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Seven Hair-Raising Realities About the Iraq War

By Michael Schwartz, Tomdispatch.com. Posted August 22, 2006.


A short guide to understanding a flood of new Iraqi developments -- and the fate of both the American occupation and Iraqi society.
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Seven Hair-Raising Realities About the Iraq War
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With a tenuous cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon holding, the ever-hotter war in Iraq is once again creeping back onto newspaper front pages and towards the top of the evening news. Before being fully immersed in daily reports of bomb blasts, sectarian violence, and casualties, however, it might be worth considering some of the just-under-the-radar-screen realities of the situation in that country. Here, then, is a little guide to understanding what is likely to be a flood of new Iraqi developments -- a few enduring, but seldom commented upon, patterns central to the dynamics of the Iraq war, as well as to the fate of the American occupation and Iraqi society.

1. The Iraqi Government Is Little More Than a Group of "Talking Heads"

A minimally viable central government is built on at least three foundations: the coercive capacity to maintain order, an administrative apparatus that can deliver government services and directives to society, and the resources to manage these functions. The Iraqi government has none of these attributes -- and no prospect of developing them. It has no coercive capacity. The national army we hear so much about is actually trained and commanded by the Americans, while the police forces are largely controlled by local governments and have few, if any, viable links to the central government in Baghdad. (Only the Special Forces, whose death-squad activities in the capital have lately been in the news, have any formal relationship with the elected government; and they have more enduring ties to the U.S. military that created them and the Shia militias who staffed them.)

Administratively, the Iraqi government has no existence outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone -- and little presence within it. Whatever local apparatus exists elsewhere in the country is led by local leaders, usually with little or no loyalty to the central government and not dependent on it for resources it doesn't, in any case, possess. In Baghdad itself, this is clearly illustrated in the vast Shiite slum of Sadr city, controlled by Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and his elaborate network of political clerics. (Even U.S. occupation forces enter that enormous swath of the capital only in large brigades, braced for significant firefights.) In the major city of the Shia south, Basra, local clerics lead a government that alternately ignores and defies the central government on all policy issues from oil to women's rights; in Sunni cities like Tal Afar and Ramadi, where major battles with the Americans alternate with insurgent control, the government simply has no presence whatsoever. In Kurdistan in the north, the Kurdish leadership maintains full control of all local governments.

As for resources, with 85% of the country's revenues deriving from oil, all you really need to know is that oil-rich Iraq is also suffering from an "acute fuel shortage" (including soaring prices, all-night lines at gas stations, and a deal to get help from neighboring Syria which itself has minimal refining capacity). The almost helpless Iraqi government has had little choice but to accept the dictates of American advisors and of the International Monetary Fund about exactly how what energy resources exist will be used. Paying off Saddam-era debt, reparations to Kuwait from the Gulf War of 1990, and the needs of the U.S.-controlled national army have had first claim. With what remains so meager that it cannot sustain a viable administrative apparatus in Baghdad, let alone the rest of the country, there is barely enough to spare for the government leadership to line their own pockets.

2. There Is No Iraqi Army

The "Iraqi Army" is a misnomer. The government's military consists of Iraqi units integrated into the U.S.-commanded occupation army. These units rely on the Americans for intelligence, logistics, and -- lacking almost all heavy weaponry themselves -- artillery, tanks, and any kind of airpower. (The Iraqi "Air Force" typically consists of fewer then 10 planes with no combat capability.) The government has no real control over either personnel or strategy.

We can see this clearly in a recent operation in Sadr City, conducted (as news reports tell us) by "Iraqi troops and US advisors" and backed up by U.S. artillery and air power. It was one of an ongoing series of attempts to undermine the Sadrists and their Mahdi army, who have governed the area since the fall of Saddam. The day after the assault, Iraqi premier Nouri Kamel al-Maliki complained about the tactics used, which he labeled "unjustified," and about the fact that neither he, nor his government, was included in the decision-making leading up to the assault. As he put it to an Agence France-Presse, "I reiterate my rejection to [sic] such an operation and it should not be executed without my consent. This particular operation did not have my approval."


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Michael Schwartz is a professor of sociology and faculty director of the Undergraduate College of Global Studies at Stony Brook University.

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News Flash!
Posted by: ericthefool on Aug 22, 2006 12:12 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Luckily the JonBenet Ramsey case is the #1 news story now, and they found those "Terrorists" with electrical components and hydrogen peroxide. Funny how so many people doubt that this Karr fellow is lying but quickly rush to racial profiling at the insistance of our government and news media.

