Re: "but I think these societies will be able to restructure themselves"
I believe that is correct.
But, I believe that you also are missing a very simple thing: NO PEOPLE, anywhere, are going to react all that well to be occupied by FOREIGNERS for extended and indefinite periods of time, nor react well to be TOLD what to do with their lives.
It excites opposition, it plays against what are the dominant global political trends of the past two centuries: nationalism and anti-colonialism (desire for local self-rule).
The Authoritarian (or 'Colonialist', take your pick) model for accomplishing a major change that you desire to see in the world... is not a very effective policy choice any longer. And hasn't been for a very long time.
In other words: history pretty-well shows that it *fails* now (at producing the desired result) far more often then it succeeds.
To get all 'folksy' on you, you can 'lead a horse to water but you can't force him to drink.'
It is simply human nature. Occupation is a losing game, long-term.
Re: "... (with our help) once the threat and the disease is removed..."
Of course the US should stand by to 'help'.... But, 'help' of a different sort then trying to occupy a hostile (and populous) foreign land out into the distant future... all with no regard to expense of cost-effectiveness of the policy.
So... it is next to impossible to 'remove the disease' in that manner. That is the crux of my arguments: it WON'T WORK. (It isn't working....) You need DIFFERENT TACTICS to win strategic victory.
1) The only 'solution' that will ever work for resolving the territorial questions of that artificial nation we call 'Iraq' today is one that will be arrived at by the *locals* (no doubt: fighting each other tooth and nail over the lands)... so we should not impede the process any further. We cannot wave a wand and mandate a political solution in variance to the weighted average of the local peoples' desires. (But we can still have much influence... mostly by the choices we make in the battles of the civil war to come of WHO we support and WHOM we don't.)
2) Also, since the very PROCESS of having extremist Sunnis and Shiites (and or Arabs and Persians, etc.) pit themselves against each other in expensive and destructive and ultimately likely futile battles stands to BENEFIT us directly in several ways (just as it did during the eight Reagan/Bush years of the Iran/Iraq Gulf War... until we lost our nerve and altered policy to save Saddam's regime from collapse, and what would have been the much *earlier* start of an Iraq Sunni/Shia Civil War), we should not stand in the way any longer. ('Not standing in the middle of a war', trying to stop it from happening is NOT THE SAME THING as actually encouraging or fomenting a war. That will happen under it's own weight... because of unresolved regional and historic conflicts of very long standing.)
Continuing with the occupation is just 'helping' the EXTREMIST OPPOSITION, (and in the most foolish and brain-dead of ways), helping the very strains of extremism that we are trying to defeat to become MORE entrenched and MORE influential by lending them the weight of nationalism --- and all while sinking our *own* boat economically and militarily.
(And, in this modern world of ours, true military strength is EXTREMELY dependent upon economic vitality. and there, unfortunately, other potential adversaries are gaining fast on us as we lose pace....) |
