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The parallels of this war to Vietnam are becoming more obvious every day. .
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I think the parallels have become more like Bosnia, but sectarian rather than ethnic. As the violence and ethnic cleansing became unbearable in the fomer Repub of Yugoslavia, all parties, including the US, realized that there was no military solution and only diplomatic and political solutions could bring peace.
And thus, the Datyon accords:
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On Nov. 21, 1995, after 21 days of intensive negotiations at an anything-but-luxurious American Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio, the three Bosnian leaders initialed a peace agreement and 11 annexes, known as the Dayton accords, to try to bring an end to nearly four years of terror and killing in the former Yugoslavia. About 250,000 people died and another 2.7 million were turned into refugees.
The accords went into effect when the leaders -- Alijia Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia -- formally signed the pact in Paris on Dec. 14. NATO troops known as the Implementation Force, or IFOR, took over from United Nations troops in Bosnia on Dec. 20, known as "D-day," starting the clock on a series of deadlines running for a year and bringing some 60,000 NATO troops, nearly 20,000 of them American, to keep the peace in Bosnia.
http://www.nytimes.com/specials/bosn...xt/dayton.html
The Dayton Peace Accords
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Twenty-one days of negotiations and they came to a workable solution.
It could work in Iraq, with the only difference being to minimize the US role and face in the process and let Sunnis and Shia, through the Arab League, conduct the negotiations and replace US forces with an Arab Implementatin force.
Its hardly a perfect solution, but IMO, more likely to lead to the cessation of sectarian violence then adding more US troops and maintaing a US occupation.
Before anyone laughs it off, I do recognize that al Queda and other outside terrorists now in Iraq, although small in number, are not open to peace negotations. But they can be marginalized if the US presence is removed and the Iraq people and regional powers (Saudis and Egypt putting political pressure on Iran) demonstrate a commitment to route them out.
The result would be providing for three self-governed regions in Iraq, under a loose central government. The current Iraq was a creation of western geo-political colonialiism. Its time to give it up.