I found Morton Kondracke’s editorial, “If ‘surge’ fails, Bush may need ‘80 percent solution’” printed in yesterday’s Pasadena Star-News alarming. While I think Kondracke’s desire to seek a realistic solution to the Iraq conundrum is necessary, his suggestions are, in my opinion, morally suspect. Kondracke is probably right that “winning clean” in which something close to national unanimity in Iraq is growing less possible daily, but I cannot endorse, and I hope no one in Congress or the administration ever endorses his picture of “winning dirty.”

“Winning will be dirty because it will allow the Shiite-dominated Iraqi military and some Shiite militias to decimate the Sunni insurgency. There likely will be ethnic cleansing, atrocities against civilians and massive refugee flows.”

For Kondracke, the ethnic cleansing is a problem, but not as much as a government unfriendly to the US. He seems to say that ethnic cleansing is inevitable in any scenario, so the best the US can do is get behind the majority side now and begrudgingly let the cleansing happen, all in order to ensure that the government that emerges on the other side would favor the US and its policies.

Almost certainly, Shiites will dominate Iraq because they outnumber Sunnis three to one. But the United States would get no credit for helping the Shiites win. In fact, America’s credibility would suffer because it abandoned its mission….

Under a win-dirty strategy, the United States would have to back al-Maliki and the Badr Brigades in their eventual showdown with al-Sadr. It also would have to help Jordan and Saudi Arabia care for a surge in Sunni refugees, possibly 1 million to 2 million joining an equal number who already have fled.

Sunnis will suffer under a winning dirty strategy, no question, but so far they’ve refused to accept that they’re a minority. They will have to do so eventually, one way or another. And, eventually, Iraq will achieve political equilibrium. Civil wars do end. The losers lose and have to knuckle under.

If Kondracke’s Plan B prevails as policy—though I can’t imagine it would given its only congressional supporter wishes to remain anonymous—what is the message the US sends to Sunnis or really any minority people group in emerging democracies? That their lives are expendable when in competition with the US’ interests.

I applaud Kondracke’s desire for a realistic solution to Iraq, though I abhor his suggestion as it is far from any picture of justice or a legitimate democracy that seeks to protect minorities. He is correct that the Sunnis need to understand that they no longer hold power, but all world democracies and nations in the Middle East need to pressure the Shiites to not use their newfound power for revenge. Other nations cannot simply allow atrocities to happen with the hope of an ally on the other end. The US may be far from being greeted as liberators, but we cannot be complicit in or apathetic towards genocide or ethnic cleansing, especially in a situation in which we have played a significant role in creating. Kondracke says leaving Iraq now would result in the ethnic cleansing and, “America’s credibility would suffer because it abandoned its mission.” This is likely true. Worse still would be America losing any modicum of morality it has because it chose to back ethnic cleansers for the simple reason that they would favor its interests.