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From afar it is easy to see iraq’s problems. Back in WWI and in the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire, a power vacuum occurred throughout the middle east. Thus a british officer drew arbitrary lines on the map(jordan, syria, iraq, kuwait, etc)w/o any idea of the TRIBES living there. Thus the divided kurds, sunnis, shia, persians in a patchwork quilt of 50 tribes in iraq alone.

Saddam then exploited those divisions, pitting sunnis against both the shia and kurds(divide and conquer). Thus for 30 years the iraqis have only known brutal suppression, poverty and tribal loyalty, true nationhood and democracy are foreign concepts. This was GWBs great failure : naively thinking that this long cultural past and habits would change overnight.

The movie is Lawrence of Arabia : TRIBALISM is the arab way, not pan-arabic governments. The extended family of the TRIBE is then their first alliegence and that’s why oases of neighborhood gen-sets and water purification equipment is the way to go. Electric/water healthy cells FIRST, based upon the tribal model, then later a healthy iraqi democracy where ballots replace bullets. To wit, a bottom up model instead of a general, USA imposed, top down model of how iraqis should live/interact.

Also, some would have qualms about our 2nd amendment rights for all iraqis, but if practically everyone was armed, the shia dressed as police-whacking sunnis-death squad killings would CEASE very quickly. That 2nd amendment has kept us from various dictatorships, from left and right, for 220 years, a would-be shia murderer thinks twice when invading a sunni home to kill : what if he’s faster on the draw and more accurate?

So, give them electric/water independence, registered guns means NORMALITY returns to iraq, the saddam/terrorist era is OVER, they just won’t tolerate it any more.