Democratic Debate In South Carolina Certainly Short On Viable Solutions For Iraq Mess

The eight Democratic candidates for president who debated in South Carolina were certainly united in their opposition to the terrible mess in Iraq that Bush brought on. Yet viable solutions were short in supply.

The Democrats seemed to merely mirror the wide public popular will to exit Iraq as a worsening quagmire, a type of civil war between sectarian segments where a political solution is scarce. Yet little was offered other than an exit strategy for U.S. forces. No real solutions were offered to prevent the worsening sectarian conflict in Iraq from becoming a dangerous regional war if Iran and Saudi Arabia should enter the vacuum left if American forces leave.

The fact of the matter is that someone needs to police Iraq. The Iraqi government's own police and military forces are woefully inadequate, unreliable or flawed. UN peacekeepers or an Arab regional peacekeeping force are some of the best solutions if they could be brought on board for such a mission.

The situation in Iraq has already created as many as two million refugees in the region, either living in tent cities within Iraq, or else flooding into both Jordan and Syria, overloading their ability to find housing or other services.

The U.S. is really going to achieve very little if they simply withdrawal forces from Iraq because the situation was such a terrible mistake to get involved in, and now has unleashed a terrible wave of sectarian killings that threatens the peace of the entire region. It is strange that some who are upset at the human carnage in Darfur for example, feel that any atempt to control the violence problem that we created in Iraq should now be simply walked away from . There's an obligation somewhere out there for someone to police Iraq and restore order. If the U.S. mission has so badly failed, then someone needs to volunteer some other solution, not just echo that we got involved in Iraq for the wrong reasons and should not offer some solution to the mess that we created in Iraq.

American forces could leave Iraq if we really leave some viable peacekeeping mission in the place of our exit. Without that we only risk a huge regional mess that will not only threaten the entire oil supply to the U.S., but also could result in a serious war in that region. When you create a power vacuum you need to fill it with something.