Our country has spent over 500US Billion so far in our excursion in Iraq. As health, education, environmental and infrastructure needs in the US are crumbling because of this drain of resources our leaders tell us we are faced with only two choices. Support the Bush administration and stay the course, whatever that is, or pull the troops out immediately and force Iraqis to take care of their own business. I for one am not willing to accept the fact that we can solve this complex problem with either of these simple solutions. As HL Mencken said, “Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers.” To make myself clear I want to point out that there are no simple solutions to this complex problem. No matter what solution we decide upon, we must, working hand in hand with our international allies and adversaries, avoid a regional conflict. The model used in the former Yugoslavia gives us a workable guide to achieving a workable solution in Iraq.

The following are some ideas, not necessarily my original ideas, but ideas that I think might make the best of many bad options:

1) Establish three largely autonomous regions with a viable central government in Baghdad. The Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions would each be responsible for their own domestic laws, administration and internal security. The central government would control border defense, foreign affairs and oil revenues. Baghdad would become a federal zone, while densely populated areas of mixed populations would receive both multi-sectarian and international police protection.

2) Entice the Sunnis into joining the federal system with an offer they couldn't refuse. To begin with, running their own region should be far preferable to the alternatives: being dominated by Kurds and Shiites in a central government or being the main victims of a civil war. But they also have to be given money to make their oil-poor region viable. The Constitution must be amended to guarantee Sunni areas 20 percent (approximately their proportion of the population) of all revenues.

3) Encourage the protection of the rights of women and ethno-religious minorities by using American aid to Iraq and tying it to respect for those rights.

4) The president must direct the military to design a plan for withdrawing and redeploying our troops from Iraq by the end of 2007 (while providing for a small but effective residual force of UN/NATO troops to combat terrorists and keep the neighbors honest). We must avoid a precipitous withdrawal that would lead to a national meltdown, but we also can't have a substantial long-term American military presence. That would do terrible damage to our armed forces, break American and Iraqi public support for the mission and leave Iraqis without any incentive to shape up.

5) Under an international or United Nations umbrella, we should convene a regional conference to pledge respect for Iraq's borders and its federal system. For all that Iraq's neighbors might gain by picking at its pieces, each faces the greater danger of a regional war. A "contact group" of major powers would be set up to lean on neighbors to comply with the deal.

This plan is obviously not perfect. But there are no perfect plans for Iraq. The thing I like most about this plan is that it is brash. In order to get anything done, we need to find a way to control the violence--we must stop the bleeding. Security will drive everything else in Iraq. The best way to battle the insurgency is to discourage Iraqis from joining the fight. Showing that we can ensure safety for the average Iraqi helps do that. The current (inadequate) number of troops playing Whack-a-Mole for the next three years won't do it. Forcing the three main ethnic groups into neutral corners might give them a shot at stabilizing the situation.

There are of course problems with this plan (as with any plan). Iraq does not have a clean set of lines that divide the ethnic groups. There is also no reliable data to show how the Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and other factions are spread out, and where exactly they live. Splitting the large cities like Baghdad would be very complicated. This plan would also create massive displacement issues that could instigate violence.

That being said, this plan is surely better than "Stay the Course," and might buy us all some much needed time to force the political situation to take root.

Please forgive my presumptuousness at bringing this to your attention but I feel that it is extremely important that we not be herded by self-serving politicians and a less than thoughtful media into thinking within the prescribed box.

Dog Out