Cliff May addresses this issue from a related but different perspective, here.

If a well armed populace is a defense against a tyrannical government, then the Iraqis need to be well armed to prevent another Saddamite or Zarky-head from taking over.

The Iraqi Shias and Kurds need more militias, not fewer. Every town and village needs its own well armed militia. Each militia needs strong ties to neighboring militias to provide strength in numbers.

So we arm the Shiites and Kurds, and they keep anyone else from controlling any Iraqi city. Not an easy task, but with 80% of the population and the oil money to boot it is far from impossible.

The Sunnis can play along or they can go fish. My bet is that they'd rather have 10 percent of something than a 100 percent of nothing. But it might take a while longer for them to realize this. My money says it's already happening.

Does that mean running terrorist violence? I think at this point that's a given no matter what happens.

The point is, now that there is a legitimate government consisting of elected officials (come December) and a constitution, our job is just to arm these people and help them control the violence, not be responsible for the entire country. We could just write them a big check, we could use the CIA extensively, or we can keep a heavy reserve force in local Iraqi bases (my favorite option, given the ability to run ops elsewhere in the region) In either case, the word "withdrawal" seems overly vague. "Repositioning", "Iraq: the next phase", or "change in mission" might be more appropriate. We're done with the first mission. Time to start talking about how the next one is going to frame up.

This fear of al qaeda gaining some measure of control over Iraq is a little odd.

Are you saying that the Iraqi people cannot be trusted to self govern effectively? That they need their collective hand held by us?

Al Qaeda is welcome in Iraq only to the extent that they are useful allies in the struggle against US occupation and the struggle of Sunnis to gain assurance that they will share in the politics and allocation of resources despite their minority status.

Once the US is gone and once Sunnis have finished using terrorism as leverage for political puposes - and Cairo signals that they have earned a place at the table - Al Qaeda will have worn out its welcome in Iraq.

The bottom line is that if Iraqi people don't want AQ around, AQ won't be around.

Avedis -- your assumptions of Iraq/Al Qaeda don't mesh with the experience of Afghanistan and the Taliban. In the latter case the US basically abandoned the country after the Soviets left (basically what Democrats urge today with Iraq) and the Taliban and Al Qaeda (one and the same, really) asserted control through absolute terror.

The danger of Al Qaeda controlling central Iraq is real; many of the Sunnis have made a strategic alliance with this movement seeking to exert control through mass terror ala Saddam and the usual tribal politics. Saudi Arabia can be counted on to encourage this if the US appears weak and unable to make them pay for it (it gets Al Qaeda off it's back internally and the regime itself is shaky). The same goes true for Syria, and even Iran (which seeks to drive the US from the Gulf).

So yes Al Qaeda would have a LOT of pan-Arab-Islamic support against the hated Shias and Kurds, from hostile states next to Iraq who also hate America.

If bin Laden controlling remote and poor Afghanistan could pull off 9/11, imagine what he could do if he controlled Central Iraq. Most likely the nuking or two of American cities and the provoking of a massive American counter-response.

"Taliban and Al Qaeda (one and the same, really)"

negative.

Furthermore, the situation in Iraq is not at all like the situation in Afghanistan.

Again, if you have so little faith in the Iraqi people's ability to choose their form of government wisely, then why all the excitement over elections, etc.

The Iraqi people who are not AQ dramatically outnumber the tiny minority that is. That tiny minority could only gain power if the vast majority handed it to them.

Good news for the Sunnis, no doubt. Bad news for American soldiers faced with emboldened opponents. "Treason" springs to mind.

I realy don't think all of our forces will be withdrawn untill the mullahs in iran are overthrown. The sooner the better, by outside force or inside revolution. Just hope that crazy bastard in n.korea doesn't do anything stupid.

Again, if you have so little faith in the Iraqi people's ability to choose their form of government wisely, then why all the excitement over elections, etc.

The Iraqi people who are not AQ dramatically outnumber the tiny minority that is. That tiny minority could only gain power if the vast majority handed it to them.