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» Say No to JonBenet coverage Posted by: porgygirl
» RE: News Flash! Posted by: mrcentrist
News Flash!
Posted by: ericthefool on Aug 22, 2006 12:17 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Luckily the JonBenet Ramsey case is the #1 news story now, and they found those "Terrorists" with electrical components and hydrogen peroxide. Funny how so many people doubt that this Karr fellow is lying but quickly rush to racial profiling at the insistance of our government and news media.

Oh and the Iran response to their nuclear program tomorrow...

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Hah!
Posted by: TT2 on Aug 22, 2006 12:59 AM   
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You thought that was TOUGH? Just wait untill the FUN starts with Iran;=)

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» RE: Hah! Posted by: TT2
Any fool can see..sickofsleaze
Posted by: ladybug1@carrollsweb.com on Aug 22, 2006 3:27 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
that this is all old news, watch something besides Faux news and you can figure it out yourself. I predicted most of this when Bush got war fever. It's obvious Bush only went to class for his BS in history to get his "gentleman's C". Or does the BS stand for bullshit?

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» RE: Any fool can see..sickofsleaze Posted by: Edward George
no shadow of doubt
Posted by: rsaxto on Aug 22, 2006 3:52 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There is now no shadow of doubt in the minds of unbrainwashed decent people that the world's #1 creator of terrorism is the Cheney/Bush administration. Therefore, the prime mechanism of fighting terrorism must start with the impeachment of the Bushies and continue with the creation of a genuine global peacekeeping organization.

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» gathaiga Posted by: gathaiga
» Practical or Not? Posted by: edith
» RE: Practical or Not? Posted by: mrcentrist
No one questioned Bush on his comment that Iraq had nothing to do with 911
Posted by: marklar on Aug 22, 2006 4:25 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just fucking astonishing that the corporate media isn't in flames over Bush all but repenting his sins and admitting to his lies about no WMD's or Iraq ties to Al-quida and 911. Is everyone in the White House Press Corp besides Helen afraid of
Rove?

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The real issue is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Posted by: jreinhart1 on Aug 22, 2006 7:27 AM   
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The US and the west has lost Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Azerbajan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstantajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to the SCO. It may well end up loosing Gorgia and Armenia. These are the oil and gas fields around the Caspian Sea that the US went to war in Iraq for in the first place. There is no hope for the US to ever regain the confidence of Iraq or Afghanistan. It is totally pointless to continue with the war in Iraq unless Bush is hoping for the creation of an independent Kurdistan. Considering the overwhelming rejection of a Kurdish state by Turkey, Iran and Iraq, it may never come to exists without more civil war, death, destruction, pain and suffering for several more years. The US and UK are the Sadists using their military and covert operations in all of this and should be recognized as criminal act, but the UN is a worthless, toothless organization and Europe is a willing group of loosers hoping for the US to grab any oil it can from the region.

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Raising hair
Posted by: BlueTigress on Aug 22, 2006 7:38 AM   
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When I saw the subject line of the headline dump in my e-mail, I thought they meant that someone in Iran was mandating some weird hairstyle reg.

Silly me.

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Thank you, Alternet
Posted by: lamva3 on Aug 22, 2006 7:56 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There is so little real info available about Iraq - thank you for this article. Better to know some horrible truths than be led around by calculated hysteria-mongering.

I am meeting more and more people - ordinary people, not "intellectuals" - who don't read/watch conventional "news" because the content is so poor.

Thanks for offering some clarity.

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Everything that we're told is bulls**t.
Posted by: monkeywrench on Aug 22, 2006 9:31 AM   
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The information presented in this article is very good, and even tantalizing, in that if the experience in self-government in outlying cities is any indication, Iraq could very well stabilize itself if we leave. That would indicate that a phased withdrawal would be the logical path for the U.S. to follow.

But it doesn't matter.

Logic doesn't matter; Iraqi sovereignty doesn't matter; ever-mounting American and Iraqi deaths do not matter. What matters is why Bush went there in the first place: to get rid of Hussein, the black-gold cowboy who was messing with the worldwide price of oil, and hence corporate profits, and to control the release of Iraqi oil (that is, limit it), again to shore up profits. Greg Palast makes a very good argument for this motive in his book, "Armed Madhouse." It is an enlightening, well-documented, and frightening, read. If he is right, and I for one am convinced he is, we're never leaving Iraq, short of being thrown out. I'm afraid that there will be no change to the disastrous course we are following until something really horrible occurs. We have a pig-headed, simpleton president being goosed by powerful oil companies and their anti-Christ partner in crime, Dick Cheney, to grab middle east oil at any price – my fear is that that price will eventually cost Americans everything. America has quite literally been highjacked by greedy madmen – madmen who control what people believe by controlling the mainstream media, and who control the outcome of elections via fraud and a bought-and-paid-for legal system. We are in 'way more trouble than we realize.

