There is a rather eery parallel to Vietnam. We were instrumental in destroying the hegemony of disparate and nearly autonomous armed groups that the French had nurtured in order to keep overall control. Oddly it was North Vietnamese refugees that we mostly dealt with who were not notably beloved by the South Vietnamese. When we left, it was no longer any trick at all for the North Vietnamese to consolidate control thanks to the fine work by the U.S. government.

Bush isn't the first uniter.

Best, Terry

It is becoming less and less likely that any sort of peaceful negotiation or diplomacy will work with Iran. Indeed, one could argue that the two sides are equally opposed to finding pragmatic solutions.

That said, it becomes the job of the United States and its allies to put the onus of responsibility on Tehran.

In the long term, the Iranian power-grab that we are currently seeing may not be such a bad thing.

For one, Tehran will not be able to play the "underdog" much longer. As they consolidate their political gains throughout Iraq, Lebanon, and even Syria, they will be forced to draw the proverbial line in the sand with regard to Israel and the United States.

As it stands now, Iran can cleverly wage its anti-western campaign without much difficulty (i.e. action). The Hezbollah/Israeli war in Lebanon this summer was a bold move which has afforded them temporary breathing room. Ahmadinejad can sit back on his laurels and watch the United States back itself into a corner.

But when the American troop drawdown begins in Iraq (probably sometime in 2007), Tehran will be forced to actually make decisions on issues not involving Americans (fighting the Sunni's, assisting in infrastructure development in Iraq so as to keep in good stead with the Shia there, etc).

In other words, Tehran will have to assume a certain element of responsibility for gaining the tacit 'trust' of the regional Shia.

This is precisely the point where the United States must plan accordingly. On the one hand it will be easier for the international community to point the finger at Tehran for regional violence.

Why? Because regional leaders always take the biggest hit when things go wrong. If missiles continue to rain on Israel, Hezbollah continues its bullying of the Lebanese government, or Iraqi oil production were to suddenly fall under the auspices of Tehran, the U.S. and UN would then have the justification AND initiative to take decisive action against Iran.

Right now the U.S. is in an untenable position. Every move we make helps either Tehran or the Sunni's.

It's high time we give Tehran the ball and let our defense take the field. Historically speaking, America's offense has sucked and its defense has been a turnover generating machine.

They don't share a common language. (Iranians speak Farsi.) It's not clear that the US is an enemy of the Iraqi Shia. It's not at all clear that Iranian clients would run a Shia dominated Iraq.

That said, it becomes the job of the United States and its allies to put the onus of responsibility on Tehran.
This I do not understand. I've not seen the U.S. treat any of its allies with respect in quite a long time. Why and how could it be theirs job?
Would it be in anyone's interest to continue play the part of the poodle?
/Tuomas

Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have painted us into a corner, shot us in the foot, mousetrapped us, and may have ultimately reduced us to the status of a second rate power behind China.

Add to that the pervasive damage they've done to our domestic system, two years of a Democratic congress are clearly not enough to recover from the consequences of their misdeeds.

All we can do is begin. Cutting off funds for continued operations in Iraq would be a reasonable start. There's plenty of cash in the pipeline to pull our troops out. If Bush isn't impeached before his term runs out -- in short, if there is no justice -- there may be no hope for a full recovery.

Unfortunately there is no discussion about the failure to use adequate troops in 2003 and to adjust tactics and to listen to the Generals when they were warning about the insurgency within weeks of the invasion.

There seems to be not only quite a bit of discussion about these points, but widespread agreement with them. They may make great topics for eventual congressional hearings, although I'm unsure what benefit such hearings might produce.

Still remaining, what do we do now about the situation we find ourselves in?

The Shia won the civil war the day they won the US organized elections. The US lost in Iraq the same day when the parties we backed came in with about 19% of the vote. Our strategy was to put them in place and head for the door. With the Shia-dominated parties in place, our only strategy is...to wait for the next election and hope to win it? Maybe with a helping hand from Diebold? Or perhaps we could lend them Karl Rove (I kind of like that idea). Or maybe we should wake up and realize that the democracy thing is going to produce governments that don't like us and get the heck out of Dodge.

