Following the recent discussion from House Minority Leader asking what would be "Plan B" if the surge fails (Whattayamean "If"? It already has!) Mort Kondracke of Roll Cal l and Fux News Beltway Boys has propose that Plan B should be something he calls "Winning Dirty" aka "The 80 Percent Solution". The rest of us might be more familiar with the old school term for it from back in the 90's - Ethnic Cleansing.
Winning will be dirty because it will allow the Shiite-dominated Iraqi military and some Shiite militias to decimate the Sunni insurgency. There likely will be ethnic cleansing, atrocities against civilians and massive refugee flows.
Whaddayamean "Will Be" - there already is!
October 2006.
In Baghdad’s violent Washash neighborhood, which is predominantly Shiite with pockets of Sunni residents, U.S. troops suspect "that Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army are conducting what amounts to an ethnic cleansing campaign."
March 2007.
The U.N. refugee agency says "there has been an ‘abject denial‘ around the world of the humanitarian impact of invading Iraq." The agency estimates that the "number of Iraqis living beyond the country’s borders as refugees stands at two million and a further 1.7 million live within the borders as displaced people."
Oh, and just since I think it needs to be mentioned, Sunni's aren't the only ones are grave risk here - Iraq Christians are in danger as well.
"Christians are fleeing in droves from the southern Baghdad district of Dora after Sunni insurgents told them they would be killed unless they converted to Islam or left," marking "the first apparent attempt to empty an entire Baghdad neighborhood of Christians, the Christians say."
More from Thinkprogress:
Kondracke says it’s understandable that Sunnis suffer because "so far they’ve refused to accept that they’re a minority. They will have to do so eventually, one way or another." After all, he says, "Civil wars do end. The losers lose and have to knuckle under."
Oh, so his view is that minorities should "knuckle under" to the will of the majority in all things? What about "All Men Were Created Equal" and stuff? What about what our own founding fathers described the dangers inherent in the Tyranny of the Majority
In any institution in which a majority of citizens or members can pass laws or rules that apply, not just to themselves, but to all members of the group, judgment is required to distinguish potential laws which are reasonable and fair from those which are tyrannical because they are unnecessary, unfair, and justifiably intolerable to the minority that opposed them. And formal mechanisms need to be in place, wherever feasible, to prevent tyrannical laws from being passed by those whose judgment in such matters might fail.
James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper 51:
"It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure."
What Madison and others describe here isn't simply a potential problem with our own government, it's a problem for all governments. In our case we established a Senate which has an equal level of representation from each State region, giving them all an equal voice and influence regardless of how many populace that state might be. In this way California isn't able to completely override the issues and concerns of Rhode Island. Somewhere between the idea of split Iraq into three distinct states ala Biden, or even into 18 states other legislators have suggested, what is needed may be a secondary Senate-like body to equally represent all of the various regions and factions and protect the rights of the minority from potential tyranny.
Whether this is a viable solution or not, the real way to end this way is to get some negotiations going between these various factions - just as the Iraq Study Group Suggested - and begin building the confidence of all the Iraqi people, Shiite, Sunni, Kurd and Christian, in thier own country and their own government.
As far as Kondracke's "Plan B" all we have to do for that to occur - IS LEAVE because frankly, it's already occuring and we're just getting in the way.
But then if (and when) we do leave, it's clear that before the bloodshed ends - the Saudi's are bound to get involved to help protect their fellow Sunni's from being completely wiped out , which is what they told Dick Cheney at his "command performance" before the Saudi Crown Prince.
As reported by CNN.
ROBERTS (voice-over): The debate over pulling American troops out of Iraq hit a solid nerve in Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials say King Abdullah read Vice President Cheney the riot act during his recent visit. The warning, if Iraq Sunni minorities are left to suffer at the hands of ruling Shiites, Saudi Arabia may have to step in.
MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: If the American troop presence were not there to mitigate the war, the Sunni Arabs with the smaller forces and smaller numbers would almost certainly lose decisively, there could be substantial genocide in the process.
ROBERTS: While Saudi officials acknowledge there have been discussions about supporting Sunnis in the event of a withdrawal and civil war in Iraq, they insist it's only talk at this point, not official policy by a long shot. It's no surprise to Middle East experts that the Saudis would fund the insurgency. They say it's already happening, though perhaps not on an official level.
All we have to do to "win dirty" - is leave.
As always, it's seems that the true last resort in all cases with the Bush Administration seems to be that one thing they simply refuse to do - Diplomacy.
Vyan
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