already asserted that a religious civil war is likely. Isn’t the likely outcome of any religious civil war a theocracy?

It would be more friendly toward Iran (though not Iran’s puppet, as currently feared), but less friendly toward Israel, although a democratic Iraq would be no improvement in this regard.

So we get a theocracy that’s allied with Iran and hostile to Israel. What a deal!

Second, since US withdrawal has been conditioned on a de-escalation of violence in Iraq, the Bush and Brown governments would be left the unenviable task of explaining to their countries that “withdrawal is the best way to create the conditions for, withdrawal.”

I really cannot see Bush abandoning Iraq. No way. The author is dreaming. But that’s what they do in La De Da Land – spend their time thinking up disastrous policies based on false assumptions. And they are paid handsomely for this.

Third, withdrawal before violence has fully ceased will look like failure to most Americans and Britons.

What an unrealistic expectation! Hell, “violence” has not “fully ceased” in the Bronx, or Hoboken. But that isn’t that the unstated assumption at the bottom of many anti-war memes? That the US has to make Iraq safer than downtown Chicago before the war can be looked upon as a victory.

The idea of victory versus failure is really a false dichotomy, however. The real choice for US and British policymakers is between the more costly failure that will obtain from current policy and the less costly failure that might obtain from a well- thought-out and well-executed withdrawal.

This writer is firmly convinced that the US will fail, even though the surge says otherwise.

Finally, not until 2007 did the Pentagon acknowledge that Iraqi sectarian violence had crossed a threshold to become a civil war.

Aw, that BAD Pentagon. It just isn’t fast enough for this author.

But policymakers still haven’t come to terms with the implications of that fact. If they did, they’d see that a wisely executed withdrawal of US-led forces could well be the surest path to peace. That’s because withdrawal is likely to transform the fighting in Iraq into a defensive struggle for power in a nation-state, as opposed to an offensive battle rooted in religion.

The surest path to peace is bloody civil war. Sounds nice. Maybe she can pitch it to the Obama campaign strategists.

Sectarian conflict in Iraq was previously limited to fighting between Sunnis and Shiites. But today, the conflict has grown to include Shiites against fellow Shiites. Despite signs that security has improved, the religious civil wars in Iraq may have only just begun.

So the US should leave, even though the leaving would probably result in a disaster on many levels and have far-reaching adverse consequences, all because of something that “may” happen. What nonsense.

Isn’t it obvious?

“Mr. Obama was against the war, before he was for it”

A recent poll of 10,000 Iraqi urban and rural families, commissioned by the Ministry of Planning and Cooperative Development and conducted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), found that 85 percent of Iraqi youth between the ages of nineteen and twenty-four rejected the idea that political disputes can be resolved through violence. The poll revealed little evidence that young members of the families surveyed were attracted to radical politics.

Conclusion

The insurgency currently plaguing Iraq has made many Iraqis pessimistic about their country’s future. However, Iraq has the resources to create one of the most vibrant democracies
in the Arab world—one that can become the envy of countries around the globe. Not only does Iraq possess tremendous oil wealth, agricultural resources, and historical treasures with which to develop a flourishing tourist industry, but, more important, it is home to a set of rich traditions that its highly educated citizenry can use as foundations for building the new Iraq. Indeed, as indicated by the popular wisdom in the well-known Arabic saying “The Egyptians write, the Lebanese publish, and the Iraqis read,” Iraq is inherently an open and tolerant society.

One of the main strategies of authoritarian regimes is to undermine a society’s confidence in itself and, by extension, the hopes and aspirations of its citizenry. One of the most important defenses against the reassertion of authoritarian rule is to sustain the momentum of the ongoing transition to democracy. Iraqis can best accomplish this by remaining focused on the tasks at hand—namely, expanding the number of projects that promote democratization—and not allowing violence to deter them from their goals of building a democratic and just society. If the initiatives suggested in this report can help Iraqis, even in some small way, sustain the energy and enthusiasm that they have already demonstrated in building democracy, then it will have achieved its goal.

Strategies for Promoting Democracy in Iraq
By Eric Davis

There is very intersting artical in CSM telling more about “Iraqis to their own devices – an attitude bewildering in its
impracticality.” right now which have much to do with niegbouring states than Iraqi as such:

Sectarian conflict in Iraq was previously limited to fighting between Sunnis and Shiites. But today, the conflict has grown to include Shiites against fellow Shiites. Despite signs that security has improved, the religious civil wars in Iraq may have only just begun.

The withdrawal of US forces would allow Iraq’s predominantly Arab Shiites and Sunnis to find common interest in opposing their two more classical historical adversaries: Kurds and Persians. The longer the US and Britain stay, the more they facilitate a shift away from the identity that long unified Iraq to the religious identity that is tearing it apart and facilitating its manipulation by Iran.

the heart of Iraq’s civil war

Indeed it is an attitude bewildering in its impracticality, which is one of the reasons it’s not and never was my attitude. My attitude was we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq in the first place. However, once we did go in, of course we had a responsibility to stay as long as it takes to help stabilize. As noted, I supported the surge, but moreover a lot of the other moves which I think were at least as important if not more so than the mere increase in troop levels. Robert Gates is far more competent than Rumsfeld, and obvious Petraeus is a brilliant general.

The word Anfal is mentioned in the Koran (eighth sura) and literally means spoils. It is cited within the context of a hard battle won by the first Muslims who perceived it as vindication of their new faith.

You need to review your info how much biblical terms and words was used /using by westerns in their wars, weaponry and events borrowed words from Bible Holly book and how they use it to justified their goals.

The simple example come to mind is “MOAB Bomb” which used in recent war in Iraq and other part of the world. So it’s not just Muslims implied same way using their holly book to name events or wars.

I doubt you know much about Anfal? As much as MSM told you, which is that same MSM that told you that Iraq had WMD all those scary stories that made the run to the catastrophic war in human scene.

There are many stories that gives the other side of the looses in that crime, although I don’t have now the links but as I recall the team or the lead of the team said he have not discovered that Iraq link using chemical material at that time (I know you strongly oppose the idea) but there is thing like that.

Anyway if you like info from the ground I tell this:

While Iraq military troops busy fighting Iranians in north Iraq the Iraqi army was exposed from its back by terrorists who are at that time with the Iranian they fired on the Iraqi army from the back that make many loses within Iraqi army while they defending their land and their state what the regime did as all the time it’s a complete collective punishment (Israelis use same tactics in Palestine, or Gaza now) and what’s happened its happened.

But let say if your army have same incident of same position that some citizen loyal to outsider trying to destroy or kill your national army what you do with them? Are you kissing them?

But I feel sorry for those civilians who caught in that massacre as same as my feeling that Iraqis who died and dieing every day due to US invasion of Iraq.

only in the modern era would a person look for similarities between devils and angels and be happy when finding them. ….devils are angels

Yes they are but how you figureout the differences?

Is looking to their acts and behaviours which make no doubt they are Devils although they are Angels.

Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan are fleeing to the Pakistani border after being routed in recent operations by the United States Marines, the American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said on Monday.

a clear sign that they are not in rebuilt training camps.

Was the Iraq War Worth It?

By Jeff Lukens
June 02, 2008

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/06/was_the_iraq_war_worth_it.html

only in the modern era would a person look for similarities between devils and angels and be happy when finding them.

[by the way... devils are angels, so its not so absolute as simpletons want to paint for convenience]