as it turns out, probably the biggest single mistake that the us made in both afghanistan and iraq (as well as, for example, vietnam) is that the governments we imposed under occupation turned out to be some of the most corrupt and criminal in the world, or even the very most. and as i've said before, one of the few things that could make you want to be governed by religious fundamentalists is that they seem to have some sort of principles other than 'i'ma get mine' or 'i deserve to rape you'. that barack and hillary threw their lot in with karzai after he stole the election in 2009 makes all their professions about democracy merely parodic. i do think more or less the same thing that is happening in iraq will happen there, probably a few minutes after we pull out.
it would take an inspiring patriot indeed to lay down his life for nouri al-maliki's bank account. i'd be taking off my uniform and handing my weapons to the insurgents to.
barack is going to figure out an approach to the iraq situation in 'the next few days'. i'm not sure he has a few days. you could ship the government of iraq sophisticated weapons. these have two possible ultimate destinations: isis, and iran. they are already operating with our materiel. there ain't a damn thing we can do short of re-occupation, and the only scenario in which i could see maliki surviving is if there is a substantial incursion by iran to prop him up.
i suppose the idea is to be 'realists'; iraq isn't going to be a jeffersonian democracy, as they said again and again (well, the united states is certainly not itself a jeffersonian democracy). but actually the ethical side has got to be attended to or you're just imposing evil on people who will henceforward hate and try to kill you.
