What to do
 

I'm just trying to throw some things out for discussion.

One big question is: Is Balkanization a force that can be successfully resisted? In the Balkan's today, stability is based on the idea that each ethnic group has their own playpen - I don't know how much permanency this solution has, and it seems to require some external cops to keep it from exploding.

Turkey is going to have to get over Kurds having power in Iraq. They have it now, and are not going to lose it soon. A separate, weaker Kurdistan may be less threatening than a strong Iraqi state with Kurds high in the leadership.

No one can ever control the historical forces they unleash, and we have unleashed some interesting one's here. What do we need to do to get ahead of them instead? My principal disagreements with the administration stem from the fact that I expect history to be continuous, and have no reason to think a major rupture has occurred. What has been likely will be, though the form will develop and the dominant parties will shift over time. On the other hand, the Bush administration appears to believe that they can radically reshape the forces at work in the Middle East from the outside.

Adam's Rib
 

This attack makes you sound like a shrill harpy. I'm just sayin'...

What to do
 

There was a guy on NPR yesterday who said a lot of the same things that Cap'n said. He is a former ambassador to Croatia and has been advising the Kurds to some extent. I thought the interview was fascinating in light of the discussions going on here for the last two days. He was advocating a loose confederation of sorts with a central government, and he said that since the North and the South have their own armies and the Kurds have been out on their own for years anyways, Iraq is pretty much on its way towards that end. He didn't see how it was possible to have a unified Iraq that was democratic, though.

What to do
 

In today's Balkans, peace was bought at the cost of incre3dible bloodshed, and is maintained by the express and implied threat of outside intervention if the bloodshed starts up again.

Furthermore, the ethnic conflicts and feuds in the Middle East have been going on for centuries and show no sign of subsiding. Unequal access to natural resources increases this tension. Witness the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. One lesson that can be drawn is that the unleashing of ethnic tensions is greatly exacerbated by the intervention and subsequent withdrawal of foreign influences.

The Muslims. Sephardic jews, and Arab Christians lived in relative peace alongside each other for close to 500 years before Britain and France began their colonial adventures there. Has there been a single day of peace since they left?

Dear God
 

Dear God
 

Why aren't they using this picture?

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...gibson_184.jpg

Dear God
 

how much does he charge to have his baby?

What to do
 

I missed this, but this point is the key one.

If you have disparate people who can't get along, a centralized government ends up essentially beating everyone into submission or watching the country come aparat at the seems. Centralized governments with warring populations become by necessity autocratic. Right now, it appears the Sunnis will be the first target. But, remember, first they come for...

Dear God
 

Regular conception or immaculate?

What to do
 

You should listen to the interview. I think you'd find yourself agreeing with him. He mentioned the former Yukoslavia and the Soviet Union a lot in his discussion, and he was hopeful that the transition was going to be more in line with what happened to the old USSR.

My uninformed Opinion........
 

I think Iraq is going to split into two parts. The Kurds want an independent state. They always have. I don't think they have any intention of staying in Iraq in the long term. I think they are just biding time until they make the jump. Yes Turkey and Iran won't like it but I don't think there is much they can do about it.

The big issues is when they break if the rest of Iraq will let them go. My guess is they will because Iraqi Kurdistan has been operating as a separate country since 1991.

Another issues is when Kurdistan becomes independent if there will be uprising in Turkish Kurdistand and Iran Kurdistan demanding union with the former Iraqi Kurdistan (there is even a province in Iran named Kurdistan). They are the fourth biggest ethnic group in the Middle East ( Arab:1, Turks 2 Persians 3 Kurds 4) and they are the only ones without a state. I think this is a strong possiblity (however, this does not bother me because I think the Kurds got screwed after WWI and they should have their own state).

The rest of Iraq is a different story. I think Ethnic divides are much stronger than religious divides. In addition, there are too many Shiites in the Sunni controlled area making split to messy. I also don't think the Sunnis want to separate and since the Shiites are in the majority they really won't want to separate. Meaning, right now the Shiites want distance from the Sunnis because they have been abused by the Sunnis but once they realize they are in the majority and that is key in a Democrat state they will be inclined to stay together.

So my prediction - there will be a Kurdistan and then the rest of Iraq will stay together and there will be Sunni insurgency for many years in the remaining but eventually it will run out of steam.

Dear God
 

You know I will try. He could win the primary but he would be crushed by a Democrat. California is just like New York. Social conservatives don't have a prayer.

What to do
 

I will try to listen tonight at home. I can't listen here.

My uninformed Opinion........
 

Interesting and perceptive.

So if there is a likely split, should we help enable it, with something like a plebiscite, in hopes of avoiding the bloodshed that might occur if the split is instead forced?

An informed Opinion....
 

