Bush was completely wrong on Iraq....but now what?

[Perky]

I have no problem with getting out of Iraq immediately. But I do not think we should do it solely because the war is illegal or because Bush is an idiot. It can't simply be about Bush and it certainly can not be about pride. We need a stable middle east. The world needs a stable Middle east. We can no solve sectarain discord, but we need to recognize that is the the new ballgame everyone has to deal with.

If we leave, we have to consider that al-Maiiki s probably not strong enough to survive, A partition is not going to work with out an oil deal. And Baghdad is likely to turn into something akin to Beirut in the late 1970s while Anbar is going to be Afghanistan. Worse yet. the emerging civil war is going to winf up being a proxy war between the Sunnis sultanates qnd Shia extremists.

<b>A god awful mess whether we stay or go, but the forces at play now can not be constrained by our presence. </b>

Anyone who thinks leaving solves the problems of sectarian strife and Islamic anger at the west is an idiot. Anyone who thinks the worlds growing dependency on middle east oil is solved by playing nice is dreaming.

The only solution is diplomatic and that means we are going to have to deal with the regional powers that be and that we are going to have to apologize for a century of supporting despots and oligarchs in meanigful ways. That means huge water projects thawt dwarf the Marshall plan and build a protecorate for Sunnis from Baghdad to Gaza.

Water is a greater commodity in a region exploding with growth than oil.

[NewJeffCT]

1. There is no good solution to this fracking train wreck

When he was running for Congress, Chris Murphy of Connecticut had a great comeback for any of those Republicans who asked about his plan for Iraq. He said that is like dropping an egg on a sidewalk and asking him his plan for picking it back up...

But, Iraq's infrastructure is devastated. Their middle class has been deserting the country. Most of the wealthy are already gone.

The best option would be (I think) something along the lines of the Murtha plan - bring the Guard & reserves home and redeploy the full time folks to the perimeter as a rapid response team. Follow that with aggressive diplomacy using administration outsiders (nobody in the White House has credibility with anybody that is not a Dittohead) And, maybe, with some world class juggling, a lot of prayer and good luck, we can stop a wider conflagration...

[FightingIrish]

2. Yesterday Bush told Juan Williams of NPR

that if we leave now the evildoers will "follow us home". Maybe he is starting to realize that he has stirred up a hornet's nest. His solution is to stir up another one while we are still getting stung.