A disgusting vat of filth that no self-respecting intelligent person would wade into.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Anthony Cordesmann:

• Simply calling for a weak and divided Iraqi government to act in the face of all of the forces tearing Iraq apart is almost feckless: It is a "triumph of hope over experience." Efforts to exhort Iraqis into reconciliation are scarcely new; this has been a core political effort of the Bush Administration since before the elections, and one dates back to at least the summer of 2005. The only new twist is to call for the US to use threats and disincentives to pressure the Iraqi government to act decisively. Saying that, the "United States must make it clear to the Iraqi government that the United states could carry out its plans, including planned redeployments, even if the Iraqi government did not implement their planned changes" borders on being irresponsible. It comes far too close to having the US threaten to take it ball and go home if the Iraqi children do not play the game our way..
  
  Such a policy ignores that lack of a clear Sunni leader and power structure, the diverse ambitions of the Kurds, and above all the divisions among the Shi'ites. Maliki is not weak because he personally is weak, he is weak because he is a compromise leader with two powerful parties - Sadr and SCIRI - that are seeking Shi'ite power and pursuing their own ambitions.
  
  More importantly, it ignores the fact that the Iraqi government is weak as much because of US action as Iraq's inherent problems. The US destroyed the secular core of the country by disbanding the Ba'ath. The US created a constitutional process long before Iraq was ready, and created an intensely divisive document with more than 50 key areas of "clarification" including federation, control of oil resources and money, control of security, the role of religion, the nature of the legal system, etc. The US created an electoral system that almost forced Iraqis to vote to be Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds and divided the nation on sectoral and ethnic lines. The US effectively sent a bull in to liberate a china shop, and the Study Group now called upon the US to threaten to remove the bull if the shop doesn't fix the china.

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