Iraq Will Further Deteriorate

The National Intelligence Estimate reports that unless significant progress is to be made within the next 12 to 18 months, the security situation in Iraq will continue to deteriorate and the US will continue to lose control. The intelligence report also added that a quick withdrawal from the region would have "dangerous consequences."

It's clear that the occupation is not going well. Only members of the far left want an immediate withdrawal and members of the far right are too obstinate to recognize their own failures. Members from both parties recognize that a bump of 21,500 troops isn't enough to regain stability in multi-ethnic, war-torn Iraq.

It is truly unbelievable how the US got into this mess in the first place. Regardless of anyone's opinions on the invasion, the 2003 Iraq war was handled brilliantly; the subsequent peace staggeringly incompetent. In a way, the Republican handling of the Iraqi invasion is analogous to how they view their own domestic policy: do your own thing, keep government out of it, and all will be well.

Well, all is not well in Iraq. Unemployment is rampant, partly due to Bremer dissolving the Iraqi army and his de-Baathification policy. The low US troop numbers were calculated to take the Iraqi army into account but had been dissolved in the early stages of the war; all of those soldiers were thrown out of paying jobs. Private contractors from all over the globe are now doing the work the Iraqis could have done. Employing Iraqis to reconstruct their own country would have alleviated their grievances. Instead, we have Blackwater and Halliburton rebuilding Iraq for the Bush administration.

For the US, the situation is bad all around. Does the US continue to fight a losing war, where creating some semblance of stability is nothing more than a hopeful wish, or do they pull out, condemning the region into more chaos, abandoning hopes for a unified Iraq, and losing face with its allies and especially its enemies?

But I am ranting on topics that have been covered a myriad of times before. The point is that the Iraqi situation would not have been this dire had we had any semblance of competence in the Bush administration. The notion of laissez-faire economic policies only work when there is a stable infrastructure in place to enforce fair-play.

In other words, you can't play football without a written rulebook and reliable referees.