The US should focus on small victories in the ongoing Iraq crisis | National Catholic Reporter

The US should focus on small victories in the ongoing Iraq crisis | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: I have always believed that the end game in Iraq was regionalization or partition into three countries.  Biden actually helped move toward that goal as Administration point man at my behest (most of the really smart voices said the same thing).  I suspect Turkey (and Iran) objected to an independent Kurdistan because it would grow into their borders.  A commission to do just that - as well as settle the internal and external borders (and eliminate) Afghanistan, Israel (draw the second state from Northern Israel and the West Bank), Gaza (back to Egypt), the Lebanon, Turkey, Syria and Jordan has always been what is called for - but the United States allegience to the Zionist state has made this impossible.



A similar approach should also settle the boundaries of Russia and the Ukraine.  All this harkens to President Wilson's vision of national self-determination - which some would argue causes wars.  Maybe so - but dismantling the large colonial empires has mostly been about colonial powers finding a patsy to take over so that they could quickly withdraw.  That has not worked either.



As for American air strikes - NO!  At best they will destory strategic equipment - especially American equipment.  At worst it will kill enough people to inflame passions and terrorism against us.  We have had enough of that and cannot do anything more than encourage someone else to make peace.  The answer may, in fact, be to set up a Caliph - a Hashemite Caliph - not over the world, but simply the region from the Lebanon to whatever part of the Iraq the Supreme Leader does not want.  Of course, this would drive the Neo-cons mad with fury, especially John McCain - who seems to act as if revenge for the honor of Jimmy Carter was the be all and all of foreign policy vis-a-vis Iran.  He needs to give it up.  Oil need not be a concern any longer - we have discovered too much on this continent to ever worry about Middle Eastern oil again.