With all due respect, this is wrong, wrong, wrong. Obviously, the media is having some success in getting their distorted, downright fictional messages about Iraq across.
There are some bad Sunnis. (Mostly those who held favor with the former Saddam regime.)
There are some bad Shiites. (Mostly the Mahdi group led by the anti-American Muqtada al-Sadr.)
The majority on both sides are decent, reasonable people who desire a government by the people, and are willing to come together to achieve this. We are not foolish to help in this process.
This will work. We need to have patience. This is all very new to the Iraqis. And when this democracy takes a good hold, the reverberations of this success will have a positive impact on the entire region for years to come.
Don't get me wrong. If the two groups agree to form a government, that is great. It means the Sunnis finally got off their high class horse and recognize reality. On the other hand if they refuse and war breaks out. I do not think we should flee the country or worst, attempt to play middle man. I think we should do the just thing and support the Shiites so the Civil War will be over quickly and the US will still retain friendly relations in a post Civil War Iraq. We are losing Shiite support because we are trying to be cute by being the middle man at a time when Shiite CIVILIANS are being killed by Sunni backed insurgents. Siding with the Shiites as they crush the Sunnis sends a message to Arab countries that the US rewards their friends and do not hesitate to punish their enemies severely. One of the lesson I am learning from the Iraq War is the US has good strategic plan in the ME but our leaders do not realize that it requires astute Imperial Strategic thinking along the lines of Imperial Rome, Dynastic China, and other great empires. Some of the tactics are ruthless and brutal, but the US does not have the stomach or political unity to carrying it out. I keep looking at how we are carrying out our plans, and the shortfall is when the good guy approach fails, what is our back up plan? There is none, except discreetly running out of there. I think the US should stick to business and entertainment, that is the only thing we excel in. Overseas strategic wars, let someone elso who can take high casualties and have the will to be brutal to brutal enemies do it. Read Roman and Chinese Dynastic history. Most of their expansion was done thru trade, local proxies and diplomacy, but it was backed up by a military strategy capable of any level of warfare if the soft approach failed. Not all their wars were small casualty affairs, but because their societies were tough enough, such losses did not preclude their abilities to maintain their empires.