We won't really know until we give them a chance to prove themselves or fail.
It's very important that we continue to allow them to stand more and more on their own. We need to remain to give the Iraqi's something to fall back on when they stumble, but I think we are doing the right thing by not flooding the countryside with troops and seeking to restore order by force of arms on our own.
The Iraqi people have a difficult task ahead of themselves.
Despite all the setbacks and the difficult times I believe we've done the right thing.
We've heard armchair quarterbacks say how we should have had far more troops and crushed the insurgencies.
Insurgencies don't take vast numbers of organized people, especially when there is a long history of tribal violence.
Even if the insurgencies had been completely crushed. That doesn't keep Iran, Syria, and even Saudi Arabia from stirring things back up.
Iraq needs to build a stable government and a stable society, and us going in and crushing insurgencies doesn't do that.
It's a difficult task, it will continue to be a difficult task to some extent for years if not generations even if they succeed.
All we can really do is try and keep pointing them in the right direction as best we can, and provide enough stability to protect the democratic government from a violent coup as long as they want us there.
The rest is up to them.
I think we should remain as long as the democratically elected government wants us to remain.
I think we should continue to turn over more and more control and responsibility to the Iraqis.
I think we need to remain, but we should interfere as little as we can, because they are the ones that ultimately must solve these problems, not us. We can't step in every time they stumble, but we should stick around and make sure they don't completely fall.
Well said!
Well thought, and well said.
Thank you! :-)