This is a challenging piece by Stephen Biddle, at the Council on Foreign Relations. The basic argument is that we do not face a nationalist insurgency in Iraq, but a sectarian civil war. Trying to integrate the armed forces with different sects before sectarian tensions have been defused only undermines the incipient national army, by riddling it with insurgents keen on sabotage. There’s another way:
"The United States must threaten to manipulate the military balance of power among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds to coerce them to negotiate. Washington should use the prospect of a U.S.-trained and U.S.-supported Shiite-Kurdish force to compel the Sunnis to come to the negotiating table. At the same time, in order to get the Shiites and the Kurds to negotiate too, it should threaten either to withdraw prematurely, a move that would throw the country into disarray, or to back the Sunnis."
I don’t buy all of the argument, but it’s well worth reading.
The Dish 