Is There Life on Mars?

After a few years with our troops in Iraq, there is still much turmoil present. Not only is Iraq’s government incredibly weak, but many innocent Iraqi civilians are being killed (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/). It almost seems like the troops we have in Iraq really aren’t really contributing to a democratic society for the Iraqis. In fact, many of our soldiers are wounded, and many of those wounds aren’t really from battles (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm). This leads to the conclusion that we must bring the troops back home.

“Support appears to be growing in Congress and among Bush administration foreign policy specialists for setting firm deadlines for Iraq’s government to make progress in establishing security and restraining the country’s out-of-control militias…Many analysts predict that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would ignite an all-out civil war that draws in other countries in the Middle East and damage U.S. credibility for years, if not decades.”
(http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/15963344.htm)

In my opinion, this quote makes it obvious that bringing in more troops into Iraq, will only result in having a higher casualty rate for the U.S., and almost do nothing that will create a strong central government for Iraq. This quote also addresses the solution of dividing Iraq into three separate parts, more specifically, the Sunnis, the Shiites, and the Kurds. Not only is this a form of segregation, and almost encouraging the idea of prejudice, but this may also cause a civil war to unleash in the already weak Iraq. The result would be catastrophic for all of Iraq, and not just one ethnic group.

Because partioning Iraq may make it weaker, other countries may want to invade Iraqi territory. More specifically, Iran. Iran is a much bigger nation geographically, and also has some rather awful history with Iraq. From 1980 to 1988, when Iraq was under Hussein’s power, there was a war between Iraq and Iran; it was known as the First Gulf War. However, Iraq and Iran have been rivals for much longer, and in a way, this may be Iran’s opportunity to cease Iraq’s land, and have their vengeance fulfilled.

At this point, it seems like all of the choices are double-edged swords, and that it is almost inevitable for the both Iraq and the U.S. suffer from the consequences; even taking the troops out may leave Iraq unprotected, but it is far better to leave at that than to bring in more troops, or to partition Iraq in three.