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add the imminent corporate take-down of the free internet.....
Posted by: peridot on Aug 22, 2006 9:56 AM   
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and we won't even be able to commiserate.

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gramps
Posted by: gramps on Aug 22, 2006 10:26 AM   
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The Iraqi government is little different from the Vichy government imposed by the Nazis in France in WWII. This caused frenchmen to kill frenchmen when the Free French of the Interior killed traitors. If there had been no occupation of France there would have been no Free French or no killing.
I cannot understand why the American people allow Bush to continue this insanity.

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» RE: gramps Posted by: edith
What So-Called Liberal Media?
Posted by: davidt on Aug 22, 2006 11:02 AM   
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Even if it was revealed that Condi gave Duh a BJ in the Oval Office the media would put a compassionate conservative spin on it.

By the way, the biggest untold story is that Laura has moved OUT of the WH because Condi & Duh are together. Condi actually addressed Duh as her husband at a speech. You can see the quote at rense.com.

The media with few exceptions, aka Keith Olbermann & Stephen Colbert, Stewart & Maher run hot & cold depending upon their self-perceived residence in the Land of Steadycheckdom, are stepping out of the Mainstream Mind-numbing Militia to poke some hot needles in the correct eye-sockets.

Will Stewart have the brass to interview the makers of Loose Change 2 when they are in NYC on the weekend of the 9/11 tragedy? I doubt it. Despite the fact that one of the guys is a young vet of the war in Afghanistan who hails from Oneonta, NY and the other two can't be far away.

But the tide is changing. Who ever thought the GOP die-hard Joe Scarborough would have a program titled "Is George Bush An Idiot?" Of course, the answer is a quantified YES. Where would Duh be now if he wasn't cleansed by the Lapdog media? Long-gone and probably in the pillory being pelted with rocks in the shape of bibles.

But the Kingdom Comers are still firmly in the fold. This is a story that should be hammered on over and over in the media. Most Americans have no idea that we are well on the way to living in a theocracy. Dominionists, who believe THEY have the "divine right" to rule non-believers, are everywhere just like a cancer. And NOTHING but the strict promulgation of the Bible in American public policy will satisfy them. In fact in a really enlightening book Kingdom Coming by Michele Goldberg you find out that they have machine in place that resembles the old Hitler Youth.

If they are not met head-to-head Americans might have folks showing up on their doorsteps who function as Biblical Control Monitors--enforcing their agenda with the aid of a proseletyzed vigilante/legal/municipal authority.

This is not a paranoid delusion.

What is really sick is that the Biblical Hierarchy have complete freedom to interpret and enforce but don't personally have to obey. Best examples I can think of are DeLay & Pat Robertson.

This authoritarian "susceptibility" is well-outlined in John Dean's new book Conservatives Without Compassion (?) The bogus persecution of the Clinton's, policies that devastate the environment, tax-cuts for the undeserving, cake for the rest, the war in Afghanistan and the sadistic & incompetent occupation in Iwreck are ALL excused by the Dominionists because this leads to the Rapture. Simple rule is Don't Think, Obey the Bible and Relax.

David T. Gray
Claremont, NH

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Iraq War leading to real catastrophy
Posted by: yellow on Aug 22, 2006 12:36 PM   
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The blog confirms much of what I've been reading and hearing about the progress of the war. One of the key long-term effects of the war and occupation that is related to the violent ethnic cleansing is the denationalization of Iraqi society. During Saddam's rule just the opposite was the case with his radical meglomaniacal centralization of politics. Today politics in Iraq has become radically local with the town or village becoming the main unit of political and social organization. Because of the brutality and incompetence of the US occupation, most Iraqis have come to trust only those local authorities they trust. Randi Rhodes's broadcast on the Air America Radio news program has recently cited an opinion poll done by a conservative Republican think tank showing that over three quarters of Iraqis want the US out, distrust the US created Iraqi Army, and only trust the local authorities and sectarian militia for the provision of vital social services and protection.

