Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: michael97123 who wrote (153097)	12/1/2004 10:45:56 AM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Um, that's a lot to address, and I'm going to do it somewhat obliquely. In terms of what you see coming, I'd say that you are apparently not the first to see that particular direction; the handlers seem to have been out in front of you by a year or so. And what the heck, they should have been, they had better information. Gone was the presumption of a long-term occupation, the very basis of action at the CPA until that time. The idea now was to limit American casualties, or the perception of them, and to "accelerate" the handover of sovereignty to Iraq by the end of June—an adequate four months before the U.S. elections. Bremer's freedom of operation would not be restricted so much as radically lopped off; he could come home before the summer, cool down at his new house in Vermont, and maybe write a book. Iraq would no longer be his problem, and by extension it would be less of the President's. The Green Zone would become an "embassy." And with Iraqi sovereignty would come some measure of Iraqi responsibility and blame. ( from theatlantic.com , quoted in somewhat greater context in techstocks.com , article in full at techstocks.com , is the new SI ever going to fix URLs anyway? ) As far as the "harms way" stuff, that was actually always a problem; I would refer you back to an older Langewiesche article, pre-9/11 even, that I noted pre-war as an indicator that occupation wasn't going to be the cakewalk that the cheerleaders asserted: theatlantic.com . So what now? The most optimistic scenario I see is some Sistani backed organization winning elections, politely asking us to get the hell out, and cutting a deal with the insurgents. Leaving the W and his latter day great gamers to go through their usual PR offensive to explain what a great thing it all was anyway, but if the past couple years are any indication , they're more than up to the task and will have plenty of help from the "objective" peanut gallery. The breakup scenario is maybe more probable, but what can anybody do at this point? I will just note in passing that the "happy" Kurds seem to be on record against January elections and leave it at that. The US could, perhaps, in principle, go in with enough force to actually secure the country, which might open up better possibilities but in practice that's highly improbable. For one thing, it would sort of require the never-changing war president to admit mistakes were made, which even after the election seems forbidden. There's no indictation that the US could muster enough resources at this point, either. And anyway, there's no guarantee it would work at this late stage. So, disengagement it is, for better or worse. The amusing part will be the inevitable PR offensive explaining it all. I'm sure the buck will stop somewhere in the vicinity of Timbuktu or something on that one. I just hope the people who brought us this war don't make up some "lessons" to justify an Iran war or something equivalent as a followup, but unfortunately that's a possibility too.

To: michael97123 who wrote (153097)	12/2/2004 2:33:36 AM
From: wonk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

...if a united iraq became impossible after all of this, i would not be unhappy with the three state solution. I hope for the united iraq scenario but i am enough of a realist to accept that its not much better than a 50/50 shot. If we end up with a 3 state solution, it will represent a catastrophe for the US. Why? Because putting aside the arguments of whether to go in the first place, if we knew the result would be three-state we could have had that without the massive loss of blood, treasure and reputation. We would have rolled the troops into the north and south, and stopped before the Triangle. 1. In both areas, there would have been sufficient troops to insure stability and security, i.e. no looting and little likelihood of insurrection; 2. There would have been a generally favorable populace for debaathification; 3. Reconstruction resources could have been effectively applied; 4. Homogenous culture / religious composition would likely have ensured swift and effective political handoff; 5. Since the oil and food resources exist in large measure in the north and south, Baghdad and the Sunni triangle would have been economically strangled without us doing a darn thing. Instead of an end-game in which we could have looked like heroes, we are perhaps left with the exact same end-game where it could be reasonably argued that to many around the world we have become a rogue force on the planet. The Abu Gharib matter is in my mind the most damaging incident to Americas’ reputation in my lifetime (and I am no longer young). Regardless of the 'rightness' of intent, our efforts have become the greatest recruiting poster possible for Al Qaeda. It took 20 years for the US military to “get over” Vietnam, and now we are straining it to the breaking point and making the exact same strategic mistakes again. All the while, our rivals and enemies (and I would never say we don’t have both) delight in our conundrum and implement their own plans to improve their position to the detriment of US interests (and such plans will have been accelerated and furthered with such a "success" on our part). But that is the nature of “diplomacy” and “statecraft.” Now you can comeback and say hindsight is 20/20 – and that is true. But is also true that a horrific strategic miscalculation is still a strategic miscalculation. Hitler should have let his army withdraw from Stalingrad. World War I was caused by 2 decades of strategically myopic and foolish decisions (a good reference, see the book “Dreadnaught”). Napoleon, one of the greatest tactical commanders of all time was both arrogant and foolish to attack Russia, but his strategic miscalculation was to ignore the festering sore of Spain at his backdoor. Hannibal, also one of the most brilliant commanders of all time, stayed in Italy ten years too long, and the result was that eventually the Romans salted the earth of Carthage. History is repleat with examples. Tactical miscalculations lose battles. Strategic miscalculations lose wars, nations and empires.