Overview of Iraqi Violence and US Response

Submitted by William Robert Jack (United States), Feb 28, 2006 at 19:56

The sectarian violence now going on in Iraq is exactly what we worried would happen when we finally left the country. Now it is going on in the presence of 130,000 US troops. Isn't it time to rethink our entire strategy in Iraq?

The Kurds in the North are established with their own small nation started and plenty of oil.

The majority Shiites in the South have plenty of oil.

Then there's the minority Sunnis in the South. The big question is what would happen to them?

Possibly bin Laden, a Sunni, would try to locate with the Sunnis in Southern Iraq, a risk--a new place to breed terrorism. The Sunnis appear to to be the most significant threat to a stable situation in Iraq.

We could bring Saddam back to the US where he could be jailed while a trial takes place here under Iraqi judicial administration. This is a logistical matter that can be worked out.

I was an advocate for the invasion of Iraq, and the removal of Saddam and his regime. Now that we have accomplished these objectives, the final one, which was to bring democracy to this multiethnic, hatefilled culture, may never have been very realistic in the first place. And we just had to try it to find out.

After all, the real problem started when the British forged the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites together to form Iraq. Maybe now we should allow nature to take its course among the three ethnic groups. These people must ultimately decide what kind of governing structure they want.

If a terrorist stronghold develops there in the Sunni population then we will have to take military acton like we did in Afghanistan to address it.

A very gradual drawdown of our troops could take place. This type of response will free up our military progressively to address new challenges in Iran, and elsewhere, including Iraq, when military action appears to be needed to deal with terrorism.

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