J. McCutchen

The Shia haven't won the Civil Wars - there are 3-5 going on. Iran won the war and that was clear 2 years ago

Here's another credible claim of Victory

No comment necessary....

Iraq war was good for Israel: Olmert

The Shia may or may not win the Civil War. We won't know until we see what countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Turkey choose to do about their fellow Sunni Muslims.

If they choose to do nothing and the Shia do win they won in December, 2001 when the U.S. Military called for at least 325,000 troops to be used in Iraq and Rumsfeld with apparently not reason insisted that the force be no greater than 125,000. Once the Iraqi army was disbanded there was no chance to bring order or protection to any of the Iraqi communities nor to guard either the borders or the weapons caches.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

From John J. Robinson's Dungeon, Fire, and Sword:

"The Shiites and the Sunnis do occasionally work together in the face of a common enemy or to achieve a common Islamic purpose, but the animosities are as strong as they are ancient in their origins and not likely to disappear."

In a thousand years of wars and shifting alliances, only the historically myopic American could look at a minor skirmish on an isolated battlefield and pronounce "victory" for 25% of the Islamic world against the 75% that has always dominated it. At any rate, for the fleeting moment before the transient alliances shift yet again like sand dunes in the desert, let us consider the clueless crusading intruder and what he has contributed to an ageless struggle he cannot even faintly comprehend:

"Peace with Horror"

A leper knight rode into view
Astride his mangy steed
A harbinger of violence
A plague without a need
An apparition of discord
Upon which fear would feed

His unannounced arrival meant
He'd lost his leper's bell
And yet his ugly innocence
Could not conceal the smell
His good intentions only paved
Another road to Hell

With mace and lance and sword deployed
He vowed in peace to live
Through rotting lips he promised not
To take, but only give
He swore to only kill the ones
Whom he said shouldn't live

He did not speak the language and
He did not know the land
So why the healthy shrank from him
He could not understand
Why did they want the water when
He'd offered them the sand?

So onward to Jerusalem
He staggered as he slew
In train with sack and booty that
He only thought his due
For spreading freedom's germs among
The last surviving few

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2005

America is a resourceful country. It's not like being crushed.

For sure, there are plenty of alternatives to chose between.

Larry, I don't see in what sense the Shi'a have 'won' where they hadn't at this time last year. They're making gains to control Diyala province, but doesn't it more or less end there?

Sunni insurgents still dominate the vast reaches of western and northern Arab Iraq, and have a pretty good hold on West Baghdad - or so the news accounts tell me. They don't control any oil-producing territory, so it sucks to be them, but that's been true all along.

Sure, we Americans are still fighting the Sunnis for them, but we've been doing that for nearly four years now. Are we close to defeating them? I suppose it could be true, but it seems almost infinitely improbable.

Just wondering what exactly you mean by the Shi'a having won.

J. McCutchen

"In this regard the United States is laboring under the myth of the foreign fighter."

CIA Director Michael Hayden has testified before Congress that there are only 1300 foreign al-Qaeda volunteers fighting in Iraq.

Since when has this War been fought other than on the basis of myth? We've been fighting phantasms since we accommplished the mission of eliminating the grave and gathering danger of Saddam.

Our war fighting strategy such as it is has been determined by domestic political propaganda

A good discussion of the prevalence of these myths among the US leadership can be found in Mark Danner's latest essay in the New York Review of Books. Danner descibes how a diplomat in Iraq, a supposed area expert with more knowledge of Iraq than anyone else serving in the country, was convinced up to the day of the constitutional plebicite that the people of Fallujah would approve the constitution. Instead, 97% voted against it.

Honestly, I would rather give Bush a lifetime appointment as president than to have Nancy Pelosi in the White House for one single year.

She is an absolute joke of a politician and any Democrat should be ashamed and embarassed to have her as Speaker of the House.

Disgraceful.

Take a deep breath.  Put your mind in gear.  Think.

Now, surely you realize that on her worst day Nancy Pelosi would be infinitely better as President than Bush.  Just because the "liberal media" insist on portraying her in a bad light doesn't mean she is in the same ball park as Bush for sheer stupidity, incompetence and criminality. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

In other words, Tehran will have to assume a certain element of responsibility for gaining the tacit 'trust' of the regional Shia.

