Is anyone surprised that the Bush administration's policies in Iraq are blowing around like the shifting sands of the desert? The more they try to dig out the deeper the hole gets, do you cut and run and leave a failed. balkanized state in your wake as it appears we are content to do in Afghanistan, or do you sacrifice more lives to try to straigten out a poorly concieved, planned and executed war that is going to suck the life out of your presidency and your country. I commented on my blog early on that I saw no real way for their to be a happy ending in Iraq. It is a fractured society that was held together through brute force and tyranny much like Yugoslavia under Tito. There are real, deep and valid hatreds between the disparate groups in Iraq, and simply waving an American flag and giving out TV's is not going to solve that.
I forsee years of fractious conflict inside Iraq, with Turkey and Iran directly and indirectly supporting factions that support their interests. There's a lot of oil under that sand, so we can't let it go to complete shit like we are going to let Afghanistan. 'Elections' will be tainted with heavy doses of violence, so only areas with strong local security forces (shiite areas) will likely see any turn out. Is America willing to accept an Islamist Shiite regime, pore billions into proping it up and leave it to fight off the Baathists for years of bloody conflict? That's the only outcome I can forsee with the 'plans' that the administration unveiled this week.