Note to the Pentagon: Wake Up!

Dear Joint Chiefs of Staff:

We need a serious re-evaluation of our military's position in Iraq. Now.

The military's current plan seems destined to sideline our armed forces as we continue with the "Vietnamization" of Iraq - that is, the recontruction of an Iraqi army and police force (which Rumseld stupidly dismantled shortly after the invasion) so that our own forces can be gradually removed from the country. Although Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) may be the most vocal advocate of a "phased withdrawal" of the U.S. military from Iraq, the Iraq Study Group's recently released report seems to indicate that this option may be the one most favored by the folks in Washington.

The bloody sectarian violence of Iraq, however, is not comprable to the revolutionary conflict of Vietnam. "Vietnamization" is not going to work here.

The plan hinges on the success of the Iraqi army and the increasingly powerful police force to turn the tide of the insurgency and restore a semblance of order throughout the country (or at least in Baghdad). What the administration and military fail to realize - or are deliberately ignoring - is the fact that the newly reconstituted Iraqi police force is the problem.

The police force is composed almost exclusively of Shia Iraqis - the same group of people whom the Sunni insurgents view as mortal enemies. According to this long and gruesome video by the British news service Channel 4, the Shia militia groups - most notably the Mahdi Army, Moqtada Al-Sadr's enormous paramilitary group - have turned the heavily armed and mobile Iraqi police commando units into dreaded death squads. And the Maliki government (itself composed almost exclusively of Shia Iraqis) seems powerless to stop the sectarian killings.

Suddenly the spate of suicide bomb attacks by Sunni insurgents on Iraqi police stations makes sense.

In the face of a virtual genocide, is it any wonder that the insurgents refuse to lay down arms and accept the current government?

It's time for the U.S. military to start taking a proactive role in protecting Iraqis. Let's take the fight to anyone who refuses to lay down arms, whether he's a Sunni insurgent or a police-disguised Shia militiaman. Our military cannot conduct offensive operations for a long time, but it may be long enough to restore enough stability in Iraq to entice Iran, Syria, or (hopefully) the international community to take a role in policing the country and saving the Iraqis from themselves.

-- DAE