Stratfor's takes on Iraq:

Military Lessons Learned in Iraq and Strategic Implications
By George Friedman

Among the things that emerge from every war, won or lost, are "lessons learned." Each war teaches the military on both sides strategic, operational, tactical and technical lessons that apply in future wars. Many of these lessons are useful. Some can be devastating. The old adage that "generals are always fighting the last war" derives from the failure to learn appropriate lessons or the failure to apply lessons properly. For example, the lessons learned from the First World War, applied to the Second, led to the Maginot Line. They also led to the blitzkrieg. "Lessons learned" cuts both ways.

Sometimes lessons must be learned in the middle of a war. During World War II, for example, the United States learned and applied lessons concerning the use of aircraft carriers, the proper employment of armor and the execution of amphibious operations. The Germans, when put on the defensive, did not rapidly learn the lessons of defensive warfare on a strategic level. The Allies won. The Germans lost. There were certainly other factors at work in that war, but the speed at which lessons are assimilated and applied is a critical factor in determining the outcomes of wars. It has been said that success in war is rooted in the element of surprise; it follows that overcoming surprise is the corollary of this principle.

Lessons are learned and applied most quickly at the tactical level. Squads, platoons and companies, which are most closely in contact with the enemy and have the most immediate thing at stake -- their very lives -- tend to learn and adapt the most quickly. One measure of morale is the speed at which troops in contact with the enemy learn and change. One measure of command flexibility is the extent to which these changes are incorporated into doctrine. In addition, a measure of command effectiveness is the speed at which the operational and strategic lessons are learned and implemented. It usually takes longer for generals to understand what they are doing than it does sergeants. But in the end, the sergeants cannot compensate for the generals, or the politicians.

In the Iraq war, both sides have experienced pleasant and unpleasant surprises. For instance, the Americans were pleasantly surprised when their worst-case scenario did not materialize: The Iraqi army did not attempt to make a stand in Baghdad, forcing the U.S. military into urban attritional warfare. And the Iraqi insurgents were pleasantly surprised at the length of time it took the Americans to realize that they were facing guerrilla warfare, and the resulting slowness with which the U.S. military responded to the attacks.

On the other hand, the Americans were surprised by the tenacity of the insurgency -- both the guerrillas' ability to absorb casualties and the diffusion of their command structure, which provided autonomy to small units yet at the same time gave the guerrillas the ability to surge attacks at politically sensitive points. And the insurgents had to have been surprised by the rapid tactical learning curve that took place on the U.S. side, imposing a high cost on guerrilla operations, as well as the political acumen that allowed the Americans and others to contain the insurgency to the Sunni regions.

In a strategic sense, the Iraqi insurgents had the simpler battle problem. Insurgency has fewer options. An insurgency must:

1. Maintain relations with a host population that permits for regrouping, recruitment and re-supply. While this can be coerced, the primary problem is political, in the need to align the insurgency with the interests of local leaders.

2. Deny intelligence to the enemy by using the general population to camouflage its operations -- thus forcing the enemy to mount operations that simultaneously fail to make contact with insurgents and also alienate the general populace. Alternatively, if the enemy refuses to attack the population, this must be used to improve the insurgents' security position.

3. Use the target-rich environment of enemy deployments and administrative centers to execute unpredictable attacks, thereby increasing the enemy's insecurity and striking at his morale.

The guerrillas' purpose is to engender a sense of psychological helplessness in their conventional enemy, with the goal of forcing that enemy to abandon the fight or else to engage in negotiations as a means of defense.

The guerrilla does not have to win militarily. His goal is not to lose. The essence of asymmetric warfare is not merely the different means used to fight the war, but the different interests in waging the war. In Vietnam, the fundamental difference between the two sides was this: The North Vietnamese had a transcendent interest in the outcome of the war -- nothing mattered more than winning -- whereas for the Americans, Vietnam was simply one interest among a range of interests; it was not of transcendent importance. Thus, the North Vietnamese could lose more forces without losing their psychological balance. The Americans, faced with much lower losses but a greater sense of helplessness and uncertainty, sought an exit from a war that the North Vietnamese had neither an interest nor a means of exiting.

Now, Vietnam was more of a conventional war than people think. The first principle of insurgency -- drawing sustenance and cover from a local population -- was a major factor before the intervention of main-line North Vietnamese units. After that, these units relied more on the Ho Chi Minh Trail than on the local populace for supplies, and on terrain and vegetation more than on the public for cover. It was at times less a guerrilla war than a conventional war waged on discontinuous fronts. Nevertheless, the principle of asymmetric interest still governed absolutely: The North Vietnamese were prepared to pay a higher price than the Americans in waging the war, since they had greater interests at stake.

