Thursday, April 08, 2004

Plan B for Iraq | csmonitor.com

US options in dealing with a widening war | csmonitor.com
... If US forces respond too weakly, they will embolden both sets of insurgents,' says military analyst Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. 'If they respond muscularly - [which is] the US military's, particularly the Army's, natural response and the goal of the insurgents - they risk inflaming the entire population.'

...Dr. Eland's suggestion is to partition the country along ethnic and factional lines -- Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish - and withdraw in an orderly but deliberate fashion.

When Bush invaded without Turkey, without the UN, with stupid rhetoric, and with 1/3 of the required force, I assumed the plan was to partition Iraq. It was the only scheme that fit Bush's actions. I guess that wasn't Bush's plan after all; I still think it was, and is, Rumsfeld's plan.

So who gets the oil? Turkey will fight for northern oil with the Sunnis and Kurds. Iran will seize a chunk of the south. Kuwait will take a portion. Baghdad will fester and boil with nothing.

I guess Syria gets a few licks in too -- maybe they assimilate the neighboring portion of Iraq.

Basically, this is Yugoslavia on steroids -- same problem, much nastier neighbors.

If only it were possible to post Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, Rice et al closer to the front.

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