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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kumar who wrote (17453)	11/23/2003 4:08:38 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793721

Stay In Iraq For The Long Haul Hartford Courant Wayne McAuliffe November 23 2003 One of a number of conversations I recall from my time in Saudi Arabia has been on my mind a lot lately. It was an earnest discussion of "the threat" as I saw it and as my very senior Saudi navy host seemed to fail to appreciate. He quite agreed that Saddam Hussein was indeed an untrustworthy, maybe even evil man. Iraq under Hussein was indeed a threat. But I, like most Americans, grossly misperceived the long-term major problem of the region. The problem was not maintaining sanctions for three, four or even 10 years. Such a near-term issue was hardly worth discussing - it just took a little perseverance. The long-term problem was Iran. Sometime in the next few hundred years, Iran could be expected to become a real threat. Now, there was an issue whose solution needed discussion and debate. A true appreciation of time appears to have been lacking on my side of the conversation. A second conversation that won't leave me alone occurred a little more recently. While moderating a Naval War College seminar that included Israeli, Arab, American and other foreign officers, we considered how the Middle East might move ahead, despite its conflicted past. With the discussion headed for quick and predictable impasse, a young Coast Guard officer suggested the solution might be for a date to be set after which all violence on both sides would cease and all past wrongs declared null and void. From that day on, the region could move forward on the basis of rational negotiation. You had to love the naiveté. One of the Arab officers explained that his family could recite a list of grievances 1,000 years old for which he felt modern Israel needed to atone - and he considered his family less aggrieved than most from his town. The Israelis finally found grounds for agreement with their Arab counterparts. Not only do we Americans fail to appreciate time, we're oblivious to the past as well. We're a country whose history is shorter than the rest of the world's yesterday afternoon. It's easy to pick up artifacts in the antique shops of Istanbul that date from before the American Revolution. Most of these a respectable Turkish antique dealer wouldn't consider more than a little old. This is a city that actually lost track of a huge cistern for longer than the United States has been a country. So what's the point? Well, this: A year does not an occupation make. American forces won a war in Iraq in less time that the average European spends on vacation. American forces ensuring security until the summer of 2004 - or 2005, for that matter - will not make a dent in the psyche of a region where, historically, occupying forces stay for centuries and grudges are held for generations. We need to be careful not to apply our own standard that everything has to be done now or not at all. We need to remember that reconstruction of Europe took longer than the time between World Series. We need to remember that for a long time after the fall of Nazi Germany, American troops died at the hands of former SS and Gestapo operatives who refused to quit. We need to remember that its been more than 10 years since the Soviet Union fell and we're still wondering about democracy in Russia. The best hope for Iraq and for the Middle East is for Americans to hold on to the idea that a democratic Iraq can rise from the ashes of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime. We need to stay long enough to do the job right. We can't afford to let our attention slip on this one. Wayne McAuliffe is a retired U.S. naval commander living in Bloomfield. He is a former naval attaché to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar and Bahrain. He now markets naval helicopters for Kaman Aerospace International. Copyright 2003, Hartford Courant ctnow.com