Re: "Zarqawi may be dead"
That would be GREAT.
He *deserves* to die.
Of course, that wouldn't change anything fundamentally... others would rise to fill his position. (Maybe many others: the US military claims that the Sunni insurgents have access to "unlimited" funding and re-supply from their Sunni bretheren in the Islamic world --- particularly from the oil rich Sunni Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, etc.)
And there is no shortage of cannon-fodder to the terrorist cause, either.
Re: "What do you think, Buddy? Are we winning or losing iyo?"
The longer we stay, the more we lose.
Our best option would be to get out, then the Iraqi civil war would continue without the US being stuck in the middle and getting blamed (by both sides) for all the failures and what is wrong in 'Iraqi society'.
This civil war would actually be GOOD for Western interests, because a Sunni-Shi'a cat fight would turn their attention inward, and away from us. They would only have *their own leaders* and their *own failures* to blame for what is wrong, no longer us. (Ultimately it might help to bring about a much-overdue Islamic reformation... just as the wars in Europe centuries ago between Catholics and Protestants were resolved in the Reformation.)
The under-manned Iraqi Sunnis would be backed by their fellow Sunnis in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, etc., while the majority Iraqi Shiites would be supported by the Shiites in Iran (from which they already get support, and with whom they have *already* signed a defense pact) and in Syria.
(The Kurds would try to stay out of the war as much as possible --- consistent, of course, with them being able to control the oil wealth in the north that lies at the edge of their territory --- and because they ultimately want an independent Kurdish nation of their own, [so they wouldn't be all that unhappy if 'Iraq' broke apart], and they need the US for now to keep our ally Turkey from invading them. Turkey has promised to invade the minute the Kurds declare an independent Kurdistan... so the Kurds will go slow for now.)
The future of 'Iraq' (an artificial nation stitched together from three different Ottoman Empire provinces by Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia one afternoon in England over a lot of drinks. 'Iraq' was supposed to be so WEAK of a 'nation' that the English colonialists would be able to easily rule it... of course, that idea went down the tubes when the English were fairly quickly beaten there, and withdrew... a early 'pre-run' of what is happening to us now) will only be decided by the civil war.
Any attempt to prevent the civil war is doomed to failure. ...The Sunnis (who used to lord it over all the other groups in Iraq, and are not willing to accept their new position at the bottom of the heap, with *no oil*) are likely willing to fight on for a generation or two --- or until they suffer enough defeats in a full-out civil war that they are willing for Iraq to be divided into smaller parts....
A fast-moving, full tilt civil war is preferable to the slow steady bleeding we are seeing now, because it would settle the question much sooner... and with a whole lot less collateral damage to the West. |