The Iraqi people have poured into the streets by the thousands to protest terrorism. Many times. They've poured into the streets by the millions to vote, despite the threat of terrorism. They've formed militias to kill terrorists They, like the Afghans, spit on the bodies of dead mujahideen. What do they have to do to convince you that they don't like terrorism?

Terrorists haven't won Iraqi hearts and minds because they don't need to win them. The only thing they need is lots of Saudi cash.

The Saudis, the Iranians and the Ba'thists in Syria would all prefer to see the Islamists, not a democracy, in charge of Iraq. Of course, these state sponsors of terrorism will wind up fighting over which brand of Islamism/fascism/Ba'athism will rule Iraq, and the Iraqi people will be the primary victims of this war, but there is no doubt that they'll use military force to install a fascist, apartheid state.

I have no doubt that the Iraqi people could choose their leaders wisely. If we leave Iraq, they'll lose the opportunity to make that choice.

Mary, the situation in Iraq is not a one dimensional affair - us & good Iraqis versus terrorists - like some political factions in this country have you believing.

Rather, the situation is one in which multiple stakeholders are all manuevering, killing, terrorizing...doing whatever...in order to get as much as they can can while the getting is good.

"Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein and could become even worse, the country's former interim prime minister said in an interview published Sunday.

"People are doing the same as Saddam's time and worse," Ayad Allawi told The Observer newspaper. "It is an appropriate comparison."

snip ------------------------------------------------

Allawi accused fellow Shiites in the government of being responsible for death squads and secret torture centers and said the brutality of elements in the new security forces rivals that of Saddam's secret police.

Although Allawi is a Shiite, he is secular in his politics and is running separately from the Shiite religious parties in the Dec. 15 election. His comments appear to be an attempt to appeal to Sunni voters, who claim their community has been unfairly targeted by the Shiite-led security forces.

"People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same thing," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Iraqi officials have played down reports of rights abuses, insisting they are lies created by their enemies."

Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press.

end snip---------------------------------------------

The people you think we are there to fight, the people that have sympathies for Al Qaeda, are a minority of even those who attack the US.

snip-------------------------------------------------

The Utopian vision of Iraq as a land inhabited by the benevolent creatures of Jean Jacques Rousseau's imagination is fraying a bit. We invaded Iraq with plans that accepted the idea that the various ethno-religious communities in Iraq were largely a thing of the past. The administration held the view that Iraqis were a largely homogeneous mass who no longer identified themselves primarily as something other than "Iraqi."

This administration was wrong in that opinion. They were completely wrong. There WERE Iraqis who saw themselves primarily as Iraq nationalists but they were mostly people who had a stake in the existence of the Iraqi state as it was before our intervention. They were military men, civil servants, school teachers, diplomats and present or past members of the Baath Party (like Ayyad Allawi). All of these people together never made up a majority in Iraq. When we occupied the country, we eliminated these people wholesale as "classes" in society. We are slowly taking them back into the structure of the state because they are the "glue" that held the state together.

Through all the years of existence of the state of Iraq, the rest of the population had remained whatever they had been from time immemorial. They were and are; Turkmen, Shia Arabs, Sunni Arab tribals, Kurds, Yazidis, Chaldean Christians, Assyrian Christians, etc.

Pat Lang

end snip-----------------------------------------------

Mary, much of what you are calling terrorism is civil war. Many of those whom the militias are killing are simply rival clans, tribes, etc.

Bottom line, the Bush admin. wants you to believe that, but for a hand full of terrorists, the Iraqi people would be pulling together and....voila!..E Pluribus Unum!

They try to hype this belief with images of purple thumbs, etc.

It just aint so.

Sorry.

Mary, much of what you are calling terrorism is civil war. Many of those whom the militias are killing are simply rival clans, tribes, etc.

