From: Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">

Phil Payne wrote:
>> The entire affair with Iraq is blowing up in this Administration's face -
> from the civil war that no one wishes to acknowledge to the outright
> hostility of the people.
>
> It's been doing that for a long time.  Even the Army's getting pised off.
>
> http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N01350048.htm
>
> "U.S. commanders have acknowledged violence in Iraq is at its highest level
> since U.S.-led forces invaded in 2003 and toppled Saddam Hussein, but they
> have repeatedly said a full-scale civil war can be averted."
>
> There is no military solution.  As long as the USA continues to occupy Iraq,
> Iraqis will be trying to eject it, just like the Red Army and the Macquis
> fought the Germans in WWII.
>
>
The Saudis don't share the US view:

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=18077

" The US war in Iraq is a "lost battle" and the
violence-ravaged nation's "dire" plight seems certain to see it
shatter along ethnic lines, an advisor to the Saudi government is warning.

The damning analysis, unveiled in a presentation at a two-day conference on
US-Arab relations here, sees violence in Iraq getting worse and alleges
large-scale Iranian "interference" there is set to grow.

"It is already a lost battle," said Nawaf Obaid, Managing
Director of the Saudi National Security Assessment project, at the annual
policymakers conference of the National Council on US-Arab Relations which
ended Tuesday.

The question in Iraq is not "if the US succeeds - it has failed by
every single measure that you can think of," said Obaid, private
security and energy advisor to Saudi Ambassador to Washington Prince Turki
al-Faisal.

"The failure is only compounded by the fact that we just don't know
what the endgame is." said Obaid, head of the Riyadh-based independent
consultancy which advises the Saudi government."


""All indications point to a current state of civil war and the
disintegration of the Iraqi state," Obaid said, adding that Saudi
leaders had been trying to counter what he said were US misconceptions
about Iraq.

"Unfortunately the assessment is very dire, and we don't think there
is a possibility now to avoid a potential disintegration of Iraq."

The presentation claimed that there had been large-scale
"infiltration, funding and arming" of Shiite militias by the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Shiite officers with ties to the guard and Iran's Ministry of Intelligence
had also infiltrated newly created Iraqi army and police forces, the report
said."

"Prince Turki warned at the conference on Monday against a hasty US
retreat from Iraq, and warned a formal decision to split the country on
ethnic lines would unleash massive ethnic cleansing.

"Since America came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq
uninvited," he said.

"To envision that you can divide Iraq into three parts is to envision
ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, sectarian killing on a massive scale
and the uprooting of families," he said."

Adam

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