Democrats need to make their new slogan this: Pullback not Withdraw! With the glorious vote today in the House, Democrats need to define what they want to do in Iraq now.
Why is security so bad in Baghdad? Why is there such sectarian violence in and around Baghdad and in the other larger cities? Two key factors I believe have caused this. One is that on a day to day basis Iraqis see the American military driving around their cities imposing law. Second, is the lack of the ISF (Iraqi Security Force), police and military doing what the Americans are doing. This is causing a vacuum effect. The fact that the U.S. military is there day to day right in the midst of the population of the big cities is drawing the anti-American factions into counter acting anything we do there. The continued lack of well trained Iraqi forces is what is keeping this problem growing. Yes there are other factors such as the Iraqi government’s stumbling around with getting their political structure together. Plus the oil sharing issue is still hanging in the balance. But those aren’t things that our military should have to put on their shoulders. What we need to worry about is our force security.

The solution for this isn’t to withdraw from Iraq in a hurried manner as a lot of people have suggested but to change strategies on how we conduct operation in the theater. The President is the “Decider” when it comes to the final word on how it should be waged, not that it should be that way or is the right way but he is the person who gets the final blame then. We’ve all read in the news and heard the stories on the MSM that military leaders on the ground in Iraq don’t necessarily agree with the orders they are given from the Pentagon when it comes to the whole military format in Iraq. What the on the ground leaders in Iraq want right now is to put a large scale force of ISF in the green zone to protect that quadrant and get the majority of U.S. personnel out of there and have them move to a more wide open base of operations between Baghdad and the Iranian border to handle that other problem we are facing. I might get more in that later. This idea would give us better force protection and draw out anti-American insurgents and bring them out in the open. We also need to have at 3 large scale training facilities to train ISF personnel, not the makeshift ones that we’re using now. There are a few reasons for these facilities, first they need more in depth training, they need better screening of cadets and it helps protect from reprisals on their families.

With regards to the Iranian factor, we need to strategically position large and small bases to operate out of along both the east and west sides of Iraq for both Iraqi security from within and from outside factors mainly Iran and Syria. And this also helps us to better protect our forces by having a buffer zone from insurgents working out of urban environments and it will cause them to either be drawn out to the open areas to attack the our fortified bases or lose interest in their cause. Key here is force protection. The option also gives us a better theater of operation to monitor the borders against outside meddling by other factions. Now these are just the basics of what the leaders on the ground propose needs to be don’t to turn the tide of violence in Iraq. But what needs to be done first is for the Administration to listen and hear the needs of troops on the ground. So it’s not about withdraw it’s about being smart with what we have and what the Iraqi people need. The war is over, now it’s about the PEACE.