POLITICAL, not military quagmire in Iraq

[jfxgillis]

I'm trying to be ruthlessly, rigorously and objectively analytical about this. This problem doesn't go away when Bush gets defeated in November. In fact, it might even get temporarily worse.

To summarize

There are three main ethnic/confessional demographic groups in Iraq, roughly divided geographically.

Kurds in the North: For years, because of US/British enforcement of the No-Fly Zone, the Kurds have enjoyed autonomy which amounted to effectice sovereignty, including control of some oil reserves. Bush wants them relinquish that de facto sovereignty. They ain't happy, and they're naturally resisting politically. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1767-2004Jan8?language=printer

Shiites in the South: Demography is destiny, and the Shiites have a large enough share of the population to dominate any subsequent government devised along democratic principles. And they ain't stupid. They can count. They know it, we know it. They're politically resisting, too. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/12/international/middleeast/12IRAQ.html

The Sunnis in the Center: Are of two minds. Those with ties to the former regime or those who benefited (perhaps indirectly) from the regime's existence, and those who were victims of the regime. Some of the former sort appear to be violently resisting, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/national/11PILO.html , but some appear to be politically resisting. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11404-2004Jan12.html . But many of the latter sort, the victims, appear to be politically resisting as well. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/12/international/middleeast/12SUNN.html

In each of those three groups, also there is an INDIGENOUS though perhaps tiny group of militants who are or have been adherents of radical Islamist ideology who had previously trained their sights on the secular Baathist regime but who now target the Coalition Provisional Authority, not to mention the infilitration of radical Islamists from parts unknown taking advantage of the target of opportunity which the American Occupation provides.

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It's important to recognize the kind of quagmire. It's not neccessarily, or only, or even most importantly a military quagmire (not that 500 American lives and 150 billion American taxpayer dollars aren't most important to us), especially in terms of our domestic politics.

But their domestic political situation trumps ours for them, as we should plainly expect. As far as I can tell, each of the groups with the exception of the active, violent insurgents, are behaving responsibly, rationally, and in their own best interests. Yet their goals are obviously irreconcilable.

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It seems to me Bush has devised a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces simply don't fit together. It's like he took a third of the pieces from each of three different boxes, until Al Qaeda sympathizers came along and tossed in some pieces from a fourth puzzle.

Is there a way out of this for Bush? If you don't even want to CONSIDER solving a problem for Bush, figure the electorate dumps Bush and this is the problem facing the incoming Democrat. Is there a way out of this for the incoming Democratic President?