We will know what we have accomplished. We won't know for a while- and the accomplishment for good or ill will never be static- but after we finally give Iraq back to its owners, we will know if we accomplished anything positive in the short term- because if we haven't the country will quickly fall apart.
That's the problem with Iraq- the uncertainty of it all. I know it's very hard for the "You love Saddam because you opposed the war" crowd to understand, but there are worse things than a tyrant. A huge bloody civil war would be one of those worse things. It's still a possibility- and since our government is terrible at assessing Iraq and the political climate there, I'd say we have no clue as to how likely a possibility it is. A civil war will not be better for the people of Iraq, nor, I suspect, will it be better for Us interests. The possibility of an Islamic theocracy looms as well- not a positive for US interests, I think. I'm not sure it would even be positive for the people of Iraq. I'm not sure what the kill rate is in Iran, in terms of the government killing its own citizens- but it's a repressive government and I imagine the rate is rather high. So many outcomes that are destabilizing to the region, and nasty for us and the Iraqi people. It's not that people hate Bush or love Saddam- it's simply that SOME people can do risk assessment, and other people can't, so they support Bush. |