A lot of what we called Nazism was the result of European tribalism. Many of the 100 million dead as a result of communism were killed as a result of long-simmering local conflicts. The violence in the former Yugoslavia was the same. So is the current genocide in the Sudan.

Yes, it’s complicated, but, as history proves, these conflicts can and should be mediated with the right combination of research, effort and firepower.

"The Iraqi people who are not AQ dramatically outnumber the tiny minority that is. That tiny minority could only gain power if the vast majority handed it to them."

Umm, by that logic Saddam and his Baathists never could have ruled Iraq and its Shiia and Kurd majorities with an iron fist for 20 years. Or are you suggesting that the majorities in every fascist police states actually do support their masters?

NATURALLY Lefties LOVE Saddam, he in the words of the Dead Kennedys "got things done." Saddam destroyed whole ecosystems, filled mass graves, used chemical weapons on Kurds and Shias, and the Left prefers Saddam and endless rivers of blood (and may I point out hereditary dictatorship) to the situation NOW. Where at least there is an opportunity to break out of the absolute rule of Saddam and tribal domination of Iraqi government (good luck being anything other than a slave under Saddam if you were not a Tikriti). A system where 80% of the nation is enslaved by the other 20% is not stable and inevitably leads to Gulf War 1 or footsie with Osama.

I really don't understand why other than their pro-Americanism Avedis and lefties did not love Pinochet and Franco? If anything they were less bloody than Saddam. They too killed people. Looted the treasury.

That he'd deny that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were one and the same is pathetic. Who paid for the Taliban, and basically ran it? Osama.

The most likely outcome to a withdrawal would be Osama/Zarqawi ruling Central Iraq, since they would have the most men under arms and power, as Mao observed, flows from the barrel of a gun. Any takers for handing over Central Iraq to Osama? And that ignores the region wide war as Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi, Iran all try to carve off pieces of Iraq like a Thanksgiving turkey and Osama rules part of the nation and threatens Iraq's neighbors with the kernel of the Caliphate.

I thought not.

Yes Iraq is a mess. It was a mess under the Ottomans, it was a mess under the Brits, it was a mess under various Kings and Generals, and it was a complete and utter disaster under Saddam. At least now we have a chance to force some sort of power-sharing and use of politics rather than poison gas to determine who shares in the graft. That's a step forward and the mess is getting cleaned up.

Keep hoisting up that straw boogey man. It's the last one you have left (handing Iraq over to Bin Laden.......bs...bs...bs...bs, etc, etc).

How does it feel to be glued to the political faction that has been wrong since day one - in every way possible - regarding Iraq and that has allowed Bin Laden to run free for the past four years?

AQ does not have all the guns. Nor does it have the numbers. Not the least, it does not have the support of the tribes. You all are simply ignorant and wrong. Why, when you people don't have a clue, must you revert to some totally inappropriate analogy - usually pertaining to WW2?

Get real.....

Dan says we should grow the US military.

Lets start with Mary, Jim, Mark and Dan.

Hey, now we almost have one more fire team.

Good luck freedom fighters!

I almost feel sorry for Iraqi scare crows......

Nothing quite like ending a rant with the ol Chickenhawk Ad Hominem. Nothing like the classics.

avedis:

You might want to try a new tune with a different set of lyrics on the chickenhawk meme goes. As far as growing the US military goes, that's far, far from being just a brainchild of yours truly.

As to the substantive points, al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't have all the guns but neither do the other Iraqi factions. In terms of the numbers and tribal support, according to the head of CENTCOM intel, a majority of Zarqawi's followers are Iraqis, which seems to indicate that some tribes are willing to commit rather substantial resources to his cause. He also isn't running an electoral campaign, which means that the size of his Iraqi and foreign fighters doesn't matter if they aren't a majority so long as they can beat the new Iraqi military and the various militia forces, since the result doing so puts Zarqawi at the top of the hill whether or not a majority of the population supports him.

Withdrawal from Iraq into Syria and Iran, I hope.

"As far as growing the US military goes, that's far, far from being just a brainchild of yours truly."

