Let Me Join the Warmonger Parade

Submitted by Blackspeare (United States), Dec 12, 2006 at 14:53

The latest article by Dr. Pipes is right on the mark ...

Sectarian violence' has existed among the various sects of the Muslim world for over 1,300 years and is not going to be solved by the findings and recommendations by the ISG nor through the auspices of an International Iraqi Support Group.

As it exists in Baghdad today, the sectarian violence most certainly will not be solved through direct talks with its primary instigating states, Iran and Syria, let alone by disengaging al-Qaeda in Iraq and leaving them for an inexperienced Iraqi Army spiced with a sprinkling of American special operators. al-Qaeda and Iran seek the chaos that the Sunni-on-Shi'a bloodletting creates, for it gives them the prospect of preventing an American-Iraqi success and thus the opportunity to carve out their own grand designs.

Participation in an International Iraqi Support Group and direct talks will neither entice Iran or Syria nor alter their course, and an American disengagement from al-Qaeda leaves them emboldened.

To that, the central theme of the ISG report is clearly represented by its statement that "Violence cannot end unless dialogue begins, and the dialogue must involve those who wield power, not simply those who hold political office."

Throughout the history of warfare, violence ends when one side or both have so forcefully brutalized the other as to completely sap his will to continue the fight. At that point dialogue begins, as the victor dictates the terms of disengagement.

Short of this, there will be no end to the violence that the Baker Group envisions negotiated into termination.

Is it any wonder why Iraq's President Talabani, left wanting for something far more tangible, called the Iraq Study Group report "an insult to the people of Iraq" and "dangerous"?

It's called victory, a term clearly not in the lexicon of America's heralded ‘realists.'

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