Bush Cutting and Running From Iraq

So the emerging Bush “plan” for Iraq seems to involve cutting the country into several pieces with a partition into Syrian (western), Kurdish (northern), and Iranian (southern) spheres of influence. And then running away, presumably to avoid paying for the broken pieces. It’s sadly ironic that it seems like the U.S. is coming to realise that the only players with real power to salvage the situation are those members of the Axis of Awful, Iran and Syria. Of course, conspicuously absent from these leaks so far is any talk of Turkey’s role, or its willingness to see a de facto Kurdish state emerge on its borders.

Agitation is growing in Congress for alternatives to the administration’s strategy of keeping Iraq in one piece … interest appears to be growing in several broad ideas. One would be some kind of effort to divide the country along regional lines … Many senior Republicans with close ties to the administration also believe that essential to a successful strategy in Iraq are an aggressive new diplomatic initiative to secure a Middle East peace settlement and a new effort to engage Iraq’s neighbors, such as Syria and Iran, in helping stabilize the country.