<So we should do what? Bring our guys home and nuke the country? Start from scratch?>
Any successful policy has to be 90% political, and only 10% military. More force, more dead Iraqis, is not going to succeed, no matter how many we kill.
The present policy (area searches, regularly shooting into crowds of Iraqis, using artillery and helicopters in urban areas) uses massive amounts of poorly targetted firepower, and turns the civilian population against us.
We have to avoid what happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan, where the Islamists and nationalists allied against the foreign army of occupation.
The only way to keep the Islamists out of power in Iraq, is to ally with the nationalists, against the Islamists. And that means giving the Iraqi nationalists real power. They can't be our puppets. We have to create an Iraqi army that answers to Iraqis, not Americans. We have to turn over the oil industry to Iraqis rather than Halliburton.
If we are unable or unwilling to do that, then, yes, we should just cut our losses and get out ASAP. |
