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

To: Rascal who wrote (113895)	9/4/2003 1:53:03 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I don't think they exactly said it was a quagmire. There was one currently trendy line that struck me, though. Mr. Bush would be much further along in rebuilding Iraq had he taken the advice of his Pentagon advisers and recruited more Iraqi allies well before the war. Um. I assume from other contexts that this is a reference to the neocons' favorite Iraqi expat, Chalabi. Given that Chalabi doesn't seem to have been able to round up any significant support on the ground post-war, with the occupation force backing him up, how, exactly, he was supposed to have been able to do anything pre-war is mysterious. I guess this is just another case where I'm showing I'm not with the "'we know everything and everyone else is stupid' civilian team running the Pentagon" (tm Friedman) team.

To: Rascal who wrote (113895)	9/4/2003 1:58:10 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

I'm encouraged by this new plan, not because it will work, but because it represents a clear defeat for the NeoCons. This new plan is the first, but only the first, of the fall-back positions they will be forced into. <A brigade or two of Indians could relieve the U.S. Army around key points in Baghdad as well.> Doesn't anyone realize, that the Iraqis know what the Indians have been doing in Kashmir, and that India is ruled by violently anti-Muslim Hindu fundamentalists? They will be less welcome in Iraq, than US troops are. <Our friends the French will want a piece of the oil business they had under Saddam, and they'd also like a say anointing any new Iraqi government.> Doesn't anyone realize, that the Iraqis know what the French did in Algeria? Notice, the idea of Iraqis controlling their own oil and government, isn't even raised as an option. He's talking about replacing U.S. Hegemony NeoColonialism, with UN Condominium NeoColonialism. Colonialism by committee. Ugh. Bottom line: <A million Marines won't be enough if the Iraqi people aren't on our side.> And this is true, whether they are US or French or even Pakistani Marines.