A plan for Iraq?

...find truly hard people

With little legitimacy a new leader faces a brutal civil war in his multi-ethnic country. On 18 August, he issues a memorandum to the henchman of his beleaguered minority party. Reconciliation is farthest from his mind; but Lenin's 1918 plan succeeds ... all too well.

1. Hang (hang without fail so the people see) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks [small farmers], rich men, bloodsuckers.

2. Publish their names.

3. Take from them all the grain.

4. Designate hostages -- as per yesterday's telegram. Do it in such a way that for hundreds of versts [one verst is about one kilometer] around, people will see, tremble, know, shout: they are strangling and will strangle to death the bloodsucker kulaks. . . .

P.S. Find . . . truly hard people.