Hey, I'm all for it. I like the idea of a draft, as long as college is only a defferent and service really will occur after the four or five years.

I also think that we will need to reverse some of those big tax cuts so we can pay for it all.

As for the chicken hawk thing, I think it is a morally valid position. People screaming about how scared of Saddam they are, but they won't won't go fight. That's not the type of American behavior that got us through WW2.

Personally, I think you would be making a valuable contribution to your country if you went Naval Intel or something like that (you don't need to hump a pack and rifle. In fact it would be a waste of talent).

Again, I'm saying, there are so many calling calling for blood, so many stating we are involved in the crisis of the millenium, but most won't get involved, won't sacrifice. I think that's morally bankrupt. Then, when these same people smear people who have made the sacrifice, well....I just lose it a little. If you can't understand that then you can't have much heart.

Its not morally bankrupt. Its just abysmally stupid. Adolf Hitler could be making an argument, and if the argument was valid the individual making it doesnt matter a whit. Does the guy who had laser eye surgery and cant get in the military now have some mysterious moral standing that others dont? Not only is the chicken hawk argument fallacious, it has no other goal but to stifle argument. That is why it draws no water here or anywhere else outside the fever swamps of DU and its ilk. And even were none of that the case, it doesnt change the fact that a chicken hawk is still better than a chicken chicken.

avedis - oh, for pity's sake. At what point did I say that:

- AQ has all the guns. (Saudi Arabia supports every terrorist group under the sun,not just AQ. The rest are supported by Iran and/or Syria)

- AQ has all the numbers.

- AQ has the support of the tribes.

??

At no point in time have I screamed about being "scared of Saddam". There are many state sponsors of terrorism, and they are currently financing this 'tribal war'. Saddam was the least of them.

Once again you confirm my theory that the heartbreak of Leftism is caused by poor reading comprehension.

avedis:

You don't need a draft to increase the size of the military. A draft would sacrifice a lot of the professionalism that makes the US military so effective to begin with, as just about most soldiers themselves will tell you. Conscript armies generally suck when it comes to counter-insurgency warfare and I doubt there's any serious military expert out there who'd dispute that claim.

As far as the chickenhawk thing, I really don't want to live in the world of "Starship Troopers" when it comes to national security issues. Somehow, I really, really doubt that most of the people making the claims do easier. It's an ad hominem attack that's thrown out as a rhetorical device to try and criminalize the posistions that a person is advancing because of who they are rather than what their arguments are. Now if you're talking about the belief that people need to be further engaged in the war effort (which I don't think is quite the same as the chickenhawk claim), you're preaching to the choir and we here at WoC have done any number of posts on how regular citizens can do something to help, say, soldiers over in Iraq or Afghanistan. It's when you start conflating the right to have a position (or just a hawkish position or one that you don't agree with) with the need for conscription that I have serious problems.

The most telling comments in your post are as follows: If you always plan for the worst, the only surprises you have will be pleasant ones. This clearly is not what happened regarding planning for the invasion itself. It does need to be the operative need for any type of withdrawal.

As to your Congo scenario. The only place I disagree with it is the extent into which heavy arms will be brought into the picture ad for what purpose. The Shia militia's(if they do not turn on themselves first) will receive heavy weapons from Iran literally the day the last coaltion troop leaves. The militias will act as a strategic buffer and given defensive depth to and on Iran's western flank (if anyone understands basic military strategy in Iran).

Any AQ leadership presence in a public way is not going to happen. I can not foresee any American President not trying to kill these guys from UAV's. AQ is likely to find a war on itself as Sunni's too will have to chose sides and that means arming themselves against two potential enemies AQ and the Iranian backed Shia militia's (the things AQ intiated in Fallajah are no different than how Iran rules domestically).

