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

To: epicure who wrote (155602)	1/8/2005 12:38:49 PM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

If the shiaa live in a moderate islamic state with democracy as athey claim and the Kurds become a robust democracy and settle their score peacefully with turkey, we will have accomplished something. I have no idea what happens in the four provinces in the sunni triangle and for them things might be worse or get worse as they were in saddams comfort zone for the most part. mike

To: epicure who wrote (155602)	1/8/2005 1:57:05 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Here is a question for YOU Nadine. If the US by their actions ends up killing more Iraqis than Saddam would have (and when I say killing, I mean both actually killing, and also setting in to motion events which lead to killing), and if the country ends up under an Islamic theocracy like Iran- just what will the Right have said to the victims of fascism? I love this "setting into motion" clause, thus neatly assigning blame for terrorists and criminals on the US, not on the actors themselves. This magical thinking is common in the Arab world - the US can do anything, everybody knows it, so everything that happens is their fault and they must have wanted it to happen. It's infecting the Left more and more, I've noticed. To answer your question, first of all, if the insurgents win, Iraq won't be a theocracy because it's the Baathists who are funding the insurgency and he who pays the piper calls the tune. Iraq would go back to being a Sunni dictatorship, a "Republic of Fear" and this would be catastrophic for the Iraqis. There is no denying that war is a high-risk option and losing one carries heavy costs. That does not mean that it is always the worst option, however. Saddam's "kill rate" ran to about 30,000 Iraqis a year; the US would have to kill many more Iraqis than it has to equal him. Iraqis now have hope, something they didn't have before; a majority of Iraqis say their country is moving in the right direction (not true in America, btw), which must be counted a real tribute to how awful it was before.