Fortunately, history demonstrates time after time that free men fighting for a just cause will triumph. It does require stout men and men who have clear visions and are not plagued with self doubts. Hopefully we will have more Churchills and fewer individuals who revise their views due to the change in fortunes or the direction of the wind.

I think that there are some facts that invalidate some of your assumptions and I deem this topic sufficiently important that I posted a response far too lengthy to include as a comment. If you are interested:

I have finally finished the response I wanted to make to your post and Rick’s post. What it boils down to is that I think there are additional facts that lead me to believe that your assessment and Rick’s assessment are flawed.

This is not intended as any sort of personal criticism. I post my response only because this is a critical topic worthy of discussion.

That said, I welcome your thoughts, criticisms and analysis.

http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/04/assumptions-conclusions-about-sadr.html

I really wouldn’t expect any other type of reply from an Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Leftist Democrat Liberal Nutbag!

You’re hoisted on your own treasonous petard!

Ahem. And WHY are we still there? To keep German, Italian, Dutch, and Belgian forces from killing each other? No. We are there to protect our friends in those countries from aggressive forces and to protect our interests(remember the Cold War?). If there were still hot wars going on in any of those places, do you think the U.S. citizens would allow our soldiers to be continually killed for 60 years? If you believe this, I can get you one hell of a deal on the Brooklyn Bridge.

And

“We can’t solve 1400 years worth of Ethnic, Religious, Tribe, Clan and other problems in Iraq, in Five years!”

Nor can we in 500 years. Islamic militants and the overall deep division between the Sunni and the Shia will never be placated by the actions of the U. S. military. Dale, you, like Rick, will eventually have to spit out the neo-con Kool-Aid that promotes any idea of “victory” in Iraq. It won’t happen.

“Hi Rick.
Plese explain the apparant confusion between these two statements you made:
1)US military could do everything that was asked of it and more and still come up short thanks to the balking politicians in Iraq
2)Administration failures to implement a strategy that would win the war”

Don’t mean to speak for Rick, but the statements made sense to me by distinguishing between “US Military” and “Administration”. The Military is not the Administration — they are the soldiers that perform and accomplish military objectives. Since the Administration has no strategy for winning (aside from just hoping everything gets better), the military can be ordered to fight enemy X, take control of location Y, train people Z . . . and while they may successfully accomplish those tasks, none of those tasks will cause the Iraqi politicians to get their act together. The military wil win the battles, but the war will be lost because the Iraqi politicians aren’t coming together like the Administration just assumed they would. No Iraqi political progress, no end to the war, and the military “wins” but the Admin loses.

@ Syn:

“How come so many Americans FORGOT what happened on 9/11/2001?”

I sure haven’t forgot. Not really sure what that has to do with the war in Iraq . . . since Hussein and “freeing the oppressed Iraqis” had/have absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 strike. Remember AQ? Bin Laden? Y’know . . . the people that actually committed the crime? Or did you FORGET what happened on 9/11/2001?

Iran is Shia dominated and in power. They have elections of some kind where the opposition is hamstrung to the point of being at least disenfranchised, but still in control.

We can then expect Iraq and Iran to become cozy. Who then becomes our ally against terrorism?

I suggest that these people transcend the borders that have been foisted upon them. And these borders have not much history. Move the goalposts all you want, and still find yourself with the short end of the stick. An inflated view of the Monroe Doctrine, hubris with a capital H. It’s not easy being a superpower.

I’m not all that concerned about the Iraqi Army’s lack of heavy weapons either. They need to learn to walk before they run. Read accounts of our performance in Africa in 1942. We didn’t dazzle anyone with our combined arms operations. It’s taken us more than 60 years to reach the levels of military proficiency we enjoy today. Let’s give the Iraqis a little time, shall we?

As far as the IA’s performance, as far as I can tell, the action in Basra is theirs all the way. If they aren’t quite up to snuff, well, at least they aren’t getting their capital burnt like we did in 1812. Again, look at our performance early in WWII. We were incompetent. We got better, though it cost us dearly. We took our lumps and learned from our mistakes. Let’s give them the same chance. I’ve read that it takes ten years to train your noncommissioned officers to the point where they are the backbone that you need for a modern army. The Iraqis have had five. Maybe we’re expecting too much, too fast.