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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (21577)	3/17/2002 3:29:36 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The "comprador" theory was in some evidence in the recent Seymour Hersh New Yorker article (http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/020311fa_FACT )that was discussed here. My personal take was that the chosen stalking horse of the Perle/Wolfowitz faction, one Ahmed Chalabi, seemed singularly uninspiring. A dispute over Chalabi's potential usefulness preoccupies the bureaucracy, as the civilian leadership in the Pentagon continues to insist that only the I.N.C. can lead the opposition. At the same time, a former Administration official told me, "Everybody but the Pentagon and the office of the Vice-President wants to ditch the I.N.C." The I.N.C.'s critics note that Chalabi, despite years of effort and millions of dollars in American aid, is intensely unpopular today among many elements in Iraq. "If Chalabi is the guy, there could be a civil war after Saddam's overthrow," one former C.I.A. operative told me. A former high-level Pentagon official added, "There are some things that a President can't order up, and an internal opposition is one. Show me a Northern Alliance"—the opposition group in Afghanistan that, with United States help, scored early victories against the Taliban—"and then we can argue about what it will cost to back it up." One thing to keep in mind about the 250k figure: Gulf War I involved about double that number, but it took many months to set up. And that was with full Saudi cooperation. The other thing to keep in mind is that without a Northern Alliance-type opposition organization in place, occupation would be much trickier.

To: E who wrote (21577)	3/17/2002 4:56:57 PM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

...it would allow our infidel military to be withdrawn from the Islamic holy land of Saudi Arabia, which presence is possibly the bitterest obstacle to any improvement in US/Muslim relations. It's a bitter thing for the islamist fundamentalists. Is it a bitter thing for most muslims? Even for a majority in Saudi Arabia? It's fundamentalists who launched 9/11. It's they who want to establish a caliphate stretching from north Africa to Indonesia. They want to remove the modern world from all of it and just keep its toys. If the US leaves Saudi for some nearby place it will become the islamist goal then to chase it from there. This is why they felt the US withdrawal from Somalia was so important. As for the Iraqi oil, it's probably a non starter in these calculations. At least, it ought to be. Having a secure, secular base in the region is attractive but mounting a war just for that end is extravagant. What would be the larger end - the long term purpose it supports? I think the theory you posted raises some interesting questions.

To: E who wrote (21577)	3/17/2002 6:02:41 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I've posted this elsewhere... is it spamming if you are having parallel discussions on two threads? This assumes that we have either the capacity to install a government capable of sustaining itself without our continuous support or the political will to maintain an army of occupation in Iraq for an extended period of time, meaning not months, but years and possibly decades. "Getting it all" might prove less than advantageous if what we get turns out to be a major headache, as long term commitments in unstable countries often prove to be. If we were running Iraq, the problem of what to do with those annoying Kurds would be our problem. The problem of what to do with those annoying Shiites (more than half the population, for the democratically minded) becomes ours. These problems will not be resolved in days or years. Do we want to deal with them? Those devoted to the study of military tactics and hardware often overlook the fact that wars are not fought to win battles or to destroy opposing forces. They are fought to attain political objectives. It is possible, if one selects a political objective that is sufficiently difficult to achieve, to win every battle and still lose the war. We should know this; it is what we did in Vietnam. In this scenario our objective would be the installation of a stable, self-sustaining, pro-western government in Iraq. This is probably not the easiest objective to attain. If we do invade - and I am in no way convinced that we should - I think it would be more reasonable to take the much more limited objective of removing or greatly reducing Iraq's ability to threaten us or anyone else. This could be achieved by simply destroying all weapons and weapons-production technology, then getting out and letting the place descend into chaos on its own. It would certainly become a mess, and whatever government arises will probably hate us, but this is likely to be the case in any event. I am not convinced that a major military base in the region would necessarily be a huge asset. To the extent that it would commit us to the continuing sustenance of an unstable government, it might be a liability. If we do invade Iraq, we will have to do it without land bases or with very limited use of them: our allies in the area are understandably reluctant to provide bases for an operation that they see as not in accordance with their interests. If we succeed, it will demonstrate that we do not need a major military base to perform such operations. If we fail, we won't have the base in any case.