Lastly there is the issue of the economy. Any rump states must come to accomodation with each other rather quickly because oil is not the only resource at stake. Water is of grand importance to the Shia south as is oil to any side. A cutoff of the river's flowing south is an easy bargaining chip for oil revenue if there is no AQ presence w/ it's desire to close the religious schism by genocide if necessary. Given that many tribes/clans are heavilty intermarried in the central part of the country one can see neutral arbitrators coming to calm things down.

Al Qaeda may not be able to get heavy weapons (I think we're talking about tanks here, yes?), but the Sunni Arab nationalists or Baathists or whatever you want to call them seem perfectly capable of taking over elements of the current Iraqi military. But if that happens, we could always take them out from the sky.

RE: #23. The Murphy's Law real-world version of the saying is:

"If you always plan for the worst, the only surprises you have will come from the next set of problems below that."

As an illustration, I offer the exact same example Robert M does.

Any definitive statements about how a state like Iraq will or will not end up in such a scenario should be taken with about a pound of salt. Like I said before, looking at things based only on demographics etc would lead you to believe the Sunni dominance over Iraq for the last 20 years would have been impossible. Obviously it was not impossible.

Another mistake is taking the 'shiite militias' as a block entity. They are absolutely not. Their loyalties run a spectrum and besides that they have a long history of killing each other and each others imams. Nor are they all overly fond of Iran. While many will take Irans arms and money when offered, most will not take Iranian marching orders. The wounds for the Iran/Iraq war are not entirely healed, their is a racial division between them, and most importantly Iraqi Shiites have many difference philosophically with Iranian Shiia. Sistani is no Iranian lapdog and he remains the single most powerful man in Iraq.
Finally, the shiia militias should not be overly feared. They are essentially rabble that run at the first hint of trouble. While they may make useful death squads, they can in no way stand up to veteran Iraqi army units or experience Kurd militias. If the central government sends a division of Iraqi regulars to keep the peace is Basra, they arent going to be chased out by Shiia militiamen.

Robert M:

As far as the Congo scenario goes, I would just add that I think that Iran will only be supporting those factions with Iraq that it deems sufficiently loyal - right now they appear to be trying to buy influence in as many factions as possible, but come civil war they can pick and choose who they back and the Iranian regime is still concerned over the resurgence of An Najaf Shi'ism in opposition to that of Qom.

Here again, I don't see al-Qaeda operating openly in Iraq - where have they ever done that? It certainly wasn't the case in Afghanistan, if you'll recall back to all the pre-9/11 media reports stating that bin Laden was merely a "guest" of the Taliban and all kinds of discussion about whether or not it'd be possible to empower the Taliban moderates enough to evict him. An al-Qaeda victory in Iraq will have some Sunni Islamist (Harith al-Dhari still seems like a pretty good choice to me) or ex-Baathist running the show while Zarqawi and his allies remain the real power from behind the scenes and continue using Iraq as a base to target other countries in the region. Al-Zawahiri says as much in his letter to Zarqawi.

praktike:

Yeah, I think we're talking about tanks and the like. You also to factor in the considerable overlap between Zarqawi and the former Baathists these days - the al-Douri tribesmen who were planning to murder the judge in the Saddam trial were all al-Qaeda, for instance. As far using air power to deny the Sunni Arabs that advantage, trying to make friend/foe distinctions from 20,000 feet in the middle of a real civil war isn't exactly the easiest thing to do. Supposing the Shi'ites use their tanks to take down the Sunni areas, do we bomb them too?

One of the things that your colleague Eric Martin recently wrote that I found extremely insightful was his view that any US withdrawl from Iraq must occur in such a fashion that it will not result in the future deployment of US troops back to Iraq for the immediate future.

@ Dan's #22,
I'm not talking about the right to engage in policy formation or policy discussion even. I'm talking on a personal moral level - character - that, admittedly, probably has no place on an internet discussion forum.

If someone really believes that, say, Iraq was/is a mortal threat to our security and they are fanning the flames of war, ostensibly because of that belief, and that person of proper age and physical soundness to join up and fight, but they won't, then that person is a big fat chicken.

