Some Ideas

Even though I don't agree with David Ignatius all that often, I will give him credit for at least not following the rest of the mindless media on Iraq. In this case, rather than a mindless whine about pulling the troops out, Ignatius at least admits that there are severe penalties to doing so. Both for the Iraqi people and for the US. Now he does not see any way out that is a s success, but at least he admits that there are better ways and much, much worse ways. And he points out that the partisan screeching has to stop - at once - or things are going to get much, much worse.

A starting point is to understand what the United States is actually doing in Iraq now. A strategy of phased withdrawal is already underway — on paper. The latest affirmation was yesterday's proposal by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Gen. George Casey of a security timetable to transfer control to the Iraqis in 12 to 18 months. The plan envisions a "national compact" among Iraq's different factions. By the end of this year, they would agree on terms for demobilizing militias, sharing oil revenue and easing de-Baathification rules. It all looks sensible — on paper.

The problem is that this approach hasn't been working. Since January Khalilzad has been prodding Iraqi leaders in the Green Zone to make precisely these compromises. But out in the real world, the hopes for reconciliation have fallen apart, for a simple but terrifying reason: Iraq's Sunnis and Shiites are so enraged that they have stopped believing compromise is possible.

How will withdrawal plans deal with the reality of this sectarian hatred? The administration's answer has been to try to build up the Iraqi military so it can impose a monopoly of force. But that hasn't been working, either. The Iraqi troops simply can't match the brutality of the insurgents and death squads. The U.S. military can do the job, but the cost in American lives is becoming unacceptable. If we are serious about a withdrawal timetable, we will have to accept Iraqi solutions, ragged and violent though they may be.

In the weeks after the election, the debate in Washington will focus on two promising exit ramps. But it's important not to attach unrealistic hopes to either one.

Ignatius is the second writer I have seen flying the trial balloon of getting Syria ans Iran involved. This is not, I think, at all a good solution. Those two countries are the wrong choice entirely. But I would think it is time, and past time, for some of the other nations in the Middle East to start paying attention to the fact that an unstable Iraq is a disaster for them. Expanding Iranian influence in the area is a disaster for the Saudis and for the Jordanians and for the Turks, etc.

Right now, the Islamists are waging an all out information war against the US. The Western media is cheerfully cooperating. It is time for that "mutually beneficial spiral of death" to stop. The only ones who can stop it now are the media themselves. Right now our own partisan politics are playing along with the propaganda the Islamists are pumping out and the media is over-hyping. That has to stop.