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

To: Win Smith who wrote (35840)	8/3/2002 1:38:56 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Sharon had a plan there that looked pretty concrete compared to the current handwaving on Iraq. And the world would be in considerably better shape today if he'd been allowed to complete it.

To: Win Smith who wrote (35840)	8/4/2002 10:13:21 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi Win Smith; I found my copy of "The Longest War", by Dilip Hiro, which is about the Iran-Iraq war. The author claims that that conflict was the longest conventional (non guerilla) war in the 20th century: search.barnesandnoble.com He makes it clear that the reason the US supported Iraq is that the Iraqis were a secular regime, while the Iranians were Islamic fundamentalists who had done little to liberate the Americans held hostage there during the Carter administration. Iraq had bad relations with the Shah because the Shah (along with Saudi Arabia and other gulf states) saw the Baathists (the Iraqi and Syrian political party) as an enemy of the monarchies in the area. The US preferred the Shah because the Baathists were (a) talking about combining all the Arab states into a single force, and (b) aligning it with the Socialists. But when the Shah was deposed the resulting regime made the Baathists look good. One of my problems with going into Iraq is that we have zero control over what the resulting regime will be. The Germans and Japanese were beaten into submission, the Iraqis cannot be (i.e. if we did kill 5% of the Iraqi population our leaders would be sentenced as war criminals in Geneva). The other problem is that we may make the same mistake that the Iraqis themselves made when they attacked Iran. They saw Iran as being a state unable to care for itself due to internal fighting. But their attack on Iran had the effect of mending Iran almost instantly, and cemented the radical Islamists into power there. The above book is beautifully done. It has 10 maps of the region. Choice on the book, from the above link: This outstanding book, must reading for anyone wishing to understand the background of Saddam Hussein's ill-fated seizure of Kuwait, helps to clarify the often bewildering and contradictory political signals coming out of Iran over the last decade. Hiro writes clearly and, although the style is somewhat journalistic, the end product is balanced . . . and carefully done. He is ableto capture the horror and grinding depression of the long drawn out ground campaigns and, at the same time, to see the extent to which Saddam Hussein perceived that such a war of attrition staved off an Iranian victory. Even more telling--and relevant for an understanding of recent events--is Hiro's careful accounting of the US support for Iraq. . . . {The author} concludes by pointingout that neither Iraq or Iran had lost its interest in building up its warmaking machine by 1989. -- Carl