Divide Iraq ?

NPR News reported this morning that the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is approaching one-half trillion dollars. Mind boggling and what has it bought us. Pretty expensive to put Saddam Hussein in a grave and Osama bin Laden in a new home. It should be apparent that the present war strategy is a failure.

The reluctance of the Bush administration to change course will drive Iraq into ruin and weaken this country . The argument for staying the course is that if we withdraw our forces Iraq will go into all out civil war. In other words we must assume the role of a police force for a country that is embroiled in bloody sectarian conflict. More accurately it appears that for the foreseeable future we will be a police force refereeing a civil war. Is that what half a trillion dollars is buying us! To both Democrats and Republicans alike this should be unacceptable. Rather than debating troop withdrawals and time tables isn’t it time to use our power to implement the division of Iraq? It has been proposed in the past by Senator Biden and has been endorsed by Senator Brownback. Now we have Edward P. Joseph of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution trying to draw the attention of Bush administration policymakers to a plan which would divide the country into three main regions. Each would assume primary responsibility for its own security and governance, as Iraqi Kurds already have in Kurdistan.

Detractors of plans to divide Iraq point out that it will lead to instability, as though we have stability now. Our current strategy is not working and its time to admit failure in establishing a stable Iraq. The division of Iraq is an alternative that should be pursued. In my opinion a united Iraq will not come from an experiment in democracy. A strongman type of government will certainly evolve. But isn’t that what we liberated Iraq from? Divide Iraq into three main regions before its too late! At the very least give The Iraq Study Group recommendations a chance. THE IRAQ WAR MUST END!