[quote="Old Reliable":02870]you all claim to have the "perfect solution" but have you been to the middle east or even studied on middle east culture and the history of relations between middle eastern countries? obviously not, but the people at government have and they will make the ultimate decision[/quote:02870]

I have studied teh mid east (more or less).
It seems to me that Iraq is made up of many different groups (sunni, she-ite, kurds, etc.). Now these folks' idea of compromise is "I point AK-47 at you and you do what I say".
Therefore it's safe to say they will not understand deomcracy.
To have a stable, democratic government in Iraq we will need to go in full force and set up mandatory schools for all Iraqi kids where we would have to "reprogram" them to forget the generations of hate and distrust. Are we ready to spend the time and money to do that?
Otherwise after Saddam we will have another state like Somalia on our hands, where warlords from different ethnic groups fight for domination, a veritable terrorist's paradise.