Thomas--the below writer seems right on the mark in several ways. I'm curious about his US casulty count, however. Where'd that 11K number come from? Any thoughts?
Some of the more thoughtful comments were made in a symposium convened by the respected Middle East Policy Council last October. Ambassador Ohas Freeman, president of the Council, stated: "We have ousted Saddam and his regime. We have not replaced that regime. So we have not accomplished regime change. We have accomplished regime removal. Second, we have proved that the UN inspectors did a vastly better job of rooting out weapons of mass destruction than even they imagined they had." Freeman says that Iraq, which is regarded by some as a badly managed Pentagon- operated theme park, has been named the central battleground in the global war against terrorism -- a sort of super-cuisinart, where the terrorists will be sliced, diced and shredded and Al-Qa'eda will meet its doom in direct confrontation with American forces. But some argue that Iraq is becoming not the death ground for terrorism, but a magnet for terrorists -- a training ground for Jihadists and a place for extremist target practice on American soldiers.
Even Kenneth Pollack, who was one of the earliest advocates of the war against Iraq, with strong Zionist leanings, warns "Iraq could slide into chaos". If negative trends persist, it could mean Iraq looking not like Poland but like Lebanon of the 1970s and 1980s. If things continue to go wrong and the Iraqi people do not see progress, they are going to begin to take matters into their own hands. That could be a recipe for chaos.
He admits that if the US continues to pump tens of billions of dollars into the Iraqi economy every year and if we are willing to keep a hundred thousand or more troops in Iraq, the US can prevent it from sliding into civil war and keep the nascent economy going. But it is going to be an economy mostly on life-support, propped up by us.
weekly.ahram.org.eg |
