"I wonder if you and GZ agree on exactly what those long term strategic objectives are, that you are agreeing to."
That was one of the points intended by my question... to demonstrate how demanding 'yes or no' replies about complicated situations doesn't help much to elucidate the choices....
(In this case, we *both* answer 'YES'... but since the 'long term strategic objectives' haven't been discussed or agreed to in any way... the 'YES' answer doesn't seem to actually *mean much*, since it doesn't help us to understand what we each are saying that we are FOR....)
I pointed out that the 'yes or no' reply to GZ's rhetorical question about 'over-night withdrawal of US forces' also didn't seem to illuminate much... not without some supporting and clarifying information. (What are the alternatives? Is Kurdistan included or not? Etc.) Because the *answers* to those questions could swing the answer from yes to no to back.... :-)
"If I asked each of you if a pro-shiite and completely allied with Iran but democratically elected (and internally peaceful) Iraq, forming a bellicose Shia Crescent that was at razor's edge of hostilities with Sunni Saudi Arabia and Syria...was in America's strategic interest...how would you answer. In my example this would be a democratic Iraq, unified under one government, and internally peaceful....but allied with Iran against Saudi Arabia and not afraid to say so..."
My answer would be that:
A) If this was the Democratic expression of the will of the Iraqi peoples, then we would have no especial reason perhaps to be *happy* about that... but we would, perhaps more importantly, have no reason to actively oppose their self expression of political will. (No reason that didn't reek of hypocrisy, that is....) and,
B) My contention is that --- in the mid-to-long-term, such a consolidation of Shia political aspirations (a minority in the Islamic world... long oppressed by the majority Sunnis), such a *sharpening* of the political/religious lines between Shia and Sunni --- also holds the potential for BOTH political and economic benefit to the US and to the Western world in general, AND increases the odds that *eventually* the long-delayed 'Islamic Reformation' might be tipped into actualization. A CLEAR benefit for the concepts of pluralism and religious tolerance in the entire world.
"The Administration has wanted a democratic, internally peaceful Iraq....in my example that is exactly what would be in place. A win for the U.S.?"
A "win"? To my way of thinking that would be a win. (Not only would we have achieved every goal we had publicly outlined... but the prospects for truly transformative change throughout the region would be well and truly in place.)
But, my guess is that the admin. would NOT call that a 'win'... they would merely shift their rhetoric to be talking about some completely different 'goal', (& hope that no one particularly noticed the *newness* of their goal....) |
