I realize that it's only shallow high concept, but I'm looking for a framework on which to hang a viable goal. We need a goal more than anything else right now, something that can be expressed concretely. "Stay the course" has worn thin because it's a line drawn to the horizon with no destination to be seen.

The more I think about the idea that Islam must have a seat at the table, the more it seems like an important key to the problem. Perhaps our intention to install a system just like ours, with its separation of church and state, in Iraq, and to try to promote its spread throughout the Middle East, was understandably interpreted as a desire to disenfranchise the most powerful bloc in their world. Plays right into a "Crusader" mythology by imagining that our real goal is to destroy Islam. Even though that isn't our intention (I hope), it'd be a radical upheaval of a social order that's persisted for 1,200 years.

The Western (aka Christian) world used to be as fanatic as some parts of modern Islam, but we've had an extra 800 years to grow out of it, and it's likely we don't truly appreciate how alien a concept separation of church and state must be to Muslims. It's true that we've evolved through earlier phases in which religious institutions had more power in government. Perhaps that accommodation was easier with a religion that believes in institutions. Kings could make treaties with Popes, but except for periods like the Caliphate, no one individual speaks for Islam. The result may be that Islam can't enter into power-sharing arrangements, and instead has become used to its individual leaders being secular leaders and being the government. I think I can see why separation of mosque and state would seem such an alien and threatening idea to them.

I think that something like a "Confederacy of Iraq" wins if only by default, because it's the only path I can see that can even be defined as a goal. To either side lie extremely negative outcomes. I wouldn't expect the result to be three feudal/theocratic states, because you can never fully stuff the cat back in the bag. Modern notions of democracy and human rights have seeped in, they've had a democratic Constitution and experienced elections, and I've no doubt they'll create their own synthesis given time and breathing room.

So sure, I do recognize that "working with the Iraqis to help them find their own path is pretty much what we've been doing over there for some time now." We know that that was Plan B, or maybe it was G or Q, and my objection has to do with a cost so horrific that it tends to overwhelm whatever good we might achieve. You know the one about how it always costs more to fix it than do it right the first time, and surely if our original goal had been to send Iraq to democracy school, we could have figured out how to do it for a much lower cost in lives and money. Or decided to not do it and try to do more good elsewhere. A correct Plan A would've changed everything.

We're stuck with the lemons, so the challenge right now is to figure out how to make lemonade.