These people are only good for brutal dictatorial rule.
They need a strong central government, not necessarily a dictator.
It takes time to educate the voter to recognize the need for this strength. In a way, they voted to elect a strong party when they elected Malaki, but this had some undesirable effects on the Sunnis.
Malaki has not been there for very long. We need to give him some time to assert the government's powers. We are far too impatient to do nation building in the Middle East. Far too impatient.....
The legislature needs to get involved and give the government all it needs to reign in the sectarian violence.
This is a Iraqi problem, and of all the various Muslim States, Iraq has the best chance of accomplishing a democratic system to manage all the tribal interests that complicate their culture.
I cannot imagine this process taking less than ten years to gain a foothold, and no, we don't need to be there with current numbers.
They are going to settle their animosities, regardless of what pressures we put upon them. We need to allow this process to finish in it's natural time and allow certain events to occur which will change the Iraqi mindset in time.
I think Americans need to take it all in, but don't lose sight of the goal. It will take longer then we had hoped, and there is good reason to be hopeful for the future.
There is no reason to pull out, but we do need to change our tactics to reflect the realities.
Pulling out now would be a total failure and result in the creation of a most dangerous situation that will quickly draw us back in....But, we need to reduce our levels of military combat assistance, and let the Iraqi's make their own mistakes by learning the hard way.
It is the only hope they have to survive in the longterm....
Let the civil war proceed, if that is really what they want, but I don't think it is. I think we are helping too much, and need to concentrate on training and government assistance to build a stronger central government system.