Etzioni has suggested that in Iraq the U.S. should "separate both warring parties without 'tilting' towards one or the other." This merely recapitulates the false policy of moral equivalence pursued by Europe in reaction to the Yugoslav wars, especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Failure to recognize responsibility for aggression and terrorism rewards aggression and terrorism. Serbs attacked Bosnia-Herzegovina. Bosnians did not attack Serbia. Sunni terrorism is the main problem in Iraq now, and is supported by Wahhabi extremists in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. When Sunni terrorists die in Iraq, their pictures and biographies appear in Saudi media. Notwithstanding Iranian assistance to and incitement of the Shia militias, to suggest moral equivalency between the Sunni terrorists and the Shia majority is to send the wrong message to the mainly-Shia Iraqi government and people: that the United States is prepared to abandon them. It is also the wrong message to send to Sunni
radicals: that the U.S. is ready to placate them.
There are many reasons this idea is extraordinarily bad. The idea that some vague "violence" is the problem and not Sunni Arab violence aided by Shia-run Syria and Iran is the first problem. This "solution" essentially saves the Sunni Arabs of Iraq from the problems of their own making due to centuries of oppression, decades of Saddam's murderous rule, and years of terrorism against the Kurdish and Ahia majority.
The second problem is that we can't trust the Sunni Arabs of Iraq with a state of their own.
The third problem is that Turkey will not tolerate an independent Kurdish region.
The fourth problem is that related ideas about setting up American bases in the Kurdish region just isolates our troops away from any secure supply lines.
The fifth problem is that we will put Sunnis into a largely desert west where their anger at losing all of Iraq will fester.
The biggest problem is that the whole misguided effort would destroy our image in the Arab world.
We have difficulty enough with paranoid fantasies that we are trying to destroy the Moslem Arab world. Despite all the help we've provided to Moslems and Arabs since World War II, we tend to be blamed for their problems. So conspiracies are involved to keep this part of the world divided, backward, and poor. That's what too many over there really believe.
So if we go in and take the leading Arab nation, with education, water, and oil located in the heart of the Middle East and break it apart into three weak states, do you really think the Arab street is going to thank O'Hanlon, Etzioni, and Biden for their far-sighted plans and multi-colored pens?
It will all make sense to the conspiracy mongers. We invaded Iraq to destroy the leading nation of the Arab Moslem world, they will say. We did it for the Jews! That's what the street will think. And instead of sparking hope for democracy in this part of the world that could unleash the talent of Arabs evident by their success in America when they operate in a sane system, we will entrench reasons for their failure that will last a couple more generations and spawn more jihadis eager for revenge for imagined crimes.
This Plan Z is idiocy on ice.
Good grief, people, stop looking for ways to disguise defeat in Iraq as statesmanship, and instead focus on winning this war. That's Plan A, remember? Is the concept of winning a war that difficult to comprehend?
And if we can't win the campaign in Iraq, how on Earth can we win the larger and longer war that Iraq is part of?
Where's Patton when you need him? A lot of people need a good slapping.
