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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (119648)	11/15/2003 4:28:01 PM
From: FaultLine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawkmoon, It is definitely a repercussion of not actually forcing all the Republican Guard and Fedayeen to surrender... Message 19505415; Very nice post Hawk. Thanks. --fl

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (119648)	11/15/2003 5:17:46 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Respond to of 281500

Thanks for your reply... I'd posted my question before seeing the Stratfor link a few messages later. In that analysis, they didn't really see an organized group looking to take over the country, but I have my doubts that those involved in the attacks against the coalition are motivated by simply seeing Americans leave, after which they will be on good behavior. There is just so much at stake. Another thing that has saddened me is that I believe a program to make EVERY legitimate Iraqi citizen a shareholder of the country's oil resources through some form of trust (Iraqi "Permanent Fund") would have given the people as a whole the incentive to support a new regime. And such a fund would go far to preventing any particular regime from attempting to gain full control over those resources, while making them directly accountable to their own people for the management of them. This is an interesting idea, and is related to my belief that almost all of these billions of dollars "owed" by Iraq are just so much monopoly money, and that the real debt is far lower. Most of that "debt" should be simply written off, first and above all by countries that are owed money for arms shipments to the Baathist regime. But also the vast sums owed to Kuwait and S.A. - they'll never collect a dime in reality, above all if Iraq falls into some form of anarchy, and it smacks of those inflated accident settlements that are so popular in the USA. Such accident settlements are full employment acts for adversarial teams of lawyers; something similar is going on with the money Iraq supposedly owes at a geopolitical level. Concerning the aftermath of all this - there have been some hysterical doom and gloom messages about what happens if the House of Saud falls. I suspect that while it won't be good for the global economy, it won't directly bring the world economy to a death spiral. People will probably just buy their oil from the new regime and that will be that, unless we (the US) try to seize control of the oil fields. Look how the world looks the other way with North Korea.... had bin Laden not carried out 9/11, I am certain that the Taliban would still be enjoying their summer training camp in Afghanistan to this day, and the world news media would occasionally bleat about the treatment of women or the dynamiting of ancient buddhas and that would be all. Until, of course, the new occupants of Saudi Arabia finally get their hands on nuclear weapons, then the world might care.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (119648)	11/15/2003 11:13:01 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<The only way there will ever be peace in Iraq is some group of "federalists" finally are forced to own the problem of creating stability and social order and justice.> Hawk, you can't force somebody to own the problem. Iraq seems a bit like Yugoslavia. Tito went and then there was fractiousness as religious and tribal groups shuffled for power. Nato sorted it out and put Milosevic back in his box. I think Iraqi fragmentation into what the locals seem to think are identity groups, Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites is the answer, with a reconstituted United Nations acting as federal supervisor and each country running their own place. The federalists you describe should logically be the New United Nations. A bit like we have the Queen as Head of State and all she does is call elections and act as a civilizing influence. If push comes to shove, she can dissolve the political situation and call new elections. In the global scene, the elected head of the NUN would have only the power to call elections. Not be mister bossy-britches. If there's civil insurrection, as there has been in Iraq, then NUN troops and police would stablize the situation, as is now being done in Iraq by the COW [Coalition of Willing]. Since the USA likes democracy, they'd obviously love such a NUN federal system. Simple really. Mqurice