I. Revolutionary

It’s important to remember America’s history, and how this country was forged. How after we were rescued from oppressive leaders, the French stayed on and occupied the fledgling nation. Their guiding principles went into the constitution they insist we write and the elections they supervised. Sure, they had a rough time with the Congregationalists in the north, Baptists in the south, and Catholics in the middle states -- all trying to kill each other over the proper way to worship -- with the Quakers doing all they could to stay out of the way. But we are forever grateful to the French for staying the course -- even if some of them did mistreat us, few of them trust us, and hardly any of them bother to learn our language or respect our culture. Everything turned out just fine.

Wait -- that’s not how it happened?

Recently I heard again the NeoCon argument of how nation building in Iraq isn’t so bad when compared with the struggles that the U.S.A. went through to get its act together and become a world power.

There has been a train of thought since we first marched on Baghdad that we were providing the Iraqis with a revolution that would be just like ours. Never mind that once you get past the facts that both are countries on the globe and are populated by people, direct comparisons between America and Iraq break down rather quickly.

For those who slept through history, the American Revolution was started indigenously, by the citizens who grew up and lived here. We cultivated our own idea of what freedom required, what we wanted and didn’t want from the Crown, and what our separate country (or countries) would be. We sought foreign support, not to run our war, but to help with the ongoing effort. Once the battle was done, we bid the French adieu and took care of nation-building all by ourselves, even going so far as to scrap our initial charter and write a new one.

Not seeing that happen in Iraq.

In one important difference, from the beginning the last thing we wanted to do was trust the natives to sort out their self-governance by themselves. Even in the early days of “Mission Accomplished” it was taken as gospel that any immediate pullout by America and its allies would be disastrous. If Iraq has its own George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, they have always had the hassle of occupying forces looking over their shoulders and exercising authority over their plans.

In the years since we technically handed over power to the country’s own government, we’ve been like a school teacher that leaves a class alone to work on a test then goes back in later to issue a grade. Meeting the “benchmarks” for reforming your constitution yet? Sorry, Achmed, you get an F this semester.

No wonder the place is a mess.

II. Pick One

I wouldn’t mind hearing how our numerous presidential candidates plan to improve our fortunes in Iraq. I want to hear from them what exactly their strategy is and how they plan to implement it. But I don’t want something vague, I want the “how” and the “why” they will do one of the following three things, which are about the only alternatives I see for this war:

1. Go all in and take over everything. Worked for Caesar, and for us in the Mexican and Spanish-American wars. (Ask New Mexico if it would rather be part of Old Mexico.) Hasn’t worked for a lot of forgotten emperors and a few notables like Napoleon, though. Still, it is a strategy, and if we truly know best, then everything is best done under our strict supervision.

This was how we started the war before abruptly abandoning this method. (“Mission Accomplished,” remember?) Also, occupation didn’t sit well with the natives, and the inevitable cruelties of the occupiers were not popular back home. Now, if we wanted to clamp down and resume the imperial march, it would be much harder than it would have been if we’d stayed hardcore from the beginning.

2. Pick a side and support it completely. Worked in World Wars I and II, not so well in Vietnam. Do we side with the Shiites? And if so, how can we do this while maintaining Shiite Iran as an enemy? Or do we side with the Sunnis, which would keep us in good graces with Saudi Arabia but would look hypocritical as we put the Sunni Baathists that we overthrew back into power. Another problem is that neither side really trusts us, nor we them.

And then there’s Kurdistan. Sooner or later we will have to sit down with Iraqi, Kurd, and Turkish leaders to settle the borders of a sovereign and independent Kurdistan. If Czechoslovakia can split peacefully, why not here? You’ve got to have Turkey in on the deal to prevent further hassles. While they say now they are totally against this, they could use the good will with the European Union as well as the inevitable incentives the U.S. rains down on them. We’ve wasted so much on this war, may as well send over a few billion bucks for peace.

3. Pull up stakes and leave completely. This was the final option taken in Vietnam, and like then, it has the sour taste of defeat and surrender. Afterward, as the natives struggle with each other to establish a new order, you have the hassles of regional instability and the flood of refugees. But in a generation or so, the country’s own people sort it out.

Many people are clamoring for this option, and it won’t be pretty at first. Will we have the stomach for it? I’ve seen it pointed out that the wrong factions taking power could result in genocide much like Rwanda or Darfur. Then we’ll have people -- including some of the bleeding hearts that wanted us out -- insisting we interfere again. I want to hear our anti-war candidates address this.

Then there’s 4. What we’re doing now. It’s such a half-ass approach. We play whack-a-mole with insurgents. Stuff gets built slowly then quickly falls to ruins. If there is progress, it’s painfully slow. Could the fact that our mission is so vague have anything to do with that? We’re allegedly not staying forever, but we’re not leaving -- if that’s confusing to me, think how it is for the people who live there. I don’t need more of this; I need to hear real plans along the lines of options one, two, or three.

Well, Obama, Hillary, Rudy, the rest of you -- which will it be?