The White House won't admit it, but it is a civil war in Iraq. Despite the administration's rhetoric and whining about everybody but them being "politically motivated and biased" the facts are now clear. the Iraq War meets the technical definition of Civil War. And there is no denying it at this point.
How is Civil War defined? Well, if you look it up, it is a noun and defined as "a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country." And Iraq certainly qualifies as that. The White House needs to acknowledge this. It is the only way we can move forward.
But if we acknowledge this, what do we do now? Are we now to expect our too few troops in country to absorb the brunt of a civil war that they cannot control or escape? Will "doomsday" scenarios and rhetoric squelch the unfortunate but necessary demands that we protect our own troops from an unwinnable and undefined mission for which there is no chance for any sort of "victory" for us? In Vietnam, war supporters constantly clammered about southeast asia falling into inescapable communist hands if we left. Then they would all gang up on us and come over here. Last week's Presidential visit to the former war torn country proved that didn't happen. Southeast Asia, with the exception of North Korea has steadily become a more capatalistic and more democratic and free region of the world since we took our guns home and let our ideas flourish. The domino theory was hogwash.
Again in Iraq, our leaders insist on trying to engineer other societies as if it could be done. We must leave Iraq in the military sense and get on with the business of supporting the Iraqi people in other ways. We must let them build their society. If they need money or advice, we're their ally and friend. If they need us to come in and covertly or overtly smash a terrorist network growing in the country, we will be there. But day to day, on the streets, they must run and govern their own country exclusively. Yes it will be messy. No it might not go the way we want it to, but they have the right to choose and control their own destiny. If they want ot ally with Iran in the south and Turkey in the north then so be it. We might not like it, but it is their right as a sovereign nation to choose their own friends and allies. Maybe, if we start to stop doing their dirty work of patrolling their bomb and RPG laden streets they might get their act together. Maybe the administation will learn that what was needed was deadlines and so forth all along. Maybe things will happen, good or bad, that no one predicted. It doesn't really matter what happens in the future. What matters now is that we start to bring our men and women out of a civil war that is not in our interest nor our responsibility to officiate and die for.
We have missed the opportunities to do anything else. It is too late to go to other countries to ask for military help. Much of the money pledged to help even never came in the mail from many who said they would help. To expect them to support an escalation of the several hundred thousand troops it would take to even have a shot at stabalizing the country is unrealistic. The world has made their position clear. We simply don't have the troops to add to the country's roster, so we can't do it on our own. It is simply not an option to escalate this war as some like the good Senator McCain have suggested.
We can not continue the current situation. Rumsfeld's "lean and mean i.e.- do it on the cheap" methodology have proven to be dead wrong as more than a few warned of including Colin Powell, author of the "Powell Doctrine" which did hold water when tested.
That means the only option is to withdraw militarily. We cannot ask our soldiers to endure our leader's mistakes and incompetence and die for it any longer. Regardless if one was for or against the initial invasion, the only course forward is clear. We must strategically redeploy our forces to fight another day. We must let Iraq decide it's own destiny insead of recklessly trying to engineer their society.
Of course, now we must ask the following questions as well. Why did the administration ignore the advice of the people with actual war experience who told them not to try to win this war without total and overwhelming force? And more fundamentally, if this administration really believed asait insisted, that Iraq was "the battle of our time" and a "vital front on the terror war" then why didn't they fight this war like it was? Why was the approach that of there are a few people in the "inner circle" who can dictate everything that can and will happen and everyone else should just sit down and shut up? Why didn't they call on the American people to be fully engaged in this war instead of playing the insignificant role of involuntary cheerleader? This President could have done so much more since 9/11 when he had the support of over 90% of this country and the vast majority of the governments and peoples of the world. Instead they chose to treat Afghanastan like a redheaded stepchild when the war drums of Iraq started to beat. Instead they chose to try to fight Iraq on the cheap and lean denying troops vital tools and equipment and making them rely on family and friends for things like body armor. The administration fought a "faith based" war in a "reality based" world and now over 25 million Iraqi people are suffering every day for it.
And they will continue to suffer every day in the future as long as the administration continues to play it's political games. The American people see billions upon billions now being spent to protect a policy that was flawed and doomed from the start as many warned. Billions that could be spent at home. Billions that could have been spent on actually protecting THIS country instead of carrying out impossible and unrealistic neoconservative foreign policy agendas.
Iraq is now in a destable state of civil war. At this point they must finish it and decide what happens next. There is no pratical way we can do that. We can help in many ways. But putting our troops in the middle of the fire with no clear plan or strategy is the one thing we cannot continue to do. We got our man, and it's time for us to go.