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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: Sun Tzu who wrote (81147)	3/11/2003 11:29:25 AM
From: paul_philp	Read Replies (3) of 281500

So long as we do not acknowledge that short sighted policies of the past do not work, we are doomed to be in a self-perpetuating crisis management mode. Amen. On this point, we agree 100%. I think you are not quite factually correct about the US and Iraq in the 1980's but there is no doubt that the US turned a blind eye to Saddam's atrocities because they thought it was in their short-term narrow self interest. Encouraging the Shiites in the South to rise up against Saddam and then doing nothing to support them was the Middle East equivalent of the Bay of Pigs. I understand why the mistake was made but it was incumbant on the President Bush to back up his promise. I am afraid that this old debt will be repaid soon though. I expect Baghdad to welcome US troops as liberators but southern Iraq will be a swamp for the US troops. There is still a deep resentment over the post-Gulf War betrayal. I have no use for the 'Realist School' where military objectives and strategies are set by the State Department. The people who I have found who come closest to your point of view are the Wolfowitz group. Although far from a full 'Truth and Reconciliation' commission, they understand very well the mistakes and limitations of the gas pump dictator strategy of the past. Many of them (though not all) are also aware of their mistakes in the past. The end of the Gulf War is a matter of personal shame for some. Just as the FBI and CIA bureaucracy is proving to be a massive impediment to effectively dealing with Homeland Security, the State department bureaucracy is an impediment to the radical change you and I would like to see. Some of the gas station dictators situations are going to be difficult to handle. Saudi Arabia is a prime sponsor of AQ and ME terrorism. However, the House of Saud is at some risk and the possibility of a fundamentalist government in SA is truly frightening. So, the US needs to increase it's leverage on the House of Saud and then use carrots and sticks to cause reforms. (I still think this is the primary strategic goal for regime change in Iraq). I see enough change in thinking from the Bush administration to be warily confident. A successful campaign in Iraq coupled with the UNSC fiasco would shift to balance of power in the administration further from the State Deptartment 'realists' to the Wolfowitz gang and further away from short term narrow self-interest toward long-term broad self-interest. The Wolfowitz gang fully understands that the US won't be secure until the Middle East region is headed in the direction of being successful. 'Democracy in Iraq' is no pie-in-the-sky bumper sticker slogan for the W-gang, it is a centrepiece of their strategy. Paul

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