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

To: GST who wrote (155005)	1/1/2005 12:44:23 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

It probably wasn't winnable even as a multilateral action- at least not as Iraq is now. A multilateral force would have had similar goals, and would have run up against similar problems- and I just don't see how those goals could have been met. If the people of Iraq want a better form of government, they will find some good leaders, and support them. No outside agency can do much to reform a society, unless the society is rising out of ashes- not something the US, or a multilateral force, would be willing to do to Iraq (though I guess Falluja comes close...)

To: GST who wrote (155005)	1/6/2005 7:59:44 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The truly hardest thing to accept is that Iraq was not winnable as a unilateral US war. By the definition of unilateral that you have been using it would only not be unilateral if it was a quick and direct response to an Iraqi attack on another country, or a declaration of war against the US or one of our allies. Combine that with the statement quoted above and your argument seems to be that the US might be able to defeat Iraq if Iraq unquestionably started the war but could not possibly win in Iraq, either by itself or as part of a coalition, even a coalition of the rest of the world except Iraq (going by your "gang rape is still rape" argument), if Iraq did not clearly start the war because such a war would be "unilateral". Tim