It can't be taken of granted that cooperation between Iran and Iraqi Shia would rely on a "tacit" basis. While the destruction of Sunni rule in Iraq has opened up opportunities for Iran, it also has widened divisions amongst the clerics and undercut the establishment in Qom as the last word on religious matters. One can agree with arguments that there will be a major shift in the political dynamic in the region as a result of the end of Sunni domination over Shia populations without assuming that Iran would be able to dominate the other groups.

Consider the divisions between SCIRI and the Sadrists in Iraq. They have different lines of support in Iran. If they become able (and willing) to overcome their differences enough to form a true national government, Iranian influence upon actual Iraqi polity would lessen because they would become a regional competitor.

To some extent, the alarm expressed by Sunni regimes over Iran’s swashbuckling (with extra cringing from the likes of such financial partners as Henry Kissinger*) is a piece of wishful thinking. If the sectarian divide in Iraq leads to a regional war, Iran will be more devoted to keeping control of their own politics than exporting the Khomeini revolution to their Arab brothers.

*Got the link from Arnold Evan’s post

She's a woman.

The so-called "flypaper theory" -- like other flawed figures of speech recycled from America's War on Vietnam to substitute for real thinking now about our War on Iraq -- has another, older name more familiar to the average American: namely, "The George Armstrong Custer Little Bighorn Theory," a.k.a., "They died with their boots on."

The "theory" also has another name more familiar to the average French citizen: namely, the "Parachute more doomed Legionaires into Dien Bien Phu" strategy.

In fact, George W. Bush has sent more American targets to die "over there" since 9/11/2001 than he allowed nineteen unarmed (mostly Saudi Arabian) highjackers to kill "over here" on 9/11/2001. Counting the maimed GIs and dead and maimed Iraqis, of course, makes the "over there plus over here" casualty count one of the most unconscionable reigns of terror ever inflicted upon two countries by a single deadbeat gambler of an incompetent American President.

"Over there" and/or "over here," nothing grows the world's fly population like consumable human flypaper supplied as hapless fodder by Sheriff Dick Cheney's "propaganda catapulter," Deputy Dubya Bush.

But why stop with just a single tired tautology, when we have so many to choose from? Hence:

"The Tipping Point Turns the Corner"

Now, around the next corner the tipping point turns
As the good ship capsizes and sinks
While the mad metaphors and flawed figures of speech
Guarantee that no one really thinks

So the dots get connected with crayon lines drawn
By the journalists flogging clichés
Like astrologers linking the stars into shapes
Telling fortunes as long as it pays

At the end of the tunnel the dominoes fall
As the oil spots to flypaper stick
With his boots on, George Custer fights to the last man
Making even the strong stomach sick

As they stood up, we stood down -- just not right away
With our shoulders to shoulders we marched
When the morning came corpses piled up in the morgues
Like some laundry loads unwashed and starched

Like the city that shines on the top of a hill
With a thousand or more points of light
Now the current flows only an hour a day
So in sweltering blackness they fight

They've a government, now, freely chosen at last
By the parties that somehow had won
Our ambassador, though, had to choose their PM
When we didn't like what they had done

Sure, they can't leave the Green Zone without getting killed
Our officials, too, travel by plane
Sneaking into and out of the country unseen
By the people who think us insane

But he won't cut and run says the man who ain't there
From his purpose he swears he won't swerve
"Bring 'em on!" taunts the juvenile joker in jeans
Clearing brush on his Texas preserve

As the world watched in horror, he drove off a cliff
Then he stumbled around in a daze
Now he says – after three years of chaos and death –
That he might have misused a trite phrase

"It's as easy as shootin' a bird in a cage,"
Says the Texas stud hamster of quail
When the rodents ride roughshod the feathered will flee
From the drunken dudes gone off the trail

And we've got us some mantras from Vietnam days
Like "we're there 'cause we're there 'cause we're there"
So when once we go somewhere, that means we can't leave
Like that German boot-planting affair

And the logic swirls faster in circles that swim
Like our friends won't respect a retreat
See, they'd rather we kept acting stupid and blind
Till we wind up a pile of dead meat

And our foes will not fear us if we should act smart
Which assumes that they fear us when dumb
An American innocence, surely, that comes
From a depth that you simply can't plumb

The octopus fascist sings swan songs sedate
Reinventing the same words and tune
So the president babbles of going to Mars
When we can’t even get to the Moon

Like the light of an oncoming train in the dark
We see hopefulness ever draw near
We're on track, can't you see, to a glorious dawn
So we'll stay the curse, never you fear

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2005

We've got real problems here, fellow Crimestoppers. And we have nobody, I mean nobody at home minding the store's dwindling supply of flypaper and insect repellant, so to speak.

