Civil War in Iraq

Submitted by Martin E. Weinstein (United States), Mar 2, 2006 at 03:09

Your article implies that we should pull out of Iraq and let the Sunnis and Shiites fight it out. That does look easy and tempting compared to the frustrating effort to create an Iraqi democracy. But does it serve US interests in the longer run?

Our central problem in the Middle East is that Islamists control Persian Gulf oil and are using the profits to wage war against us--Arabia and Iran funding terrorists and Iran building nucs. They are fanatical and ruthless--truly dangerous--as you have pointed out. Toppling Saddam was a significant achievement, but pulling out of Iraq would be a strategic failure. It would probably put Iraqi oil back in hostile hands, remove the pressure from Arabia and Iran, and encourage and strengthen the Islamists. If civil war rages, we should pull out of Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle, but take and protect the oil around Basra and Kirkuk--occupying the southern fields if necessary, and supporting the Kurds in the north. We should stop playing at liberation. Ultimately, as the statement of our strategic problem implies, we have to take Gulf oil out of the hands of hostile and duplicitous Arabs and the Iranian mullahs. If we do not, the jihad will simply grow and get worse.

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