The Iraq Solution
The Jim Baker, Lee Hamilton Iraq study group came up with a bipartisan report on Iraq. The Report acknowledged the hopelessness of the Iraq situation & recommended solutions. Unfortunately the solutions, I think are being mis-interpreted as separate solutions mutually exclusive to each other.Hence there is lot of debate about what is the right approach to Iraq's Problem.
My Take on it is that every one of them is right & all the solutions need to be implemented in a phased manner complementing each other.
This is how it should play out.
US along with its allies should build a diplomatic offensive(as stated in the report) bringing in the shiite & the Sunni Nations. Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan,Saudi Arabia, Pakistan & even Palestine be brought to the table & build an union which on the pretext of building an economic & Social forum for Islamic nations, should in fact be focusing on the Iraq's social & economic situations. Avoid Israel. Including Israel will only aggravate things.Israel issue can be tackled later. They should then ask for military support from these country to train Iraqi Army along with US. This is only to give importance to these countries & giving them a say on the middle east crisis.
As the International Diplomacy is going on, in parallel, US & its allies should engage in Internal Negotiation with the Kurds, Sunni's & Shiite in building a autonomous region with a weak centre as promised in their constitution to come in to effect. The Kurds, Shiites & Sunni's can have their own areas marked and can have their own law & order.They can have a share of the Oil revenues.They can have their own local government.The can build a union something of the sort of united states of Iraq (USI). They can share the army & can have a weak central government which could be the face of Iraq to the rest of the world.
As the above two diplomatic negotiation goes on, US & its allies along with the support of other islamic countries can increase troops in Iraq for a brief period say 6 months to control the violence in Iraq, thus giving some breathing time for the central government to prove to its public that they are serious about their concerns by quickly bring up the basic facilities like Hospitals,Schools, Roads, Water Supply, Electriciy etc.
Once the above three has been acheived & the violence slightly curbed, US can withdraw its troops and move to its bases with in or outside Iraq, so that they can watch from outside as to how Iraqi's can stabilize themselves. In case of any emergency, the US troop can quickly bounce back. The Iraqi's now can manage their own problems with out the military support,knowing that they can fall back on US if things go horribly wrong.
US & its allies should then support these 3 regions with in IRAQ namely the kurd,shiite & Sunni regions with economic help. Allowing these regions to bring economic development & job oppurtunities to their area. The leaders of all three region should be given full confidence & support by US.
I think the above solution, when properly executed can bring peace in the region.
