WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Declaring that he believes the situation in Iraq has devolved into a civil war, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he plans to try to bring the war back up for debate on the Senate floor.
The Nevada Democrat said he has been "somewhat gingerly approaching this.... No longer. There is a civil war going on in Iraq. In the last two months, more than 6,000 Iraqis have been killed. That's averaging more than 100 a day being killed in Iraq and we need to make sure there is a debate on this."
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Senate Democratic leaders call Iraq the top issue on voters' minds this election year and say they want to continue talking about it in Congress, especially since the situation appears to be deteriorating.
"The American people find it hard to believe that we can continue with our daily business here ignoring the obvious, which is the daily situation is getting worse," said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin.
"It is more dangerous, we're still losing American lives and the Iraqis have not stepped up to defend their own country," the Illinois Democrat said. "That is a fact, and that will be a fact that people will remember in November."
Needless to say, the Republicans do not want to reopen the debate and are accusing the Democrats of advocating that we "cut and run". It's very wearying.
Meanwhile it seems that the populace at large realizes that civil war is a fact. A CNN Quick Vote poll asked this question:
Is the situation in Iraq a civil war?
The results were Yes - 75% and No - 25%.
Let Iraq Have Its Civil War
ReplyDeleteIt's become evident within the last year that Iraqis are now more interested in killing each other than in killing American troops. This was bound to happen since religious differences always result in the bloodiest consequences. Yes, Americans have a different religion, but the Shia-Sunni sectarian warfare is about religious schism, inherently much more volatile and fanatic.
Do we just cut and run then, leaving Iraq for the benefit of some other country due to our effort? No. Let's consolidate the few gains we've made and hunker down to see how the Shia-Sunni civil war plays out.
Move our troops and our Iraqi Green Zone government into friendly Kurdish territory. We can move back in if Iran or anyone else tries to intervene. Keep the Syrian border sealed. Reinforce the British troops in Basra so that the oil fields and the Gulf are protected.
The Sunnis, though a minority, will get plenty of help from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan. Iran will supply the Shiites. Our troops and puppet government will be out of harm's way.
Our troops will no longer have responsibility to control a territorial area too big for the force we have there. Yet we will still have a deterrent capability in the area.
No matter when we leave, a sectarian civil war will occur at some point. Why lose anymore American soldiers in trying to put off the inevitable?
This conflict looks less like Vietnam and more like the British Mandate in Palestine everyday. What did the British do? They left.