So what do we do now?

[kmc]

At this point in the ill-conceived war in Iraq, what should be our course of action going forward? We all talk a lot of shit about what has been done wrong, or about the Democratic Party's inability to create a cohesive vision for the future, but we have yet to use our tremendous brain power to propose what's to be done. So what do we do?

Some questions:

1) Should we leave now? If so, how does that help/hinder our efforts against terrorism? How does that help/hinder Iraq?

2) To what extent does pulling out of Iraq help/hinder perceptions of America in the Middle East?

3) If we are to stay, what should we consider meaningful victory, and how do we achieve it? Can our current crop of politicians point us in the right direction?

4) Can we "win" a "War On Terror"?

[strat-0]

I'll offer some of my own humble personal opinions on the questions.

1) Unfortunately, I think we need to stay a while longer, because if we leave now I think Iraq will collapse further into chaos and civil war and the world will (rightly) blame us for it.

2) Whether we pull out or not, either way, most of the Middle East is going to spin it badly on us.

3) Bush already said we can't.

[Galactus]

1) We should start pulling out troops and making Iraq take responsibility for themselves...we shouldn't leave them helpless but we can't wait until they decide it's time to step up.

2)Stay or leave there is no way we're going to look good on this.

3)Removing Saddam was the only meaning victory that came or will come from this war. Our current crop of politicians refuse to admit this direction isn't working so, no, they cannot lead us in the right direction.

4) No, we aren't even really pretending it's a winnable war anymore, all they have left is that it's "necsacary"...if they're no end or no win that won't fly too long either, especially since we've seen this week it isn't actually preventing further attempts to attacks us.

[kmc]

He said we can't win a war on terror?

[Kensterberg]

1. Should we leave now? Well, the majority of Iraqis want us gone, the majority of Americans want us gone, and the majority of the world thinks we never should have gone in there in the first place ... so now seems as good a time as any. As far as avoiding civil war in Iraq, well, too late for that.

2. Getting out of Iraq would at least help us with some of the Iraqis, I think. Right now, there just isn't much of anything that Dubya can do to help our status with the majority of the Mideast.

3. Meaningful victory? No such thing. Can our current crop of politicians point us in the right direction? You have got to be kidding.

4. No. And every time we over-react to "threats" the terrorists win.

[RocDoc]

I'd like to know what 'over-reaction' is. You mean like flinching when they say 'Boo!'?
Or is it considered an over-reaction to, in effect further shut down the world's airports when the threat of liquid explosives on 10 planes became known?

They most definitely HAVE set us up to flinch through the masterfully underhanded opportunistic ways in which they've turned everyday taken-for-granted things into weapons of our destruction.

So yes, they most definitely have won because now we squirm in ways we never did before.

~

Yes, Bush definitely in one of his speeches came down to effing earth and DID say that the War On Terror is not something in which there will ever be a 'Victory', but that it's about vigilance and knowing there's always going to be some evil fuckers saying life is just dirt.

Erm.
Yes, he cribbed Lou Reed, he did.

[Dr. Drum]

Honestly, at this point I don't think there are any good options left for you in Iraq. Your leaders can't say it to you but the country is already engaged in a low intensity civil war - 'low intensity' meaning that they're fighting it with AK-47s and power drills and car bombs as opposed to heavy artillery or anything like massed troop formations. Even at that in a country of only about 26 million they're managing to kill each other at the sickening rate of 1500 - 2000+ per month.

I think what we're likely to see in fairly short order is the disintegration of the country into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish statelets with the Shiites increasingly falling into the Iranian orbit, the Kurds becoming an American client and the Sunnis inhabiting a no man's land in between. This process has begun already. The presence of American occupation troops may be slowing it down slightly versus what would be happening if they weren't there but since you are unable to halt the sectarian violence, I think the end result will be the same.

[RocDoc]

The Turks are not going to have that Kurd statelet sit well with them....unless they miraculously get their EU membership, for which there likely will be a probationary 'good conduct' period.

Turkey is a bizarre country packed with contradictions.

[strat-0]

kmc said:

He said we can't win a war on terror?

Yeah, Kenny - you correctly surmised that I had my numbers screwed up, but I'm glad you knew what I meant. It was a jab at one of Bush's gaffs, though this one really wasn't a gaff. As Doc alluded to, he got coralled in an interview and said something like the war on terror wasn't one that you could "win" (meaning there wasn't goint to be a conventional surrender by an opposing force or nation, a "V-Day" as it were, I suppose). And the press had a lot of fun with it. I don't have a link to a clip handy, but that's the jist.

I totally missed number 3. Somehow I made number 4 number three. I'll have to get back to you on that one. Time.

Well said, Drum.

