Dr. Ron Paul accuses the Bush administration of using the troop surge in Iraq to distract Americans from his real agenda, starting a war with Iran. And, of course, Dr. Paul makes a good case about the irrelevance of the possibility of a military victory in Iraq. That animal just does not exist.
Ron Paul is wrong. danarhea is wrong.
The truth is that there can be no political solution until one of the Iraqi factions establishes a clear and unequivocal military dominance in Iraq generally and in Baghdad in particular. Neither Sunni nor Shiite politicians will reach compromises if they are certain to be murdered by the militias of extremists on their own side. Throughout the entire history of the ME, there has never been a political solution that was not based on one party's dominant military strength. Strength, not weakness, leads to compromise, both in the ability to offer and the willingness to accept. Peace and stability in Iraq specifically and the ME in general require both a military and a political solution - but the political rests on the military rather than vice versa.
There are only three politico-military forces that can plausibly win the kind of military victory that can shape the political future of Iraq. The first is a "national unity" Iraqi government supported by the US and the coalition. This status-quo-but-improved force remains by far the strongest in Iraq and if the US remains in Iraq, it could not possibly be defeated by either of the other two forces. The political will to remain in Iraq, however, remains a central point of political contention in the US - as foreseen and relied upon by bin Laden and Zawahiri et al.
The second force, the Shiite militias, would be the heavy favorites to come out on top from the brutal civil war sure to follow a US withdrawal. Not only are they significantly more numerous, they have the backing of the current Iraq government and importantly, heavy backing from their heavily Shia Iranian neighbor. Iran's interests would be furthered considerably by having a Shia state as a buffer between themselves and Sunni Saudi. Further, because the Shiites would be victorious due to their militias rather than the ballot box, Iraq might well end up with a Shiite dictatorship rather than a representative government weighted toward the majority Shiite interests as now.
The third force, the Sunni militias, have no realistic prospect of victory. Some of the neighboring Sunni regimes might possibly intervene if the Sunni population were to subjected to ethnic cleansing (i..e, being massacred by the Shiite majority). This is an outcome equally unwelcome as it would further plunge the region into chaos.
Ron Paul is right about one aspect: this is not, and never has been, solely about Iraq. Iran has a huge interest in the outcome, as do SA, Jordan, Egypt and all of the other countries in the ME.
