An action for every faction

Reul Marc Gerecht provides his analysis of what we should do in Iraq, offering a plan for dealing with each faction. Gerecht’s central (and almost certainly correct) thesis is: “If we lose the Shia, we lose Iraq.” He therefore believes that we are playing with fire if we permit the Algerian Sunni, Lakhdar Brahimi, to persuade us to tilt more towards the Sunnis when it comes to power sharing, or to significantly change our views on de-Baathification. Gerecht concludes:
“We should obviously support Brahimi’s efforts, but we should do so only as long as he does not run afoul of the majority of Shiites. If he does that, we need to be prepared to seize the initiative back, call for national, constituent elections within six months, and directly ask Sistani–privately at first, publicly if necessary–to whom we should transfer sovereignty on June 30. We should not hesitate to pass the responsibility for this to the Grand Ayatollah. (And we will see if he takes it.)”
Gerecht’s other main piece of advice is “send more troops.”