Originally Posted by JollyRoger

It's going to end up "in vain" anyway. The biggest mistake was the first mistake, invading Iraq in the first place. Here is the embarassing truth: there really is no such country as "Iraq". The place is a made-up fiction, a geo-politic device implemented by the US and Great Britain a long time ago, for the purpose of keeping the Arab world divided and a huge pool of oil under western control. They purposefully cobbed together a country out of three factions that have been at each other's throats for centuries. The only way to keep the place together is by bloodshed. From it's inception in the early 20th Century, it was the British who directed the slaughter and believe it or not, it was not Saddam Hussein who was the first person to use poison gas on the civilians of the area, it was them, in the 1920's. After the British were driven out the place was ruled by a succession of dictators until the last one, Hussein, fell out of favor with us, so we stepped in to personally direct the slaughter ourselves. Today, we and our puppets are the ones who keep this place together through fascism, bribery and torture. The day we walk out, the place will collapse.

The only humane thing to do is let it. That way Mesopotamia, Basra and Kurdistan can separate into it's three natural countries and join up with Arabia and Iran if they want. Until then, this basket case mess will always be just that.