Since this is America, that person absolutely has a right to continue to voice an opinion. And that opinion may have much merit as far as strategy, etc goes.

However, I still say that person is a coward. I further say that that person renders himself despicable when he slimes the name of men who did go into harms way for their country just because said men may disagree with the coward's POV.

Again, I recognize that you are correct in that the Chickenhawk thing is not constructive in a discussion. I will refrain.

As far as the draft is concerned, I am ambivalent. There are plusses and minusses.

One plus is that with a draft we will be more careful about sending our centurians all over the globe on unwise missions. We would be more circumspect in theior deployement.

As it is, the professional military is simply not big enough for all the missions certain people have envisioned for it.

Just where do you envision all the new troops coming from?

People posting comments on rightwing blogs (oops sorry)?

Just how do envision paying for a larger military given all the recent tax cuts, deficits, etc? A professional military requires a lot more pay incentives, benefits, etc.

Finally, the troops capable of effective counterinsurgency (as I think you envision it; Marines, special forces and that sort) are a minority of men (and women, I suppose).

There is already a selection bias operating in our population. THose drawn to that sort of activity are already signed up. You'd be surprised at how a drafted recruit, once past the initial "trauma" of having his head shaved and getting bloused by his DI comes around and realizes new martial skills and abilities.

There is a lot of latent martial ability in this country that is untapped by a volunteer military.

Furthermore, counterinsurgency involves a good deal of intel. analysis and assessment (which is why I thought you might want to serve in this capacity). Our universities are full of capable active minds that will, as things stand, never serve in the armed forces.

On the draft, ask anyone with any knowledge of a modern professional army if they want to fight an insurgency with conscripts. This isn't just theoretical - we can see the practical results today in places like Chechnya. Believe me, the 2,000+ dead we have in Iraq right now would be nothing compared to what would happen had we gone in with just conscript troops.

"As it is, the professional military is simply not big enough for all the missions certain people have envisioned for it.

Just where do you envision all the new troops coming from?"

I imagine that there's more than enough ways for us to increase the size of the current military, but to do that we have to actually start. As I noted, had we increased the total size of our forces in 2001, 2002, 2003, or 2004 we would be in better shape than we are today. Building up a professional military is time-consuming process, which is one of the reasons that both McCain and the DLC have been harping on this particular point for quite some time now.

"Just how do envision paying for a larger military given all the recent tax cuts, deficits, etc? A professional military requires a lot more pay incentives, benefits, etc."

Could we start by just cutting pork? I'm sure that those expenses alone would be more than enough to cover the bill.

"Finally, the troops capable of effective counterinsurgency (as I think you envision it; Marines, special forces and that sort) are a minority of men (and women, I suppose).

There is already a selection bias operating in our population. THose drawn to that sort of activity are already signed up. You'd be surprised at how a drafted recruit, once past the initial "trauma" of having his head shaved and getting bloused by his DI comes around and realizes new martial skills and abilities.

There is a lot of latent martial ability in this country that is untapped by a volunteer military."

Definitely agreed on the last point and I think that the US needs to work a lot harder to tap those resources, not only in terms of the army but also in terms of post-war operations. The long litany produced by Cordesman was more than enough to convince me that we had all the necessary resources to do better there but simply speaking did not.

"Furthermore, counterinsurgency involves a good deal of intel. analysis and assessment (which is why I thought you might want to serve in this capacity). Our universities are full of capable active minds that will, as things stand, never serve in the armed forces."

Agreed again.

"One plus is that with a draft we will be more careful about sending our centurians all over the globe on unwise missions. We would be more circumspect in theior deployement."

One might ask our Vietnam vets how they feel about that sentiment.

Furthermore, even if we were much more selective about what wars we choose, any war that found us would find us at a tremendous disadvantage. Dan is entirely correct. Conscript armies are inherintly inferior to volunteers, and i would be happy to cite you chapter and verse from Athens through Iraq. Personally i'll accept more wars that we win than less that we lose, particularly when those 'less' are then by definition critical to our national interest.

