There is little doubt, at least on this blog, that Iraq was a premeditated disaster engineered by a small cabal of neocon lunatics who believe not only that might makes right, but that the use of force to impose the will of the US on the world is a good and righteous thing. If justice is ever done, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton, Gonzales, Gen. Sanchez, Gen. Miller, and Rice will all have a date with a war crimes tribunal.
But in the meantime, young men and women are dying in Iraq and there is no end in sight. The Republicans have accused Democrats of having no solutions to this problem other than to get rid of Bush. So below the fold I outline my own solution to the Iraq mess, and I invite others to criticize freely and to add your own ideas.
- Divide the country into politically autonomous subgroups and connect them in a federation. Let the Kurds form a Kurdistan in the north, the Shias form a Shialand in the south, the Sunnis a Sunniland, and the tribal areas form one or two autonomous regions. Each region has it's own legislature, it's own courts, it's own civilian police force, and it's own economy.
- Form a federal government which consists of a Parliament made up of delegates from the various 'states', a court system that settles interstate disputes and conflicting economic issues, a national army, and a foreign affairs department to represent Iraq in the world community.
- Place all significant national economic infrastructure under the control of the federal government. This includes all oilfields, interstate highways, water supplies, dams, and power generation facilities. This is the glue that holds the country together.
- Remove US troops to bases in Qatar, but keep enough naval and air resources available locally to perform significant strikes. Call in the UN or NATO to help protect the national economic infrastructure. Put money into repairing the oilfields, water treatment plants, dams, and other economically critical infrastructure. Continue to train and equip the national army.
- Explain to the Iraqis that they are now free to work things out among themselves, but we will not allow them to either destroy the national infrastructure, invade another state within Iraq, or invade another country. Explain to Iran, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia that the new Iraqi state enjoys the protection of the US, NATO, and the UN, and that they will not be allowed to interfere.
The idea here is to allow as much autonomy for the competing factions as possible while holding them together as a nation with the power of the purse. In addition, US troops are removed as an irritant to the Iraqis, but still nearby and ready to apply force to the situation if it gets out of control.
Well, that's my thinking in a nutshell. Feel free to criticize, ridicule, praise, or ignore as you please, but I want to hear how YOU would deal with the situation if you were Preznit. After all, when Clark wins the White House in '08, there's a very strong likelihood that Iraq will still be a mess.