The United States fought a counterinsurgency in Vietnam. It should have tried to reformulate the conflict as a conventional war. First, the Ho Chi Minh Trail was the strategic center of gravity of the war, and cutting that line would have been a conventional move. Second, operating in a counterinsurgency mode almost guaranteed defeat. Some have argued that the U.S. difficulty with counterinsurgency warfare is its unwillingness to be utterly ruthless. That is not a tenable explanation. Neither the Nazis nor the Soviets could be faulted with insufficient ruthlessness; nevertheless, the Yugoslav Partisan detachments drained the Nazis throughout their occupation, and the Afghan guerrillas did the same to the Soviets. Counterinsurgency warfare is strategically and tactically difficult.

The problem for occupying forces is that -- unlike the insurgents, who merely must not lose -- the counterinsurgents must win. And because of asymmetric interests, time is never on their side. The single most important strategic error the Americans made in Vietnam was in assuming that since they could not be defeated militarily, they might not win the war, but it was impossible that they could lose it. They failed to understand the principle of asymmetry: Unless the United States won the war in a reasonable period of time, continuing to wage the war would become irrational. Time is on the side of guerrillas who have a sustainable force.

The United States did not expect a guerrilla war in Iraq. It was not part of the war plan. When the guerrilla war began, it took U.S. leaders months to understand what was happening. When they did understand what was happening, they assumed that time was at the very least a neutral issue. Having launched the war in the context of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Americans assumed that they had interests in Iraq that were as great as those of the insurgents.

But as in other guerrilla wars, the occupying power has shown itself to have less interest in occupying the country than the resistance has in resisting. It is not the absolute cost in casualties, but rather the perception of helplessness and frustration the insurgent creates, that eats away at both the occupying force and the public of the occupying country. By not losing -- by demonstrating that he will survive intense counterinsurgency operations without his offensive capabilities being diminished -- the insurgent forces the occupier to consider the war in the context of broader strategic interests.

One of two things happens here: The occupier can launch more intense military operations, further alienating the general populace while increasing cover for the insurgents -- or, alternatively, attempt to create a native force to wage the war. "Vietnamization" was an attempt by the United States to shift the burden of the war to the Vietnamese, under the assumption that defeating the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong was more in the interests of the South Vietnamese than in the interests of the Americans. In Iraq, the Americans are training the Iraqi army.

The U.S. option in Vietnam was to impose a conventional model of warfare -- much as the United States did in Korea, when it ignored the guerrillas and forced the war into a battle of conventional forces. It is even more difficult to impose a conventional war in Iraq than it might have been in Vietnam under an alternative American strategy. Here, attacking the insurgents' line of supply is a tenuous strategy -- not because the line does not exist, but because the dependency on it is less. The insurgents in Iraq operate at lower levels of intensity than did the Vietnamese. The ratio of supplies they need to bring into their battle box, relative to the supplies they can procure within their battle box, is low. They can live off the Sunni community for extended periods of time. They can survive -- and therefore, in the classic formulation, win -- even if lines of supply are cut.

The Sunni guerrillas in Iraq have all of the classic advantages that apply to insurgency, save one: There are indigenous forces in Iraq that are prepared to move against them and that can be effective. The Shiite and Kurdish forces are relatively well-trained (in the Iraqi context) and are highly motivated. They are not occupiers of Iraq, but co-inhabitants. Unlike the Americans, they are not going anywhere. They have as much stake in the outcome of the war and the future of their country as the guerrillas. That changes the equation radically.

All wars end either in the annihilation of the enemy force or in a negotiated settlement. World War II was a case of annihilation. Most other wars are negotiated. For the United States, Vietnam was a defeat under cover of negotiation. That is usually the case where insurgencies are waged: By the time the occupation force moves to negotiations, it is too late. Iraq has this difference, and it is massive: Other parties are present who are capable and motivated -- parties other than the main adversaries.

The logic here, therefore, runs to a negotiated settlement. The Bush administration has stated that these negotiations are under way. The key to the negotiations is the threat of civil war -- the potential that the Shia, the main component of a native Iraqi force, will crush the minority Sunnis. There is more to this, of course: The very perception of this possibility has driven a number of Sunnis to cooperate in efforts to put down the insurgency, looking to secure their future in a post-occupation Iraq. But it is the volatility of relations between the ethnic groups underlying the negotiations that can shift the outcome in this case for the United States.

All war is political in nature. It is shaped by politics and has a political end. In World War II, the nature of the combatants and the rapid learning curve of the Allies allowed for a rare victory, in which the outcome was the absolute capitulation of the enemy. In Vietnam, the nature of the war and the failure of the American side to learn and evolve strategy led to a political process that culminated in North Vietnam achieving its political goals. In Iraq, the question is whether, given the combatants, the complete defeat of either side appears likely. Even if the United States withdraws, a civil war could continue. Therefore, the issue is whether the conflict has matured sufficiently to permit a political resolution that is acceptable to both sides. As each learns the capabilities of the other and assimilates their own lessons of the war, we suspect that a political settlement will be the most likely outcome.