Too many fallcaies to address in a hurry.

Just one........conscripts as lousy warriors; have any idea of the ratio of conscripts to volunteers in all US wars prior to 1975?

WW2 figures should be adjusted because a lot of guys volunteered because they knew they would be drafted and they wanted their choice of branch of service.

Was the "greatest generation" lousy warriors?

Vietnam was a screwed up war and that is what caused non-pro troops to fall short of expectations, not the other way around. Why do you guys have such trouble with cause and effect?

That being said, there was still a majority of troops, who were draftees, who fought bravely and fought well in Vietnam.

I'm sure that they would not agree, nor be much pleased, with your charcterization of them as substandard.

Why do you guys always end up dissing men who fought for their countries?

on a different note...

Did anyone see the atlantic article from this month "Why Iraq has no army" I strongly recommend reading it, as it's a good description of the problems faced in creating the iraqi army (and hence creating a stabilizing national force). It's been awhile since I read it, but here are some highlights:

*US troops have very little training in middle eastern languages (I think it's Araibic). As a result, it's very difficult for the average soldier to communicate to the locals; gain trust and comradery, and help build faith in the US forces. They also have little training in local customs, leading to the same problems.

*Because of the 'yearly' stint in US troops, soldiers who do make connections to locals leave after a year, and new soldiers are stuck with rebuilding connections all over again. often when they return, they are sent to a different area, where they also will have to find new connections with locals.

*In the previous Iraqi army, soldiers were cannon fodder, and officers were granted position by cronyism over ability. As a result, many soldiers are deeply untrusting of officers. Additionally, there was no NCO system, which is the backbone of american troops.

*strong tribal diagreements and mistrust are making it difficult for a truly national force to be created

*Up until recently, training soldiers has always been a 'unsexy' position in the armed forces. As a result, the worst officers have responsible for training the Iraqi army. Luckily, that's changing.

*the army is growing quickly, but the insurgency is growing even faster. As a result many Iraqi troops are being rushed to new positions which is resulting in bad survival habits instead of 'battle-hardened' behavior

*Even if the Iraqi army is created, it is still missing all the basic services that the army needs to function: intelligence services, standard police control, medical services, vehicles (especially for transporting cargo), a steady supply of food, ammunition, fuel, etc; and finally a stable pollitical system to run the military.

As a said, it's been awhile, I probably forgot a few things, or botched a few of them.

Aw man, I showed up late to the party again. Dan, I see what you're saying about the comparative strength of AQ via Zarqawi, but I still find the prospect very very slim.

What is more possible would be an AQ foothold in the Sunni region into the foreseeable future, which would not be a good thing (Congo-esque). Of course, that's sort of happening now regardless.

But taking over Iraq? I doubt it (I don't think either of us thinks it likely).

Eric Martin:

Even if the chances are slim, I think it's a definite mistake to leave Iraq prematurely with al-Qaeda having a major presence there as a bonafide force and then think that it isn't going both strengthen and embolden them in the region. The difference between al-Qaeda having a major presence in the Sunni areas now vs. post-withdrawl is that in the latter case it would no longer be under serious threat of military assault - certainly not by the new Iraqi military.

That strikes me as a Very Bad Thing.

I agree it would be a mistake. I hope that we will have the ability to clear out such a presence before we leave. Not sure it's going to happen though.

But make no mistake, I understand that AQ's presence after our departure would be a Very Bad Thing. But the thought of Zarqawi taking over all of Iraq just seems to far fetched. But he wouldn't have to take over all of Iraq to continue to be a very serious problem. Better to stick to that more truthful scenario than undermine your position with scare tactics (that was an admonition to Cheney, not you).

By the way, the above referenced problems was one of the reasons I opposed the invasion of Iraq. The radicalization of neighboring populations, and enhancement of terrorists' appeal and reach. Being right on this is the coldest comfort.