Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "The one difference between this war and Vietnam, is that we're applying the doctrine of "Vietnamization" of the war early on, rather than trying to do it all for the Iraqis. We're holding them accountable to maintain security and order."
I agree, and I think that this is a good thing. I also believe that we are likely to be successful in this (that is, in getting the Iraqis to maintain order). Where I disagree is on whether or not all this is a good thing for the US, and in particular whether or not it will have been worth the cost.
The basic problem is that the Iraq that we are creating will either be broken by civil war with the result that it continues to be a training ground for terrorists, or alternatively, it will be a country that is united against us and no longer afraid of the US military.
After the first Gulf war, Saddam declared victory simply because of the survival of his regime. Similarly, after we leave, the Iraqis will declare victory for having made us leave. This is just human nature.
No matter how we get out of Iraq, the Islamists are going to take credit for it and declare it a victory. Religious oriented political parties just won the elections in Iraq. The only question of where Iraq ends up is how many US citizens are killed in the process. The result is inevitable. It will be a country peopled by the same well armed people who were there during Saddam. Their opinions on Israel are well known and are not going to change. The fact that our soldiers regularly kill Iraqis is not improving the eventual relationship between the US and Iraq. It doesn't matter that many of the Iraqis we kill are armed and dangerous. They are still blood relatives of people in Iraq who care more about them than they care about any US soldier.
After we leave, the political will for us to return will be zero, just as current US polls show that the American people now believe that entering the war was a mistake. Everyone will know this just as they know now that the political will for the US to punish Iran or N. Korea for nuclear weapons production is zero. The new Iraq government will feel itself quite unafraid of the US returning much as the Vietnam government after 1975 was not in the least afraid of the US. The difference is that the post US Iraq will be a hell of a lot more dangerous than the post US Vietnam ever was.
As to your claims that the US military is all happy about being in Iraq, I think you're full of crap.
-- Carl |
