[Tallguy]

WILL the Iraqi police/military fight to the death --- the militant Islamists -- or will they see Islam as their common link to the Islamists, and a stronger link than to the new Iraqi "democracy"??

THAT is the $64,000 question. We may be able to exercise a certain level of control over Falluja by bullying the Iraqi gendarmes into doing our bidding. That may be sufficient for the task at hand, which is < cue the chorus > putting an "Iraqi Face" on the problem until real power transfer takes place.

[LS]

Interestingly, this "Iraqi-ization" has already occurred pretty much with 100% success in Kurdistan. So it works. Will it work in the Sunni/Shiite sections? We'll see.

But everyone is missing part of the point: we have SLAUGHTERED these fighters in Karbala and Najaf, and word gets out! It forced the Karbala "militia" to basically give up and agree to our terms. Al-Sadr is being told by all his fellow Najaf-ians to get the hell out. This has an effect in Fallujah, believe me.