Zakaria: Even If We ‘Win’, We Lose - Newsweek International Editions - MSNBC.com

So what will happen if Bush’s new plan “succeeds” militarily over the next six months? Sunnis will become more insecure as their militias are dismantled. Shiite militias will lower their profile on the streets and remain as they are now, ensconced within the Iraqi Army and police. That will surely make Sunnis less likely to support the new Iraq. Shiite political leaders, on the other hand, will be emboldened. They refused to make any compromises—on federalism, de-Baathification, oil revenues and jobs—in 2003 when the United States was dominant, in 2005 when the insurgency was raging, and in 2006 when they took over the reins of government fully. Why would they do so as they gain the upper hand militarily?

They won’t, and why should they?

And I don’t care, either. I don’t give a damn about the democracy project, because it is doomed to fail. The whole notion that anti-American terror is driven by failed Islamic cultures is hooey. The notion sounds good on (western) paper, but nobody has even the slightest shred of proof that it is true, or that somehow grafting democracy in some form or other will vanquish terror attacks on us.

All we require from the government of Iraq is that they not support terror against us or our allies in any way, on pain of having US thunder and lightning smash their regime into flinders - again - and leave the survivors with the likely prospect of hanging - again.

What is the threat to such a happy outcome? The Shia nutcases next door in Iran. What do we require of Iran? The same thing. So if Iran persists in supporting anti-American terror actions, we need to treat their regime exactly as we did Saddam’s. And if that results in the replacement of the Mullahs by a regime no longer interested in launching terror assaults - or supporting them in any way - against the United States, do we care what other internecine struggles they may indulge in?

I submit that we do not care, nor should we, and that only truly dangerous quagmire we can find ourselves trapped in is that very quagmire of caring. There is no end, nor any measuring of the depth of the demand that we “care.” Especially when we don’t, and when we probably shouldn’t, unless and until those regimes threaten us again in any way at all.

…The greatest danger of Bush’s new strategy, then, isn’t that it won’t work but that it will—and thereby push the country one step further along the road to all-out civil war. Only a sustained strategy of pressure on the Maliki government—unlike anything Bush has been willing to do yet—has any chance of averting this outcome.

Otherwise, American interests and ideals will both be in jeopardy. Al Qaeda in Iraq—the one true national-security threat we face from that country—will gain Sunni support.

Hooey. If the Shia are in charge in Iraq, there will be no threat from al Qaeda or Sunni alliances with them, because the Sunnis will be gone, dead, or fleeing. The Kurds have no interest in attacking us, and the Iraqi Shia, once their natural religious enemies are removed from the equation, and once they are freed from the threat of Iranian dominance, have no reason to threaten us either.

I realize this all sounds brutal, but it is not the smallest piece of the brutality we will see after a successful major Islamist terror strike on the United States. And that danger is even worse, now, because while Americans may seem to have forgotten 9/11, they really haven’t. Everybody knows why we went to war in Iraq. Without 9/11 we would not have done so. I suspect the average American feels that the war in Iraq has gone on too long, with goals too muddy to comprehend, and too much obeisance to Islam, the religion of peace, along the way. In a nutshell, Americans are just tired of the whole deal. But is something nasty happens to the Port of Long Beach, say, I suspect those same Americans will say, “Okay, we tried to be the nice guys. Now, meet Mister Third Millennium Saturation Attack Response.

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