[strat-0]

I forgot to add to number 1:

Fire Rumsfeld.

(or #3?)

[Dr. Drum]

Fire the whole bloody administration...

Turkey has been making belligerent noises and massing troops on the border of Iraqi Kurdistan just in the last month. The Turks are extremely hostile to the notion of an independent Kurdish state and it could certainly turn into a colossal mess. However, if there was a situation in the near future where the U.S. was absolutely committed to an independent Kurdistan, as a means of salvaging something for itself out of a disintegrating Iraq, then you can sort of see the deal that might be made between the U.S., the Kurds and the Turks to secure the latter's acquiesence: Iraqi Kurds agree to renounce any and all Kurdish territorial claims on Turkish soil and actively cooperate with Turkey to root the PKK out of Iraqi Kurdistan. In exchange the Turks agree not to invade and to resign themselves to at least de facto Kurdish independence. The rub for all this, however, might turn out to be Kurdish treatment of the Turkmen minority around Kirkuk and in the south of the region.

[kmc]

So...is Iraq fucked? What are the consequences if we pull out now? Is it better if we stay? Would the country devolve into brutal large scale Civil War if we stay? What if we go?

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Is Iraq fucked? To be totally honest, it's hard to tell. After World War II and the fall of Hitler, our stay in Germany was mired with situations that were not unlike those that we are experiencing now in Iraq. There was an insurgentcy of former SS and German soldiers that refused to be taken in under America's Marshall Plan creating pockets of resistance and massive amounts of violence. It really appeared at the time that Germany was never going to be a democratic state and would be used as nothing more than a pawn in the coming Cold War with Russia. 13 Years later from 1946, Germany started to take hold and morph into the current version it is today. Invasions take time and Japan was hardly an overnight success either. Even if you look at Vietnam, from a Capitalistic superpower point of view, we won. As soon as the Soviet Union collapsed really the only country that has been able to stay in the 20th Century style of Communism has been Cuba. Vietnam started allowing tourism in Saigon again and allowed free trade. The Vietnam that we know of today is hardly the dream that Ho Chi Minh had and is quite different, especially as it seems that China is moving away from 20th Century style Communism as well.

I don't think Iraq is fucked in the long run. The consequences of us pulling out now is hard for me to see to tell you the truth. I do think that once you invade a country and destroy decades of it's infrastructure, you have to stay the course and place something that the remaing populace can use to start to govern themselves. Even if we decided to let Iraq make it's own decisions, I believe that we will always have a base of military operations there just like we have for decades in Germany. The thing is, after our blunder and total fuck up of situation in Iraq, the hard sell is telling the American public that these things take a large chunk of time and we're talking decades.

The other thing that is hard is that I honestly don't know if it's better if we stay. I have a friend that has just come back from two tours over there and told me an interesting story. There was a British Base Camp outside of a hot zone in Iraq but there was nothing that marked what the camp was. Days later, several platoons of American soldiers arrived and dug in. In the process of this, the Commander of the American forces decided to put an American flag up in the middle of the camp. Before the placement of the flag, the base was quiet and unknown. After the placement of the flag, the base was mortared every single night. The British Command was livid needless to say and demanded that the flag be taken down. The Americna Command refused in a hotheaded display of "all or nothing". This exchange went on for a few days until a mortar struck a tent killing two British soldiers. One of the British troops in a fit of anger took the flag down. The next day the mortar attacks stopped and nothing happened. One of the American Commanders walked by and saw that the flag wasn't there and ordered placed back up. The flag was put back up and the mortar attacks started again wounding several soldiers. The British were so pissed off at this that they said, fuck it, packed up every thing and moved the base 2 miles away. They stopped getting hit and the American base was still being pounded by mortar rounds day in and day out. Finally they took the American flag down and the mortars stopped for good.

I feel like this is exactly how the War is being handled.

The ugly truth is that if we go, we leave the country defenseless against Iran and several other Arab nations that do not want a democratic state in the region of the middle east because doing so threatens their brutal regimes. The other side of the coin is that our presence there isn't helping much either. It's the biggest case of Catch 22 I've ever seen.

[phil]

As soon as the Soviet Union collapsed really the only country that has been able to stay in the 20th Century style of Communism has been Cuba.

Wanna try North Korea instead because the Cuba I know
is more Socialist than hard line Communist ...


So...is Iraq fucked? What are the consequences if we pull out now? Is it better if we stay? Would the country devolve into brutal large scale Civil War if we stay? What if we go?

Junior & the Hawks should have ponder those same questions
before going Gung-Ho in Irak ...

[skvorisdeadsorta]

I honestly sometimes wonder if Junior and the Hawks thought it would be no problem going after a small country of brown people to beat the shit out of infront of the world stage that they defeated a mere 13 years before.