My friend who is a miltary historian, and with whom I don't agree on much, believes the Sunnis have never felt defeated and the U.S. should level a couple of Suni cities and then see about peace.

However, he has noted the contradiction between removing Saddem to bring democracy to Iraq and using Iraq as "flypaper" to draw in foreign terrorists. As you note the former requires order and law and secure borders. The latter benefits from chaos and open borders. It also means using Iraqis as cannon fodder.

One has to wonder if Bush ever said the nation Iraq is not attached to Al Qaeda but we are going to turn it into a killing field for our own benefit how much support there would have been for the war.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Larry,

I'm wondering if you would put any credence to the following report (second hand hearsay on Juan Cole's blog):

"Another friend, a Sunni sheikh of the Shammar tribe noted to me that thousands of former officers are prepared to assault the G[reen] Z[one]. It is no longer a matter of can they do it, they are only mulling over the timing. The breach of the Green Zone security the other day was a test of their ability to get in, and not a real attempt at a coup, though it is reported as such. Every Iraqi I talk to says unambiguously that the resistance attached to the former regime would take out the Shiite militias with barely a fight, but that the resistance will not commit wholesale revenge against the Shiite population. They just want to get rid of the "carpet baggers" from Iran. "

Reason I'm asking: it looks (at least from here) that the Sunnis are getting increasingly organized militarily--and that our forces' response time, as at the Ministry of Health battle, is less than immediate.

And?

I agree. At this point, acknowledging the fact of violent de facto partition taking place, and the reality that there's little we can do to stop it, would at least clarify our (exceedingly limited) options, and reduce the amount of wishing for ponies passing for realistic discussion.

One thing we might actually be capable of doing is shepherding the voluntary relocation of people within Iraq, so that Sunni Arabs in Shi'ite or Kurd areas could safely move to majority-Sunni areas, Shi'ites in Sunni areas could safely move to majority-Shi'a areas, etc., before they receive a note with a bullet, or their bodies are found in a dumping ground.

As has been stated by others, any talk about victory or losing, or who wins and who loses, has to be accompanied by some kind of definition of what victory consists of. For example, how could anyone argue that the Shia have not won? Before we showed up to invade Iraq the Shia were ruled with an iron fist by a Sunni, Saddam. Now they virtually own the Iraqi government, such as it is. That meets my criteria for a victory.

Similarly, Iran, prior to our invasion of Iraq, had failed to defeat Saddam and his Sunni thugs in a long war. They had to keep an eye on Saddam at all times just in case he suddenly decided to restart that war. Now, they are playing footsie with a Shia government in Iraq, and clearly could control much of Iraq is they wanted to. That also meets my criteria for a victory.

Our USA, before we chose to invade Iraq, was an object of international sympathy and respect, partly as a result of the 9/11 attacks. When Bush spoke people all over the world listened and tried to understand what he said. We had Iraq, under Saddam, under our almost complete control, with our embargo, our air war, and our ability to get almost any anti-Saddam resolution out of the UN Security Council. Now, we receive no sympathy or respect from most of the world, and Iran has so little respect for our threats that they openly go ahead with their nuclear program, in spite of everything Bush says. The rest of the world listens to Bush only for comic moments. Saddam is not in charge of Iraq, but neither is anyone else. The UN Security Council is unwilling to follow our lead. That meets my criteria not for victory but for defeat.

The goal for the next president, hopefully a Democrat, will be to redefine our goals in Iraq.  We should announce that our only goal there was always to get Saddam out of power, and allow the Iraqis to set up whatever form of government they wanted.  Saddam is out of power, and the Iraqis are "setting up the government they want".  Therefore, we have achieved our goals in Iraq, so we bid that country a fond farewell and good luck. 

Hoppy in Sacramento