Informed Comment on Iraq Situation

Juan Cole's blog entry by William R. Polk seems to be a fairly good assessment of the current Iraq situation. He presents brief comparisons between Iraq and several other insurgencies (Algeria, Vietnam, Basque, Ireland ... ) and then offers three courses of action that may be taken from this point onward in Iraq. He quite obviously favors the third option, a backing out by US forces both military and political, but to me this plan seems a little underspecified. Where I agree that the other two options ("staying the course" and "nation building") are rather irresponsible and dangerous, there must be a better way to remove ourselves than simply declaring the insurgents to be the victors. It would be nice if it worked, but I'm not entirely convinced that it would. For one thing, the Iraqi military being trained by US troops is already full of sympathizers with the insurgent groups. How could we prevent a coup from deciding who ends up in power? How could we prevent civil war between the Kurds, Suni, and Shia? Where can we offer incentive or broker a deal if the people are so divided? In our country, people respect the workings of democracy, and most will bite their tongues if they don't get their way in a fair vote. I am worried that minority religeous and militant groups who are used to getting their way will not lay down readily due to a majority of their traditional enemy's vote.