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

To: BigBull who wrote (27626)	4/28/2002 9:33:45 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi BigBull; Re: "You make some good points Carl, but one thing puzzles me. If Saddam abandons the oil fields in the north and south by withdrawing into Baghdad he can't pay his troops or more importantly the security forces and special Republican guards that protect his regime." Okay. Since Saddam was prevented from exporting any oil for several years after the Gulf War, I suppose that he was deposed already by a coup? I don't think so. If you look back in history, can you find a single example of where a despot has been removed by a foreign government using sanctions? I can't. Re: "Further if large parts of the country are cleared of his security apparatus and viable counter insurgencies are built, the need for a move to Baghdad may be obviated." This is what we were saying in the US when we threw Saddam out of Kuwait, and then established the no fly zones and kept his military out of the Kurdish regions. It didn't work. Now it's obvious that we have to go into Baghdad to get him, if we want to topple him militarily. That's house to house fighting, and that's why the military is talking about this not being anything like Afghanistan. Sure, more of the same thing we've been doing for 10 years might work, though it has never worked before in recorded history. And monkeys could fly out of my butt, even though I've had decades of experience with no monkey issues. The problem is that the US can't know for sure that what you are talking about would be successful. Sure, it might be possible to overthrow Saddam with this sort of stuff, but we've already been running the no fly zones for 10 years and it hasn't done a damn thing. To expect it to suddenly start working, especially when we're trying to do it without the support of the neighboring countries, is hopeful at best. US military policy is not based on hope. That's why we're not going into Iraq in a small way. Or in a large way without close allied support from nations in the region, which is diplomatically almost impossible to get. Instead, we'll simply wait, (just like we waited with the Soviet Union, just like we're waiting with the North Koreans, just like we're waiting with the Chinese), and eventually time will cure Saddam (just like it has or will cure the other problems listed above). This will either be by way of moderation (i.e. Franco in Spain), or a coup, or even natural causes. The only US option is an assassination, and while I think that this is a strong possibility, the problem with this is that turn about is fair play. We really won't be able to complain too much from a position of higher morality when other nations arrange the assassination of our leaders. I'm sure that to a person in the US, it must seem obvious that Saddam would be easy to get rid of. We got rid of Clinton, didn't we? But try to look at it from the point of view of someone living in Iraq. Saddam has been leading the country for decades. A lot of the people who went against him have been killed. You know that Saddam is mortal, and that someday he will no longer be alive, so why should you risk your life today to try and bring it around earlier? The Americans have been threatening him for 10 years with zero effect. Why would you want to risk your life today? Waiting is safer. -- Carl