In the absence of progress in remodernizing this once highly modern Middle Eastern country (only Israel was more technologically and socially modern) people have fallen back on their local communities less out of romantic nostalgia than the political vaacum creating this necessity. While it has been somewhat the goal of the Bush Administration to weaken the former nationalist/developmentalist Sunni center which wanted to centrally control as much of Iraq's resources for internal development (palaces and the military notwithstanding), the planned chaos that has emerged from this strategy has now become self-defeating! The North and South Oil Companies, which remain newly divided parts of the original nationalized operation under Saddam, may have made generous Production Sharing Agreements with US oil Majors and even allowed some privatization of newly discovered oil wells but the long term effects of splitting up the country will be costly, violent political instability for years to come. There was little or no resistance to the early British creation of Iraq out of the diverse areas of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra in the aftermath of WWI and the Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds didn't than conflict with one another. In fact, all were united in a continued struggle for national independance and local control of the oil resources. Now the US occupation has successfully exploited sectarian tensions between the three main groups, which began to emerge during Saddam's dictatorial rule, into full blown civil war. This can only lead to disaster for the country and the region.

In the end the denationalization of Iraqi society can only embolden Iran, impoverish and weaken Baghdad, and leave the region open to more violent instability. The occupation must be replaced by multilateral efforts to reverse this trend now. Obviously the devil is in the details! But staying the course can only lead to a worsening of the already miserable situation.

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Lies, damned lies, and polling results.
Posted by: Sojourner on Aug 22, 2006 12:52 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The only thing any two Iraqis can agree on is that they want the foreign troops to leave. I don't need a poll to tell me that.

The only reason there was little sectarian violence while Hussein governed is because his army would have responded with murderous genocide--of both sides to the conflict.

To draw the conclusion, as Schwartz does, that the civil war in Iraq could have been avoided is BS. Actually, it could have been avoided by the provisional government immediately after invasion but only had it partitioned the country.

People would rather struggle for power. So there will be endless killings of both Iraqis and Americans before the country is partitioned. Who's taking bets? I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is.

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Why Bush doesn't want to leave Iraq
Posted by: thoughtcriminal on Aug 22, 2006 1:17 PM   
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I suppose there are a number reasons; the geopolitical wet dream of the neocons was to have a giant American power base in the heart of the Mideast - permanent colonial control of the Mideast and the Caspian region and their oh-so-juicy-desirable oilfields, from which high vantage point they would control the price and the flow of the world's oil supplies.

No sane person seems to believe in that grand and apocalyptic vision of American Reichdom (the PNAC types still seem to harbor secret hopes of conquest, however), but the oil banks and traders still want to control the region's oil using 'more civilized means'. If the US military packs up and leaves Iraq at this point, you can bet that whatever new Iraqi government moves in will insist on renegotiating all oil contracts. The Bushies and their backers have thus sought to install a friendly puppet government that will sign anything placed in front of them, and they have tried to provide military and security services to ensure that their handpicked lapdogs will be able to maintain their grip on power after US military troops leave.

So, that's Bush & Cheney's definition of 'success and victory" in Iraq, which they hide behind the "Freedom Campaign" - the original name was the accurate one: Operation Iraqi Liberation.

Why will US and Iraqi soldiers and civilians continue to dies in Iraq? So ExxonMobil and ChevronTexacoUnocal can continue to enjoy world-record profits - why else?. That's the noble cause that US soldiers die for every day - sorry to answer that question for all the mothers of the dead, but that's the real answer: the one that Bush doesn't dare mention. As soon as the words 'oil' and "Iraq" pass his lips in the same sentance, he knows his goose is cooked.

Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld would say that they are "Keeping us safe from the terrorists" by "fighting them 'over there'"? After allowing 9/11 to take place? And then allowing all those Saudis to leave the country without being quetioned? Right after the greatest terror attack ever to take place on US soil, carried out by 15 Saudis and their friends (all from upper-middle class backgrounds), the one flight that leaves the country is full of wealthy unquestioned Saudis? Do you see anything wrong with this picture, in terms of 'standard police investigative practices' ? Ever see Bush Sr. lick the booties of the Saudi princes? Shameful, isn't it?

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IRAQ WILL DISSOLVE AS IS MEANT TO BE
Posted by: sofla100 on Aug 22, 2006 2:24 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We are seeing the beginnings of the dissolution of the articifical state of Iraq. An artificial state created by the British empire and held together by Saddam. The new reality will be Iran incorporating Iraq's Shiites, with Iran's boundary expanded to included current Eastern Iraq. Saudi Arabia will incorporate the Sunni's, to include the current territory of Western or Southern Iraq. And a new country to be created, called Kurdistan, currently the northern part of Iraq. Now, no amount of military firepower or fake US puppet governments can stop it. We need to let it happen and get out of the way.

