If you were president of the United States, what would you do to bring peace to Iraq? Can anything be done?

Question

This is a sincere question. I honestly don't know what I would do. Tell what you would do and why it would work. It would be interesting to hear something other than the oversimplified "stay the course" and the tiresome U.S./Satan ramblings.

Natsugusa: Thanks for giving such a detailed answer. A lot to think about.

Answer 1

(1) Stop the rotations. Pare down the deployment to "Combat junkies" - hardcore believers, preferably single, who don't need to go back to the States. No more using the Reserves, National Guard, and the whiners in active duty who stare at the calendar endlessly from Day One. It's a war. People die. Those of us who have been in there and have lived outside the wire have all lost people. We don't need Cindy Sheehans or any other sort of whining rendering that meaningless.

(2) Set up a REAL Iraqi military using the "Combat junkies" as cadre. An American CO, XO, 1SG, Platoon Leaders, Platoon Sergeants, etc etc, with loyal, dedicated Iraqis, the mix to be determined by region and ethnicity (very high proportion of Kurds and Turkmen, far less of Arabs). Give them the same equipment, the same training and education, the same service and support, instead of short-changing them so when they face terrorists in combat, they know they can bring superior firepower to bear and win every time.

(3) Recognize that tribalism is a fact of life and no bullshit Western model of government can override that. Create a "House of Lords" setup with all the major tribal sheikhs. Deputize the cooperative sheikhs to create their own militias alongside the new US-Iraqi military. Loyalty means more reconstruction funds and military equipment. Give these militias "neighborhood watch" status to administer justice within their borders to keep foreign militants out.

(4) Recognize that the old Ottoman Empire divisions of Mosul Province, Basra Province, and Baghdad Province are the reality on the ground. Get everyone together, knock heads and make them settle their borders. Compliance equals cash and weapons. Non-compliance means being ostracized. When compliance brings REAL rewards such as roads, clean water, improved social services, the tribal sheikhs will come into line - especially when non-compliance means rival tribes have far more firepower.

(4) Sort out the National Oil Corporation as a privatized entity, so there is no turf-fighting over petroleum revenues as a political issue. Ensure all the tribal sheikhs get a cut out of the petrodollar income as well as the secular provincial governments. Create massive redundancy in infrastructure so disruptions from terrorism don't impact income, and failure to police their territories punishes the tribal militias and local governments when the pipelines get blown up.

The people of the Middle East and Central Asia understand blood. Americans for years have lived sequestered from Iraqis; General Petraeus has tried to change this, because reality on the ground is, if Americans don't bleed alongside Iraqis, for the Iraqis, then no one there will regard us as serious about their welfare or the future.

Answer 2

I would focus the troops attention on tracking down terrorists, not waiting for the terrorists to come to them and attack in a city filled with civilians. I would instruct the military to use higher powered bombs to shake up the terrorists even more. Iraq isn't that technologically advanced, they could never replicate the attack that happened on Sept. 11, 2001, because of the increased security at airports and I doubt that they could ever bomb the U.S. because they don't even have aircraft like the U.S. has. My strategy may lean toward more bloodshed, but the world does need to be eliminated of terrorists. If my strategy had not worked in at least 2 years, I would pull out of Iraq.

Answer 3

It seems like the only plausible scenarios at this point are either to let the majority Shiites win and run the country, but that could lead to a repressive regime as bad as Saddam's, or to divide the country into some kind of loose federation of three parts, Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis. The idea of some kind of pluralistic democracy seems to be fading fast, and our presence is not helping that goal at all.

Answer 4

If I were the president of the U.S. (help us all) I would take out all the U.S. military and our equipment back to U.S. soil. I will let the Iraqis fight for whatever government they would want as Iraqis. If they were to have a full blown civil war, so be it, and whoever won will form the government.

Answer 5

I would listen to what this soldier (among many others and citizens) has to say:
This is an actual letter written by a US marine:
From an Angry Soldier
Date: 2007-04-10, 1:00PM PDT


I'm having the worst damn week of my whole damn life so I'm going to write this while I'm pissed off enough to do it right.

I am SICK of all this bullshit people are writing about the Iraq war. I am abso-*******-lutely sick to death of it. What the **** do most of you know about it? You watch it on TV and read the commentaries in the newspaper or Newsweek or whatever god damn yuppie news rag you subscribe to and think you're all such ******* experts that you can scream at each other like five year old about whether you're right or not. Let me tell you something: unless you've been there, you don't know a god damn thing about it. It you haven't been shot at in that ******* hell hole, SHUT THE **** UP!

How do I dare say this to you moronic war supporters who are "Supporting our Troops" and waving the flag and all that happy horse ****? I'll tell you why. I'm a Marine and I served my tour in Iraq. My husband, also a Marine, served several. I left the service six months ago because I got pregnant while he was home on leave and three days ago I get a visit from two men in uniform who hand me a letter and tell me my husband died in that ******* festering sand-pit. He should have been home a month ago but they extended his tour and now he's coming home in a box.

You ******* and that god-damn lying sack of **** they call a president are the reason my husband will never see his baby and my kid will never meet his dad.

And you know what the most ****** up thing about this Iraq **** is? They don't want us there. They're not happy we came and they want us out NOW. We ****** up their lives even worse than they already were and they're pissed off. We didn't help them and we're not helping them now. That's what our soldiers are dying for.

Oh while I'm good and worked up, the government doesn't even have the decency to help out the soldiers whos lives they ruined. If you really believe the military and the government had no idea the veterans' hospitals were so ****** up, you are a god-damn retard. They don't care about us. We're disposable. We're numbers on a page and they'd rather forget we exist so they don't have to be reminded about the families and lives they ruined while they're sipping their cocktails at another fund raiser dinner. If they were really concerned about supporting the troops, they'd bring them home so their families wouldn't have to cry at a graveside and explain to their children why mommy or daddy isn't coming home. Because you can't explain it. We're not fighting for our country, we're not fighting for the good of Iraq's people, we're fighting for Bush's personal agenda. Patriotism my ***. You know what? My dad served in Vietnam and NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

So I'm pissed. I'm beyond pissed. And I'm going to go to my husband funeral and recieve that flag and hang it up on the wall for my baby to see when he's older. But I'm not going to tell him that his father died for the stupidty of the American government. I'm going to tell him that his father was a hero and the best man I ever met and that he loved his country enough to die for it, because that's all true and nothing will be solved by telling my son that his father was sent to die by people who didn't care about him at all.

**** you, war supporters, George W. Bush, and all the god damn mother ******* who made the war possible. I hope you burn in hell.

Answer 6

Bring the troops home, and let Iraq take care of itself. It's their country, not ours. We've done them the favor of removing a bloodthirsty dictator, but we've clearly overstayed our welcome.

Why aren't our troops whereever we think Osama bin Laden is, looking for him? He was the mastermind of 9/11, not Saddam Hussein!

Answer 7

I would try to get the place rebuilt and keep training the Iraqis army and police so that they will become a stablize. That will work because that is exactly what they want us to do and that is what we are trying to do but the media and the Democrats want us out of there. The country leaders asked us for their help and we should continue to help them.

Answer 8

I would evaporate the country with high yield nuclear weapons, and then drill through the thermal glass to get the oil. The world wouldn’t miss them

Answer 9

Diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy. Bring everyone to the table and try to give every side a little of what they want.