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"The tribe's the greater loyalty. You don't bust your clan for some foreign wannabe Saddam."
And we cannot expect to alter their very make up. That really would be wrong. And as you said, it could not be done anyway.
The people must somehow be lead by shieks etc., that truly have grasps what the Marines and Army have been sharing with them for the past few years. They have to trust us to the extent that they approach their peoples and say, look here is the deal, they want to leave, they are not occupiers, nor do they want our oil, they want out of here, but we must start cooperating with them to stop this shit. It seems this had had some effect in some areas. Especially those areas where the foreign terrorist come in and try to take over, force strict Sharia on them, and then they see the Americans never do anything to harm Iraqi's but the opposite, giving them aid in many forms. Until they have local leadership that can convince the tribes to just go along with the program, the Ali Babba know they still can make inroads, or at least attempt to hold their own.
I think some of us forget that many Iraqis are not so "religious" as they are made out to be. A lot of them could give a crap less about Islam and it's horse manor. They are on record on saying so. All they want is peace, clean water, and food, foreigners to stay away regardless of ethnic or religious background, a small medical facility to take their sick to etc., and go to the local mosque on Friday evening bow down, parrot some crap which they don't even know what the hell it even means have the time, and give alms to the poor where possible, and go on their Hajii if possible.
They are not exactly sophisticated folks in many ways, and many do not expect that much. Just leave them alone. On the bright side. So much has been done for so many of them, both Sunni and Shiite at this point, that many just are not against us any more. Hopefully their political leaders will see the dire need to just get the final government formed and realize they always can make constitutioanl admendments in the future as their country stablizes. Perhaps I get to verbose. If we where to compare what they are going through with what the USA went through in the last election for a president, I think we would admit many people just voted their party affiliations. How many common folks really get involved in politics. If their respective leaders would simply say look, the country has to come first, and we all will work together over time to see no one gets screwed, perhaps all would just settle down. Politics have a nasty habit of riling people up, often under false pretenses. But I say all this with the full understanding they have one hell of a job ahead of them. So many factions to have to deal with politically, geographically, natural resource wise, religious sect wise, and yes tribal affiliations that often want nothing to do with government beyond the immdediate level (the local shiek of a tribe). If they can stablize in another year or so, and the new government is found to be not only trust worthy, but loyal to the whole country as a whole and not favor any given area or religious sect, then they just may find their horrors are behind them.
Of course the terrorist and insurgents will either be killed off or in the case of locals, integrate into the system at that point.