I once saw a TV program about a game warden who had a problem. He wanted to study a small group of monkeys that lived in a tree.
The warden had to figure out how to capture the monkeys in order to tag them. The monkeys were very fast and he didn't want to harm them. So he devised an ingenious method for capture.
The warden took coconuts and drilled a small hole in the tops. The holes were about the size of the monkeys' open hand allowing them to easily get their hands into the coconuts.
The monkeys were watching the warden as he made sure they saw him insert pieces of a familiar treat into each coconut.
The warden then attached a strong chain at the bottom of the coconuts and tied them to a large rock. The trap had been set.
When the warden and his men withdrew to a safe distance, the monkeys quickly came down from the trees to inspect the coconuts.
They put their hand into the coconut and grabbed hold of the treat. Once they had grasped the treat in their hands it created a fist which could no longer be easily extracted from the coconut. And so, they were trapped.
Now the game warden and his men easily came in with nets and captured the monkeys. The monkeys screamed, hissed and bared their teeth. But the one thing that could set them free...the one thing they could do, they wouldn't do. They wouldn't let go of the treat.
The inability of the monkeys to comprehend their situation was their downfall.
Fast forward to the invasion of Iraq. Bush and his cronies thought that it would be easy. They said it would cost only a few billion dollars and many of his types thought it would only take a few days or weeks to overcome Saddam and his sons and take over Iraq.
They wanted to simply swoop down from the trees and grab the sweet crude candy they knew were in the coconuts.
When Bush went into Iraq he didn't disarm the army. He disbanded it. Bush sent home a 300,000-man army with no jobs, little to do and all their weapons. Al Franken often joked that Bush said "go, and take you guns with you. "
There was no concern for maintaining utilities, preventing looting or the Iraqi people. Bush wasn't interested in protecting museums or power plants. Even the ammunitions depots that later became the IED that killed so many America heroes were left unprotected.
Instead they protected one thing: the Ministry of Oil; because, in reality, that's what they really came for...Iraq's oil resources.
Unfortunately Bush and his buddies didn't plan for an insurgency. Once they stuck their hands into the coconut to grasp Iraq's oil, like the monkeys they evolved from, they were trapped.
Bush won't leave Iraq because there is too much money to be made with the oil.
So America will scream, hiss and bared its teeth but Bush will never let go of the Iraqi oil. And all the destruction, death and suffering is just the price of doing business.
Now all solutions for saving Iraq, either as a united country or as three loosely affiliated regions, have the same qualification at the end: "but American companies still get the oil"
Bush and friends won't give up on the oil. And their inability to understand their situation will be America's downfall. This is why we can't win in Iraq.
Democracy Waning -Out