Tacitus has a wonderful post up asking for a future plan for Iraq. I disagree with some serious elements of it but he is conducting some good policy generation analyis and the comment thread is amazing.
Kossites what can be our plans for getting out of Iraq. What are our short term goals, long term goals, means of implementation, means that we will avoid at all cost, success and failure criteria and guesstimates on costs and time?
My plan is over at my
blog since it is damm long.
But basically my basic objective would be to improve the security of the United States by acknowledging the reality on the ground that Sistani and the Shi'ites control the future of Iraq. My long term goal would be to leave Iraq in better shape than what we found it in and to see a Shi'ite democracy that has the legal and institutional protections for minority rights in place so that nothing intolerable can be passed without Shi'ite, Sunni AND Kurd support. Any actions that could truthfully have the US compared to Saddam would be a massive NO-NO and I would have AEI affiliated programs and personal expelled from Iraq ASAP.
As for the costs, I do not know although I want the US Army to have no more than a strong divion present in Iraq on 1/1/06.
What are your plans?