Krauthammer, on the "Iraq Study Group":

Everyone now says that the key to stopping the fighting in Iraq is political -- again, as if this were another great discovery. It's been clear for at least a year that a military solution to the insurgency was out of our reach. The military price would have been prohibitive and the victory ephemeral without a political compromise. And that kind of compromise -- vesting the Sunnis with proportionate political and financial (i.e. oil) power -- is something the Shiites, at least those now comprising the Maliki government, seem incapable of doing.

The U.S. should be giving Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a clear ultimatum: if he does not come up with a political solution in two months or cede power to a new coalition that will, the U.S. will abandon the Green Zone, retire to its bases, move much of its personnel to Kurdistan where we are welcome and safe, and let the civil war take its course. Let the current Green Zone-protected Iraqi politicians who take their cue from Moqtada al-Sadr face the insurgency alone. That might concentrate their minds on either making a generous offer to the Sunnis or stepping aside for a new coalition that would.

The key to progress is political change within Iraq. The newest fashion, however, is to go "regional,'' engaging Iran and Syria in order to have them pull our chestnuts out of the fire. This idea rests on the notion that both Iran and Syria have an interest in stability in Iraq.

Very hardheaded realist terms: interest, stability, regional powers. But stringing them together to suggest that Iran and Syria share our interests in stability is the height of fantasy. In fact, Iran and Syria have an overriding interest in chaos in Iraq -- which is precisely why they each have been abetting the insurgency and fanning civil war.

A true "realist" would recognize that we are in fact at war with Syria and Iran. Stories like this certainly make it hard to avoid that conclusion:

According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.

This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market. "There is no way this could be done without (Iranian) government approval," says a senior official.

Iranian-made munitions found in Iraq include advanced IEDs designed to pierce armor and anti-tank weapons. U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq's growing Shia militias from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran.

So should we please the Saudis and fight the Shia Iranian proxies or please the Iraqi majority and fight with the Hezbollah trained Sadri-ites to crush the Sunnis? Or should we try to implement something on the lnes of Bidens plan? Or should we pour troops in like McCain wants and try to start over, clarity of purpose obfuscated? All of these sound like such great options, none of which unfortunately sounds like Mission Accomplished.

Or should we retreat after this greatest blunder in American foreign policy and take a breather? Humiliating but perhaps inevitable.

Just to be fair....there was another string of posts about the Police official who released info...

According to a senior defense official

Do we really know anything here? Again, no. We can make a good supposition that there is indeed a weapons pipeline directly from Iran to SHia militia groups, probably from Syria too, but from a piece that quotes the mysterious "senior" official is not a thing I want to bet the bank on.

"Or should we retreat after this greatest blunder in American foreign policy and take a breather? Humiliating but perhaps inevitable"

Ask Carter, Iran was his blunder.

Carter was smart enough not to tie up our army
in an endless battle.

So do any of our armchair warriors here know
the Order of Battle in Iraq?

We should withdraw to firebases along the Syria and Iranian border to provide a threat and stop infilitration and let the Iraqi's do the actual policing and internal fighting (with some support). We should not threaten this, we should simply do it because it's the only answer in the long run.

The Iraqi's would be fools to risk their lives fighting when they can let us do it for them. We have to change that mind-set and do it on our timeframe and our terms.

We should also work on picking a dictator we could live with in case democracy fails in Iraq. That and a partition plan. Nothing beyond leaked memos in either case but something that we can use to threaten without threatening.

No, Carter was dumb enough not to eliminate Shia exteremism in the crib when he had a blank check to do so.

I will tell you the order of battle in Iraq when you can tell me the order of battle of the insurgents in either the Malaysian or Congo crises o' Blogocite.

Who here agrees with this?

The U.S. should be giving Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a clear ultimatum: if he does not come up with a political solution in two months or cede power to a new coalition that will, the U.S. will abandon the Green Zone, retire to its bases, move much of its personnel to Kurdistan where we are welcome and safe, and let the civil war take its course.

Sounds like cut-n-run to me and yet it comes from Krauthammer himself.

Ooops, the bold part was about the possibility of the US supporting a coup against Maliki.

Diem, again>?

I'm not sure I agree with it, but it doesn't look like "cut and run" to me. The troops would still be in Iraq, and ready to come in and pick up the pieces after the war, or even help pick some losers.

yep, the troops will be in iraq, without the
devoted service of Simberg.

fighting against enemies they can't identify,
with an even longer supply chain.

This is called Khe Sahn, or Dien Bien Phu.

withdrawal into bases on the iranian border
would be utter disaster.