I proposed in an earlier post that we should set and exit date and that would get the divergent iraqi groups off their arses and that they would have greater incentive to deal with their problems rather than deal with their rhetoric. Wondered what you think. I would set the date 9 months or so out.
I'm not sure about the 9 months and I'm not sure that WE should be the ones to set a "deadline," but I think you're right about a time-certain. I'd like to see us coordinate with the Iraqi "official" government and allow them to give us a date certain to leave so they can say they "put us out." And then I'd like us to accept that date and write it in stone that, regardless of the then-state of affairs, we were leaving on that date.
My thinking is that those Iraqis with the passion and the numbers to fight and die for their view of what Iraq should become, will prevail. While we are purportedly there as proxies for those who MAY support our view of what Iraq should become, they simply stand by.
If those who actually support our view of a democratic Iraq are strong enough in their numbers and passion to prevail, they can prevail with our help. If they are not strong enough in either numbers or passion to prevail, our efforts will only delay the inevitable rise to power of the clerics, the radical Islamics or the fracturing of the country.
I suspect that we are currently propping up puppets and that in the end we will see a theocracy in Iraq. Hopefully it will be a Sistani type of "moderate" and enlightened theocracy that will, over time, morph into something that's not rabidly anti-west. It may, however, be a much darker theocracy. Or maybe the strongarm thugs will govern with our "support" for a while longer. Whatever it is, having removed the armed thugs that were ruling Iraq, we ought to let the Iraqis fight it out and forge their own history.
Or we can stay and "nationalize" those who use our "occupation" as a basis to keep on killing our young. Then in another 3 decades we can try to answer the mothers and fathers of those who died and who ask, "what did my son's death accomplish?" |
