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

To: paul_philp who wrote (57393)	11/16/2002 2:22:39 AM
From: Neeka	Respond to of 281500

IMO THIS is the crux of the matter. It was said on a live newscast from Baghdad tonight that the average Iraqi doesn't know what will happen next. That they have little if any information to go on. That on the only thing that could be found on Iraqi TV today was government programming of dance, and weather reports, and that there was absolutely no mention what so ever of the firing of missiles and the exchange between combatants in the No Fly Zone today. The reporter went on to explain that it was very difficult for western reporters to obtain visas to Iraq. The implication is that without information, the people are helpless to draw truthful conclusions, and therefore look upon western intervention as pure aggression [as told to them by their government.] Freedom is anathema to dictators. Their kind of crowd control, and human manipulation is wrong and violates the rules of freedom. I don't know if they have thought this through, but IMO THAT is the crux of the matter. The Iraqi people must CRAVE valid information. The mission of the war is to undermine the power of radical Islam and establish modern governments in the most important countries (Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria) while protecting the emerging modernism in Jordan, Qatar and Morroco. A powerful anti-modern movement in such an important region is simply not acceptable as the world's economy integrates. M

To: paul_philp who wrote (57393)	11/17/2002 3:07:37 AM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 281500

I believe it is a "War on Middle Eastern Instability". It was OK when they were killing each other but now they are killing us. I’ve done the stability rant elsewhere, won’t repeat it. If we declare war on Middle Eastern Instability, we lose. That places is not going to be stable for a long, long time, there’s a lot there that needs to change and a lot of old hash that needs to be worked through, and the process is going to be unstable. That’s something we need to learn to live with. We may be able to manage the instability, but we won’t make it stable. The mission of the war is to undermine the power of radical Islam… Agree, vigorously. …and establish modern governments in the most important countries (Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria)… Disagree, vigorously. Establishing modern governments in those countries is not within our power, and if we try it we will find our backsides in a nest of hornets that could make Vietnam look like a Barry Manilow fan club convention. These countries are going to have to learn that it is the governed that create the character of the government, not the other way around, and that modern government is achieved from within, not imposed from without. Don’t kid yourself, the process is going to be messy. Our job is to ease the process in what ways we can – and these are very much limited by the dynamics of the conflict – and to keep the mess off our own laps. …while protecting the emerging modernism in Jordan, Qatar and Morroco… Agreed. We cannot make modernism emerge, but we can defend and support those who adopt it. A powerful anti-modern movement in such an important region is simply not acceptable as the world's economy integrates. Trying to suppress a movement like this by armed force is like trying to suppress a fire by pouring gasoline on it. These people crave martyrdom; it is, as Shaw once said, “the only way a man can become famous without ability”. Why give them more opportunities for it. The antimodern movement will die not when we stamp it out, but when the people behind it realize that modernism has more to offer them than antimodernism. I am not convinced that this realization will be hastened by our resort to armed force. In this context removing Hussein has an urgent logic. First, he is arming himself with weapons than will shift the balance of power to his favor. I don’t think so. Shift the balance of power, maybe, shift it in his favor, not really. My natural skepticism also leads me to believe that the arrival of these weapons is a good deal less imminent and certain than some would like us to believe. When a government obviously wants a war, all it says to justify war must be taken with several grains of salt and a well-jaundiced eye. Time is on his side. I don’t see how. we mishandled the end of the Gulf War in a way that suggested a lack of resolve. This encourages the 'Bad People' to take more extreme action. I think we handled the end of the Gulf War in a way that, according to what was known and what could reasonably be projected at that time, made perfect sense. The stated goal was achieved and the conflict terminated. If we had stopped short of achieving a stated goal, that might have suggested lack of resolve, but we didn't. We set out to liberate Kuwait and neutralize the Iraqi military capacity; we did this quickly and efficiently and stopped where we’d said we stopped. The Bad Person that acted up had his army demolished and his rhetorical defiance rendered ridiculous; he lost control of his airspace and much of his country. I don’t see this as much encouragement to other Bad People. Third, a pro-US government in Iraq improves our position against Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the nexus of instability in the Middle East and we cannot allow the radical Islamists to gain any more power there. Imposing a US puppet in Iraq would, I think, enormously strengthen the Islamist base in Saudi Arabia. It has always been the Islamist contention that the US goal is ultimately to seize the oil, and a US-imposed puppet in Iraq would be seen as confirmation of this. I think you’d see Islamist power in Saudi Arabia rise dramatically if we took over Iraq. challenging Saddam encourages the dissent in Iran. Occupying Iraq would give the Iranian mullahs a clear-and-present-danger argument and a strong lever to persuade the country to rally behind them and against the oil-hungry imperialists and their local pawns. I do not think this would help the reform movement there. Of one thing I can assure you: there is nothing in the world that chops down the credibility of a 3rd world reform movement as fast as a perceived link to a potentially intrusive foreign interest. Saddam frees Jordan to accelerate it's modernization movement. Aggressive containment and deterrence can achieve that goal. The war against Al Qaeda is not a territorial war. We must kill the ideas behind Al Qaeda as much as the people behind it. Ideas aren’t killed by bullets, they are killed by better ideas. A better quality of life in Iran, Iraq and Jordan over the next 5 years is the single best weapon we have against the anti-modernist radicals. If we offer the people of the Middle East a place at the global table and hope that their children will have better lives, then we can combat the ideas of the radicals. I’d agree. I just think that a better quality of life is not something we can impose. If 9/11 was Pearl Harbour then Iraq is D-Day. We cannot fight the fight until we have a beachhead. The beachhead we need is in people’s minds, not on their territory, and there are few faster ways to close minds than to threaten them with invasion. The most effective weapon the demagogues have against us is the belief that we intend to seize their countries and their resources; we cannot afford to lend credibility to that belief. Essentially your argument is that regime change in Iraq is too risky. My primary argument is that using physical force to achieve regime change is a tactic inappropriate to the nature of this conflict. We are using the tactics of a war between nations to pursue a war between ideas, and I don’t think it will work. I also think that there are risk factors in the prospectus that have been inadequately discussed or overlooked altogether, but that is a secondary argument. There is merit to that argument but in war boldness and surity of purpose are needed. Boldness and surety of purpose are essential, but boldness without guidance and surety of purpose without clarity of purpose are as likely to produce chaos as they are to produce victory.