It is time for American to honestly assess our situation in Iraq.
This is difficult to do because the US military by its own admission makes false reports. The incident at Haditha demonstrates that military reports can not be taken at face value. Our government feeds us a steady diet of lies. For example, we are not now, nor have we ever been, in the last throws of the insurgency.
We were told that things would get better as soon as this or that event occurred. Instead no event promised to bring peace and stability to Iraq has produced the promised effect. The election of the interim government, the adoption of the constitution, the election of and formation of the permanent government, none of these events have stabilized the country, although we were lead to believe they would.
No military eventuality has quelled the violence although we were told they would. The capture and trial of Saddam Hussein did not lead to a reduction in attacks. The highly celebrated death of al-Zarqawi has not meant as yet a reduction in al-Qaeda activity. The destruction of Fallujah did not pacify the Sunni Triangle. The "insurgents" are improving as fighters against us as fast or faster than we are improving as fighters against them.
Never the less, some conclusions can still be made based on what information is available.
The economy of Iraq is still in shambles. Most reconstruction projects have been suspended due to security concerns. Electricity and oil production have yet to reach pre-invasion levels.
There is no evidence the Iraqis are willing to cooperate with us in securing and rebuilding their country. There is no evidence that the training of Iraqis have meet with any success. Although, it does seem that many sectarian groups in Iraq have formed effective militias capable of independent operations against us and rival militias. There are also several reports that these militias have infiltrated regular Iraqi army and police units.
It is apparent that we are not a liberating power. We are an occupying power.
As such we have done what is common to most occupying powers, tortured prisoners and killed innocents.
Democracy is not taking root in Iraq. Their constitution is democratic in name only. It leaves the religious laws in place as civil law. For example, under their constitution it is still illegal for a Muslim to renounce their faith as we recently witnessed in a similar case of a convert to Christianity in Afghanistan which has a similar constitution. Implementation of the Iraqi constitution will most likely lead to the creation of a state more like Iran than the USA. The elections in Iraq reflect ethnic and religious rivalry, not devotion to democratic principle.
In order to expect a successful transformation of the Iraqi nation to democracy, the general population of Iraq would have to be in sympathy with the West in general and the USA in particular. That is clearly not the case. Two things are certain from the reports coming out of Haditha; first our troops fear Iraqi civilians, second Iraqi civilians have no sympathy for our troops.
Completing our mission in Iraq would be greatly aided by support from allies. With a few exceptions, we are not getting it. Successful coalitions tend to grow. The "Coalition of the Willing" continues to shrink.
The American force including allies and contractors is no more than one quarter million. The Iraqi population is twenty five million. If our mission was to reduce Iraq to rubble all could be confident of our success. However, building a secure democratic Iraq requires Iraqi cooperation. Given we have been there for three years shouldn't we be asking where is it? What demonstration of Iraqi cooperation gives us reason to believe our mission has any chance of success? I submit to you there is none.
Therefore, if our mission has no chance of success then it must either be redefined or abandoned. Unfortunately, the longer our nation waits for a happy ending to this chapter of our history the more terrible the ending is likely to be. What price will our nation have to bear for the misguided actions or our leaders?
If this were a poker game we would be asking ourselves, how much more do we want to lose on this hand?