[armydawg1]

This might work, but keep an eye on these guys, you cover their back, dont let them cover yours, at least to start with.

[shrinkermd]

Machiavelli's The Prince once was on the West Point reading list. In this book the author stated, "...nothing is more difficult than to replace and established order...the loser fights fiercely while those who will benefit do not experience the benefit and are lacking in direction..." That is my paraphrase so it isn't exactly what Machiavelli said and I am not going to look it up.

In any case, Wolfowitz et al choose not to just replace the leaders of the Saadam regime, but chose, instead, to replace the whole regime out of whole cloth. The upshot was fierce resistance from those defenestrated and tepid, slow response of the new power elite.

So, now we have a new policy compromising the original decision but instituted by the Sunnis. Hope it works!

If journalists were really as smart as they think they are they would review the Boer War. Here, 45,000 part time farmer warriors almost beat 300,000 British men of the line. To beat them the Brits had to ensconce the entire Afrikaner population into camps. The British did win the war, but the Afrikaners won the peace--apartheid was the eventual outcome.

Similarly, I believe Iraq is wending its way to an amalgam of Islam an militarism. In this sense we won the war but will lose the peace.

As an afterthought, why does not some military historian review and write about the Boer War. It heralded our current post-modern wars and introduced in a devestating way smokeless gunpowder, the machine gun and modern guerilla tactics.