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

To: Condor who wrote (48477)	10/1/2002 11:27:35 AM
From: spiral3	Respond to of 281500

"Everybody is against Saddam Hussein. The question for serious people is what to do -- rationally and effectively -- to replace him without setting the entire Middle East aflame, and perhaps America as well." First problem here is that what is rational is not always effective and second problem is what is effective is not always rational. Third problem is that having an inability to delink these will cause deadlock because of our need to feel that we are acting out of principle. it seems that as far as iraq is concerned, the frog is slowly being boiled, the approach towards the meal being completed should be as follows. we do a time/lethality analysis calculating where the hockey stick starts petering out and set this amount of time aside to conduct inspections and destroy as much shit as possible. This has probably already been done so inspections can start tomorrow, with the full backing of the UN and tons of allies. In the meantime we foster unity of mind for what should happen next. Separate administrations should be set up and focused on the three main groups because smaller things are usually easier to fix, especially when there is plenty of honey around. There should be a timetable towards unification stretching over ten years. If they decide to unite fine, if they don’t fine. If we know what the dangerous weapons are, and I assume that mostly we do, and no-one tell us where they are, we should apply sharia to any weapons facility supervisor one finger at a time. These are people he trusts and we have to break that. In the meantime we find a way to start funneling money in via Hawala, effectively handing out reparations, showing that our intent is not ill will. We do this with the poorest groups first and with careful timing so that the others become jealous and want in on the action, which we promise in due course. This time we do not trick anybody except for Saddam. We could attempt this with the Republican Guard trying to encourage mass desertion. Total cost of giving everybody in Iraq a $1000 will be about $20bill - work backwards to get some idea of where you think the tipping point will be. If he has not decided to retire somewhere once the alloted inspection time has expired, we invade and put the dad back into the bag. There will be no need to hide our buildup, which is an idiotic idea, because he must understand what is in store with his noncompliance, which he does anyway. What is most important in all of this in avoiding an all out conflagration is that by the time the end of weapons inspections arrives we must have the question of his retirement entirely sorted out and have made decent progress with the three groups. We follow the same method used when the Israeli/Egyption peace was arranged beforehand, whereby the negotiations were for show while small details were being worked out. This way he is either contained or dead, the inspectors can leave, and a peace can be made. His capitulation is propagandized as a concern for his citizens and he becomes the mythic hero he always wanted to be. After a while he is assassinated, but no one ever finds out by whom, solidifying his role as a Martyr for his people. Any problems -g