Piracy makes a comeback

[ICantSpellDawg]

TSM:

Tribes' thesis on Iraq is that any success we have is ephemeral at best. He believes that we are only holding a lid on it, and that 30 days or less after we leave it will become a 4+ way civil war. He believes this to be the case whether we stay there for a century or 20 minutes.

Sadly, I think he may be correct.

I get what he thinks. Only time will tell.

There have been hundreds of reasons that people have put forward about why we should pull out because we have already lost or cannot possibly win.

We shouldn't be there; therefore we should get out now

Iraq needs us to leave so that they can spend their own money and make it work; therefore we should get out now.

Nothing that we do will help to create a stable and democratic Iraq, now or in 50 years; therefore we should get out now.

People in the middle east are not capable of ruling themselves; therefore we should get out now.

I view each step as a success, failure or something in between based on various objectives. Invasion? Massive historical success. Occupation? Quagmire turned right by Army led police action and coalition building among parties. If you believe that insurgents are just biding their time until we leave, I understand the sentiment, but I doubt that passionate , murderous extremism can contain itself on such a large scale for so long.

We will see, and in lieu of our successes up to this point (admittedly costly) and the importance of believing that people can do this, I will stay optimistic. I see as many or more reasons to look positively on the situation than negatively.