Ralph Peters, Intelligence Specialist

Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters a retired U.S. Army intelligence officer and New York Post pundit advocates the hyper-balkanisation of the Middle East:

‘A just alignment in the region would leave Iraq's three Sunni-majority provinces as a truncated state that might eventually choose to unify with a Syria that loses its littoral to a Mediterranean-oriented Greater Lebanon: Phoenicia reborn. The Shia south of old Iraq would form the basis of an Arab Shia State rimming much of the Persian Gulf. Jordan would retain its current territory, with some southward expansion at Saudi expense. For its part, the unnatural state of Saudi Arabia would suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan.’

- ‘Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look’, Armed Forces Journal, June 2006. http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899

His expertise is illustrated by the statements he made after a visit to Baghdad in March:

'During a recent visit to Baghdad, I saw an enormous failure. On the part of our media. The reality in the streets, day after day, bore little resemblance to the sensational claims of civil war and disaster in the headlines.

'No one with first-hand experience of Iraq would claim the country's in rosy condition, but the situation on the ground is considerably more promising than the American public has been led to believe. Lurid exaggerations and instant myths obscure real, if difficult, progress.

'I left Baghdad more optimistic than I was before this visit. While cynicism, political bias and the pressure of a 24/7 news cycle accelerate a race to the bottom in reporting, there are good reasons to be soberly hopeful about Iraq's future.

'Much could still go wrong. The Arab genius for failure could still spoil everything. We've made grave mistakes. Still, it's difficult to understand how any first-hand observer could declare that Iraq's been irrevocably"lost"'
- ‘Myths of Iraq’, RealClearPolitics, 14 March 2006. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/03/myths_of_iraq.html

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Now, 7 months later...

'But remaining in Baghdad requires a new sense of reality. "Stay the course" is meaningless when you don't have a course - and the truth is that the administration still doesn't have a strategy, just a jumble of programs, slogans and jittery improvisations.

'Our Army and Marine Corps urgently need increases in personnel strength. They've been stripped to the strategic and tactical bone. We need more boots. But not on the ground in Iraq.

'Sending more troops wouldn't help and can't be done. It's too late. We've reached the point where Iraqis must fight for their own future. If they won't, nothing we can do will bring success...

'Give them [the Iraqis] one more year. And that's it.

Meanwhile, the notion of sending more U.S. troops is strategic and practical nonsense. Had the same voices demanded another 100,000-plus troops in 2003 or even 2004, it would have made a profound, positive difference. Now it's too late.

- ‘No More Troops, New York Post, 10 October 2006. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/03/myths_of_iraq.html