RollingStone article on Iraq. Ah, these are the good times, just wait.

[TayTay]

How bad is Iraq? What are the best, worst and most likely outcome scenarios in that region, no matter what the US does? Rolling Stone Magazine did an interview with a wide range of experts on that and had this mega-depressing article. (Sigh, read it anyway.)

Excerpt:

BEST-CASE SCENARIO
CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ AND A STRONGER AL QAEDA

Zbigniew Brzezinski: If we are willing to engage with all of Iraq's neighbors -- including Iran -- in a regional effort to contain the violence, the best we can hope for is an Iraq that is politically passive but hostile toward America.

Gen. Tony McPeak: It's not a question of whether we're going to leave Iraq -- it's a question of when. And everybody in Iraq knows that. So they say, "Fine. We'll stock arms and wait for you guys to leave. And then we'll do what we want."

But the administration has repeatedly highlighted the potential for chaos in Iraq after our departure as a reason we must stay and fight.

Richard Clarke: All the things they say will happen are already happening. Iraq is already a base for terrorists; there is already a civil war. We've got 150,000 troops there now and we can't stop it.

Nir Rosen: There is no best-case scenario for Iraq. It's complete anarchy now. No family is untouched by kidnappings, murders, ethnic cleansing -- everybody lives in a constant state of terror. Leaving aside Kurdistan, which is very different, there's nobody in Iraq who is safe. You can get killed for being a Sunni, for being a Shia, for being educated, for being part of the former regime, for being part of the current regime. The Americans are still killing Iraqi civilians left and right. There's no government in Iraq; it doesn't exist outside of the Green Zone. That's not only the government's fault, that's our fault: We deliberately created a weak government so that we would have final authority over everything in Iraq.

Michael Scheuer: Even in the best-case scenario, the disaster we're seeing now is nothing compared to the disaster that we'll see after we leave. The real issue here is American interest: The longer we stay, the more people we get killed. I don't think the longer we stay, the better we make Iraq. Probably the reverse.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13710030/leaving_iraq_the_grim_truth/2

Sen. Kerry said on the floor of the Senate today that there is a word for what this escalation can be called: Vietnam. He's right. We are committing more poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly supplied troops to a country we don't know, don't understand and can't control. We need to get out.

Damn. Just damn. Oh, and one more thing. What this guy said, only double.

McPeak: This is a dark chapter in our history. Whatever else happens, our country's international standing has been frittered away by people who don't have the foggiest understanding of how the hell the world works. America has been conducting an experiment for the past six years, trying to validate the proposition that it really doesn't make any difference who you elect president. Now we know the result of that experiment (laughs). If a guy is stupid, it makes a big difference.

[beachmom]

1. Have you noticed the Iraqi refugee story has been all over the place in

the MSM lately? 60 Minutes, NPR, Time magazine. Of course, this was a reality by last summer (it accelerated following the 2/22/06 Samarra shrine bombing), and yet these outlets didn't figure it out until now. This is part of the reason the U.S. is talking to Syria who is essentially bailing out what would have been an even more horrid humanitarian crisis had they closed their borders.

Why now? Because the end (as in the TOTAL disaster) is upon us.

Refugees -- 2 million, they say -- 4 years into this war.

This fact coupled in with the dire RS article shows what is really happening. And Dick Cheney is still dusting off 2004 slogans in the middle of a humanitarian catastrophe of his and his administration's making? Very grim things to ponder.

[TayTay]

2. The Iraq War is going to be debated in the Senate

starting tomorrow.

Let's see if it is a real and truthful debate. This should be interesting. God knows it is needed.

[TayTay]

3. Hmmm, good Read Me on what happens after the surge

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/05/AR2007030501142.html

Beachmom, read the larger report (link buried at the end of this article.) This is inline with what a certain tall MA senator has been saying, and has the backup for it.

[ProSense]

4. Interesting report. This caught my attention:

From 2005 onward, the insurgents coalesced around a few groups, including the
Islamic Army in Iraq, the Partisans of the Sunna army, the Mujahidin’s army,
Muhammad’s army, and Islamic Resistance Movement in Iraq. As their names suggest, the
use of violence by the insurgency has been increasingly justified in religious terms.

Civil war! I made this point in a previous post:

All the talk about stabilizing Iraq and ensuring victory should have been put to rest in 2005, especially after the January election led to more violence and definitely after the transfer of authority in June did nothing to end Iraq's descent into chaos. In 2006, there were only two options: set a deadline or cut funding. Those are still the only options. Screaming out now just doesn't cut it. There has to be the what next---the U.S isn't going to leave Iraq and withdraw from the international community. If Congress cuts funding or sets a deadline, the next step is getting the troops out of there safely, and I don't know anyone who wants the exit to be chaotic.