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My opinion is this...
As long as the ME (and the vast majority of the world) perceives this conflict to be primarily nothing more than a U.S. war of cultural/petro-imperialism, there is absolutely zero hope that the region can become stable within the next 35-50 years (all other things being equal). It appears to me that we have done nothing but deepen the pre-established regional and religious divides. To put it another way, we've made an already bad situation much, much worse.
My armchair hypothesis to resolve the issue (or, at least to reduce the violence to its pre-U.S. invasion levels) is to ask the U.N. to assume military and political authority. This will...
a) Give legitimacy to a (mostly) world-wide mandate for the cessation of violence. b) Reduce the appearance of a U.S.-only/U.S.-lead petro-political agenda. c) Allow more voices into the debate of what the ultimate goal is and how to achieve it, thereby allowing more ideas and more choices.
d) Not specifically relevant, but still an advantage is that it may also engender the good-will of many of our allies that we've pissed off to one degree or another.
There seems to me to be no easy way out anymore. If American forces stays, the violence will only increase; if outside forces leave, the violence will only increase. If I take those two as posits, then the only other choice I see is to replace (or, replace to a great degree) the current (American) occupation force with an operational force which attracts much less hostility.
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