<You predictions are pretty accurate if the situation doesnt turn around in iraq quickly.>
I'm going to take you off ignore, where you've been for a long time, and see how it goes......
A lot of people are now questioning their previous support for the war. They are not questioning the Administration's ideology (just about nobody agrees with my Christian pacifism). Rather, they are questioning the tactics, and the competence, of the Bush team.
I actually am quite optimistic, about the eventual victory of secularism, market economies, democracy, and liberalism. Those ideologies have defeated all the Absolute Monarchies, and fascism, and communism. Islamism is just the latest version of authoritarian response to what Jefferson started. And Islamism just doesn't work. As a method for organizing society, it was obsolete by the 18th Century. We can see, in Afghanistan under the Taliban, and Iran under the mullahs, that Islamism doesn't make people happy, wealthy, or free. I take it as a given, that any nation ruled by Islamists will be hated by the majority of their population, after a few years. The communists actually were more competent, and posed a worse threat, than the Islamists.
The only factor that could make the Islamists a worse threat, the wild card in the deck, is nuclear weapons. And, unfortunately, the cat is out of the bag, Pandora's box is wide open, it's too late to keep nukes out of the hands of our enemies. Pakistan has nukes, and is willing to sell their technology to any and all, including America's enemies. N. Korea has (or soon will have) nukes, and they too will sell to anybody with cash, and there isn't a thing that Bush or Kerry can do about it.
So, how do we act, in a world where Islamists have nukes? Don't tell me we can keep nukes out of their hands; haven't we had enough of wishful thinking, and way-too-rosy forecasts?
The answer is, we have to go back to what worked to defeat Communism: containment and deterrence; an essentially defensive military posture. We will defeat them, by providing a better example, and patiently waiting for their own people to overthrow the Islamist regimes. It's not flashy, it's not heroic, it's not a quick fix, it's not what the Lone Ranger would do, but that's what will work. And the sooner we adopt that posture, the sooner we will be on the road to (eventual) victory.
The current posture, of aggressive "forward defense", will simply provoke nationalist revolts, wherever we try it. The essential mistakes of the Iraq war:
1. we failed to follow the Powell Doctrine, and
2. we had no proxy force available, to hold the ground after we'd smashed Saddam's regime.
It's too late to fix those mistakes. It's way too late, to win the HeartsAndMinds battle in Iraq. "Staying the course", the policy of both Bush and Kerry, will just waste more lives, and more dollars, and more prestige. After all the PR about championing freedom and democracy, we are turning Iraq over to "reformed" Baathists, and "reformed" Republican Guard generals, and "moderate" mullahs. |