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Fresh Peace for the Middle East
Posted by: metamind on Aug 23, 2006 6:24 PM   
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On August 7, 2006 I released my Fresh Peace for the Middle East Proposal

I said it then and I will say it again:

The way out of Iraq is through the White House.

George Bush and the Republicans have no plan to leave Iraq. They are using Iraq as an excuse for a massive military presence in the Middle East in support of American economic hegemony.

As long as the U.S. sits on top of ten trillion ( perhaps 15 trillion ) dollars of oil the world will keep funding us with bad bonds. What choice do they have? Under Republican rule the U.S. is holding the world hostage using somebody else's money ( oil ) as the lever of power. The United States is an international financial terrorist.

There are many things which can and should be done to make the Iraqi government viable. But as long as the Bush/Cheney cabal is in power, backed up by a spineless, immoral, corrup Congress all of these actions will likely fail.

My Prescription:

Investigate.
Impeach.
Imprision.

The way out of Iraq is through the White House. To do that we must first cleanse the Congress of the evil Republicans who refuse to do their sworn duty to "support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

Steve Moyer
Candidate for U.S. Senate
http://stevemoyer.us

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Joe Biden's plan for Iraq
Posted by: metamind on Aug 24, 2006 12:08 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This plan has some potential in my opinion. Still, we need to clear the White House of those who want to create problems. This proposal has some correspondence to my "Fresh Peace for the Middle East" proposal: http://stevemoyer.us/iraq

I'm glad that Sen. Biden is working for solutions.

Steve Moyer
Candidate for U.S. Senate
http://stevemoyer.us


The following Op-Ed by Senator Biden appeared in The Washington Post today describing a better alternative for Iraq.

A Plan to Hold Iraq Together
The Washington Post
by Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Four months ago, in an opinion piece with Les Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, I laid out a detailed plan to keep Iraq together, protect America's interests and bring our troops home. Many experts here and in Iraq embraced our ideas. Since then, circumstances in Iraq have made the plan even more on target -- and urgent -- than when we first proposed it.

The new, central reality in Iraq is that violence between Shiites and Sunnis has surpassed the insurgency and foreign terrorists as the main security threat. Our leading civilian and military experts on Iraq -- Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Gens. George Casey, Peter Pace and John Abizaid -- have all acknowledged that fact.

In December's elections, 90 percent of the votes went to sectarian lists. Ethnic militias increasingly are the law in Iraq. They have infiltrated the official security forces. Sectarian cleansing has begun in mixed areas, with 200,000 Iraqis fleeing their homes in recent months for fear of sectarian reprisals. Massive unemployment feeds the ranks of sectarian militias and criminal gangs.

No number of troops can solve this problem. The only way to hold Iraq together and create the conditions for our armed forces to responsibly withdraw is to give Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds incentives to pursue their interests peacefully and to forge a sustainable political settlement. Unfortunately, this administration does not have a coherent plan or any discernible strategy for success in Iraq. Its strategy is to prevent defeat and hand the problem off when it leaves office.

Meanwhile, more and more Americans, understandably frustrated, support an immediate withdrawal, even at the risk of trading a dictator for chaos and a civil war that could become a regional war.

Both are bad alternatives. The five-point plan Les Gelb and I laid out offers a better way.

First, the plan calls for maintaining a unified Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis their own regions. The central government would be left in charge of common interests, such as border security and the distribution of oil revenue.

Second, it would bind the Sunnis to the deal by guaranteeing them a proportionate share of oil revenue. Each group would have an incentive to maximize oil production, making oil the glue that binds the country together.

Third, the plan would create a massive jobs program while increasing reconstruction aid -- especially from the oil-rich Gulf states -- but tying it to the protection of minority rights.

Fourth, it would convene an international conference that would produce a regional nonaggression pact and create a Contact Group to enforce regional commitments.

Fifth, it would begin the phased redeployment of U.S. forces this year and withdraw most of them by the end of 2007, while maintaining a small follow-on force to keep the neighbors honest and to strike any concentration of terrorists.

...snip...snip

This plan offers a way to bring our troops home, protect our security interests and preserve Iraq as a unified country. Those who reject this plan out of hand must answer one simple question: What is your alternative?

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