The Blue Voice

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Observing the anniversary of the start of the Long War in Iraq

Today is the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War: March 19 in the US, March 20 in Iraq. There are plenty of essays, comments and opinions out in recognition of that.

This article has several opinions from various sources: To be there or not to be is first question of U.S. about its future in Iraq San Francisco Chronicle 03/19/06.

What I found new and disturbing in this one is that there were several opinions from supporters of the war that, when you cut through the nice phrasing, come down to this: we should stop worrying about civil war and just back the Shi'a government as they kill, torture and displace as many Sunnis as they feel like. For instance, James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS):

The insurgency is a symptom - it could end tomorrow if we avert our eyes and let the Shiites massacre the Sunnis. But there is still a chance for something better.

Gregory Treverton of the Rand Corporation says something similar.

As he puts it:

U.S. forces should be dramatically reduced in number and focused on the insurgents - primarily through training and occasional support to operations, a mission akin to the one they played in El Salvador's war of the 1980s.

The country's sectarian divides make "Iraqi security forces" an oxymoron. In many places, the militias, especially the Shiite ones, are the security forces, and U.S. policy will have to tolerate them.

Abraham Sofaer of the Hoover Institution also has a similar analysis:

We must at the same time give up all control to the new Iraqi government. We will be no more effective in preventing a civil war than we were in remaking the energy system. ...

Insisting that there must not be a civil war is only the latest U.S. policy based on what we want from Iraq, instead of on what Iraq is dishing out. A civil war may be the only way in which the Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis who support the form of majority rule adopted by the people of Iraq can successfully root out and destroy the forces against whom our policies have failed. We should be familiar with the concept of a bloody but necessary civil war.

posted at 1:26:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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