Do you think the situation in Iraq requires an Anglo-American presence for its resolution?

Stacey,man you really fill up your posts don't you :)

The Iraq situation can be 'solved' by any of the following.

1/ Re-establish a brutal Dictatorship (either Sunni or Shia)

2/ Any external power, which uses 'absolute' means of control, such as that practiced by Genghis Khan on the Arabs/Persians who sent his ambassador's head back in a bag with a messenger .

3/ All Iraqi's repent and come to Christ as Lord and Savior. (peaceful outcome)

4/ All Sunni's become Shia.
5/ All Shia become Sunni.

So, to answer the question, its yes and no, depending on how it's handled.
I prefer solution 3 :)

We started it Stacey. We should be there till it's finished. If we walk, we'll only be damning anyone who showed us favour to a burning, and we'll have to change the name of 'Iraq' to 'New Somalia'. If we walk we'll only be damning ourselves as well. Who's gonna stop Iraq turning into another Afghanistan with the Taliban?.

Stg - I dont think we actually started the hatred between the Sunnis and Shia, that was always festering; obviously. It was only the strong and brutal military leadership of Suddam Hussein who was keeping the festering hatred from being played out. We only started it in the sense that we naievely removed him from the picture.
That is because the West doesnt understand that big tribes wont live together in peace. It's not taught in Western schools. In fact they teach the opposite that democracy will solve the issue of who will run the country when big tribes are involved, but it wont.

Afghanistan is another example of the Pakistani Taliban(tribe) trying to overrun the country of the Afghanistan tribe. Somalia hasnt been solved. East Timor is still seething with tribal hostility about who is running the country. The West has no power to solve these disputes unless they wipe out one tribe and so restore peace or stay for decades as a peace keeping force and even then it may erupt when they leave again. All the West is succeeding in doing is making enemies who will attack them when they get in the middle. And attack them on home shores too. We've already seen that

Doesn't matter what sort of spin you put on it, Sharkfin. If it wasn't for us going into Iraq half cocked it wouldn't be in the position it is now. The wrong people were making the decisions at the time. Most of those areas in the ME have some sort of tribal dispute stuff going on...always has, always will. We started it, we should be there till it's finished.

Yes I agree with stg. We started it so we have to be there until the time is right for us to leave. But when will it be? Was it necessary for us to be there in the first place after Saddam's reign? Can the Iraqis handle the crisis in their country by themselves if not because of our presence? Or will it be worse if we didn't interfere?