The soldiers in Iraq have little choice in the matter if they are sacrificing their lives in a war that is doomed to failure. I'm sure if those National Guardsmen who've served three or four tours of duty in Iraq were given the choice, they wouldn't re-enlist for yet another tour of duty.

Those soldiers are pawns of George W. Bush who knows if he institutes a military draft the war in Iraq would be over tomorrow. American troops in Iraq still have no idea of what constitutes a victory in Iraq or even who the enemy is. It is a waste of life to dispatch soldiers to a foreign nation to fight a war without an objective or plan for victory.

Those troops that die in a Iraq aren't responsible for no-win policy of the Bush administration in Iraq, but like it or not, George W. Bush is wasting their lives because he dispatched them to Iraq without grounds for declaring a war and once those soldiers invaded Iraq George W. Bush had no plan to win the war.

We are entering year five of the Iraq occupation and American troops have no clearly stated mission or even a designated enemy.

American troops are fighting Shiite leaders like Mokada al Sadr who are part of the elected government in Iraq, and fighting Sunnis who are insurgents against that same elected government. We are also fighting al Qaeda forces, which have entered the conflict largely because the United States started the conflict.

Nobody is really sure where the Kurdish loyalties lie except they want to be left alone and will fight anyone who doesn't leave them alone, including the United States. The Kurds are the Greta Garbo of the Iraq War, who "just want to be left alone."

The role of the United States appears to be that of a referee in the center of a circular firing squad consisting of the various sects and factions in Iraq. George Bush's sole "accomplishment" in Iraq is deposing an ineffectual tyrant and replacing his regime with a bomb throwing state of anarchy that threatens to destabilize the entire Arabian Gulf Peninsula.

If you think that Bush's policy is crazy, just wait until the surge is implemented and craziness evolves into full tilt insanity.

It could get worse. If American troops stick around long enough in Iraq, all of the various ethnic groups and sects will come to the conclusion that the infidel, George W. Bush is responsible for the state of chaos in their nation and then loss of American troops will really begin.

There are more than a few Iraq observers that believe the only thing that will unite all of the disparate and dissimilar sects and factions in Iraq is a united front against the occupation of Iraq by American troops. That would be our worst possible nightmare, but the surge tactic by the Bush administration has made American helicopters and soldiers a high value target for both Sunni and Shiite militants.

There is a perfectly good argument for a phased withdrawal from Iraq. The alternative is for American troops to assume the role of enforcer which will earn the undying hatred of all the factions in Iraq and would probably result in as forcible eviction of American troops from Iraq. Let's face it; the Shiite majority in Baghdad will tolerate American troops in Iraq, as long as the troops are useful to their objective of annihilating the Sunni minority.

Bush is in the position of drinking the poison of the ruling Shiite majority and supporting a client government of Iran which is a far greater threat to American security than Saddam ever was.

If Bush refuses to drink the poison the only alternative is to use military force to depose the pro-Iranian Shiite government and replacing it with what? Nobody knows!

As it currently stands George W. Bush is simply winging it without any plan and at the mercy of the daily briefing reports from the Iran front for evidence of divine intervention that will prove him right. God the father may have led Bush into the Iraq but God the son won't lead him out.

It's pretty obvious that as long as American troops are occupying Iraq there will nothing resembling a functioning democracy or even a functioning government in Iraq. It's impossible to establish an independent democratic republic in Iraq as long American troops are solely responsible for averting a blood bath in Iraq.

We could have saved a lot of time, energy, money and human lives if George W. Bush had been schooled on the history of empire building and use neo-colonialism as an instrument of foreign policy. Western nations have had a long history of failure when they've used military force to occupy underdeveloped nations to impose the stated Western ideals of freedom and democracy on less prosperous third world nations.

Saddam was a tyrant but at least he was Iraq's favorite son tyrant who wasn't a prop of a Western nation. As George W. Bush's own father, when asked why he didn't depose Saddam in the first Gulf War, he replied, "Depose Saddam and replace him with who?" Herbert Walker was commenting on the fact that any possible candidate to replace Saddam would have even more of a destabilizing effect on the Arabian Gulf region, than Saddam himself.

Herbert Walker's service in the CIA gave him a more nuanced view of geopolitics than his son's simplistic Axis of Evil paradigm of global politics.

It's a paradox, but Saddam's own monumental ego and hatred of the Iranian Shiite theocracy prevented the expansion of the Islamic revolution to other nations in the Gulf region. Look at the mess George W. Bush created by tinkering with the delicate gears that maintained complex system of nations, leaders, religions and cultures that maintain equilibrium and homeostasis in the Gulf region.

All of this musing on my part must seem I'm reflecting on the obvious to many people. In some ways we need to cut down the thicket of disinformation that has conceals the true nature of reality in the Gulf region and then propose something audacious enough to stop the sectarian bloodletting. It should be a simple, enforceable and understandable ultimatum to the government of Iraq and every nation in the region.

Here's my plan. Announce tomorrow that we are pulling 50,000 American troops from Iraq immediately and will continue to withdrawal American forces from Iraq in large increments that will take place over the six months and invite all interested nations in the Gulf region to convene talks in Baghdad with the objectives of

1. Sustaining a ceasefire between all of the sectarian groups in Iraq,

2. Negotiating a settlement to establish a permanent peace in Iraq

3. Broker a form of government which is acceptable to the Shiites, the Sunnis, the Kurds and any other citizens of Iraq even if the only acceptable plan to all parties is the partitioning off of Iraq into three sovereign nation states.

4. Develop a plan for national reconciliation where all parties in war crimes, all detainees and all prisoners of war will be returned to their nation of origin.

5. Establish a national war crimes tribunal and give any self confessed war criminals the opportunity to ask forgiveness for their misdeeds in exchange for a complete judicial pardon for any crimes committed during the course of the Iraq conflict. It follows the same model of the tribunal in South African nation following the end of apartheid. George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld will be invited to seek pardons for any war crimes they authorized or committed during the Iraq War.

After we have set that process into motion George W. Bush makes a public apology to the citizens of Iraq for his complete lack of judgment and we turn over any appropriations in the United State's FY 2007-2008 budget for the Iraq War, over to the Iraq government to set the peace process into motion and as down payment for all of the damage done to the infrastructure of Iraq during the war. We declare the War on Terror is over. Then we forgive ourselves for trusting president Bush and resolve to never elect another self serving demagogue to the presidency again.