While the White House considers sending American special forces soldiers to Iraq, political forces are beginning to take sides. Democratic Congressman Brian Higgins says he does not support sending troops back to the troubled country.
Higgins says he has traveled to Iraq several times, where he has met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
"The problem is Iraq is never going to change until Iraqis want to change, and this has been a problem that has been going on for a long time," Higgins told reporters Monday.
"It's Sunni, it's Shia, it's Kurds. Unless there's a social compact where they can live together with minority rights there will never be peace in that part of the world."
The insurgency represents the worst threat to the Shiite-led government since the American military left in 2011.
"This is not a fight for freedom and democracy. This is a fight for power," Higgins said.
"You can have a 100,000 military troops there. But guess what? You're going to have to be there for 40 years before we can change it. They have to want the change, at least more than we do. That's not happening. And this is the consequence of it."
Despite spending trillions of dollars and losing the lives of thousands of American service members, Higgins says Iraq and Afghanistan really haven't changed.
With so many wounded and unemployed veterans he says it's time to nation-build right here at home.