Ted Koppel's Pragmatic Views On Iraq

oThis weekend on MEET THE PRESS, former NIGHTLINE anchor Ted Koppel offered one of the most thoughtful and pragmatic assessments about the Iraq War situation with his views that the U.S. troops cannot really leave Iraq without leaving some political solution to the sectarian violence in Iraq set in place, or else risk a power vacuum situation in Iraq that could suck the entire MidEast into sectarian war and threaten the western world oil supply. This important fact seems to be ignored by those so angry over Iraq that they support a quick withdrawal from Iraq without this political solution set in place.

General Colin Powell's observations before the start of the 2003 Iraq War, warned that if the Bush Administration "breaks" Iraq, then we "bought it". This is now absolutely the problem keeping U.S. forces in Iraq. Centuries of regional Sunni and Shiite tensions have been unleashed in Iraq, and are now the biggest threat to creating regional tensions over even war between the Shiite state pd Iran, and the Sunni homeland of Saudi Arabia.

The way out of Iraq is not only to leave suitable, ethical, fair and honest Iraqi security forces in control, but also a promotion of a political solution to the sectarian violence ripping apart both Iraq and the MidEast region.

Those that argue for a quick U.S. exit from Iraq are not really considering that the 2003 war has so destabilized both Iraq and the region, that a political solution is vital to stemming the violence problems in the region unless the U.S. wants to risk a serious regional war threat if we quickly withdrawal. In the prophetic words of Colin Powell, we "broke it", now "we bought it".