Letter: Victory in Iraq impossible without foreign help

Monday, Dec. 5, 2005 | 8:29 a.m.

It seems to me that we are allowing ourselves to become "stuck in the mud" in Iraq.

Despite all the lofty motives, the Bush administration has in fact adopted a "no win" posture. It cannot offer an alternative because there isn't one that's acceptable to our country.

In order to really win this, based upon our understanding of winning, we need to quite frankly occupy the country with a minimum of 500,000 troops. They would have to physically disarm the country and only allow a limited number of Iraqis to be armed.

As we cannot do this without a draft, then the absolute only alternative is for us to go to the United Nations and propose that the world join in. If they do, then we would work with the Iraqis to allocate oil at the world price, less a discount for those countries who would be willing to help.

We would also, once the country is disarmed or simultaneously rapidly beginning to rebuild a secure electrical grid and clean water, bring some economic benefits to the Iraqi people.

If this effort is not accomplishable, then we should face the reality that when we leave, whether it's six months, one year or 10 years, the country will literally tear itself apart and someone will be the ultimate winner. I do believe that ultimately the Shiites would dominate and align themselves with Iran, to the detriment of the United States.

Thus, if we want to pull out we will be forced to back the Sunnis and the Kurds. That would be the only way to ensure a supply of oil and not allow Iran to dominate that area of the world.

The bottom line is that there is no clean way to win or at best defuse this thing unless we are able to politically convince the rest of the world that they must become involved.

Marvin Adelman

Las Vegas