World: Good news-bad news from Iraq and a commentary

This item was on CNN.com today.

Good News:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's government has agreed on a plan to divide the country's oil wealth and open the industry to international investment, a move seen as necessary to a political settlement of the nearly four-year-old war, ministers announced Monday.

Hopefully, since most of the oil is in the Kurdish north and Shiite south, the Sunnis will turn against the insurgency and join in a national unity direction now that oil revenues will be shared. And likewise hopefully the Shiites will not hunt down Sunnis for fear the Sunnis want a return to a Hussein-like strong man from the Sunni faction of the country.

Bad News:
Insurgents bombed Iraq's Ministry of Municipalities building as top Iraqi officials gathered there Monday morning for a celebration, Iraqi officials said.

The attack killed at least 12 people and wounded 42 others, including Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, the officials said.

Will there be a point when the warring factions will realize they can be better off working together dividing up the power rather than trying to kill off the other side to take all the power for themselves? I hope so!

Good News:
U.S. troops in Iraq are still detaining a top leader of an Iranian special forces group who was arrested in December, U.S. officials said Monday.

Brig. Gen. Mohsen Chirazi was said to be the third-ranking officer in the Iranian Quds Force, a paramilitary arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards believed to be helping insurgents in Iraq.

Perhaps the Iranians might decide it is in their interest to get out of Iraq?

Good News:
The U.S. military Monday announced it recently recovered more Iranian-made weapons and components in Iraq, intended for attacks against U.S. and Iraqi soldiers as well as civilians.

U.S. soldiers involved in recovering the weapons cache Saturday in Iraq's Diyala province showcased their findings at a news conference Monday in Baghdad.

They praised Iraqi police and citizens for leading them to the cache in the Shiite village of Jadida outside Baquba.

Hopefully, the Iranians will leave Iraq alone!

It is crucial that the locals feel they can give tips to root out the bad guys.

Bad News:
The rest of the article lists other bombings in different places.

Commentary
The question before the United States from a policy point of view is this: what strategy will get to a stable Iraq in light of our national security and in light of the broader Middle East?

One option is to leave and allow the Shia and Sunnis to engage in a civil war until one side wins or both sides become so exhausted they stop fighting?

This option has the virtue of eliminating US military deaths and the expense of a costly war. The downside is that the blood bath of such a civil war could be even greater than it is now. How many deaths would take place daily in open warfare with both sides attacking each other? How large would the refugee flow be out of Iraq when it becomes clear that one side or the other is winning?

Another option (the current one we are on) is to be involved with their government in the hope (and it maybe a foolish one) that with our assistence, they will come to their senses without a fight to the last man-woman-child civil war.

This *will* cost American lives and treasure and it might fail anyway. On the other hand, if it works, Iraq becomes a nation with an admittedly uneasy truce between Shia, Kurd and Sunni.

At the moment, I support option number two.

As for critics who decry this as "war for oil," I say this:
(1) If so, the US military is doing a lousy job! If we really wanted the oil, we would send in the B52s and eliminate the Sunni insurgents and Shia militias. We wouldn't bother with trying to get the Iraqis to come up with an oil revenue sharing plan between the three major groups. Instead, we would say, 9 shares for us and 1 share for you and just be glad for that one share.
(2) If all we really want is the oil in the Middle East, we would stop supporting Israel so the oil producing nations who hate Israel would be happy with us. However, the USA, for all its imperfections, isn't just about oil. Thus, we support the right of a nation with 6 million people and zero oil to exist. We support that nation at great cost to us. It really would be so much easier to give the oil nations who hate Israel what they want so we can get the oil from them.