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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (177507)	12/8/2005 7:17:42 PM
From: Keith Feral	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Juan Cole tends to revert back and forth from a great source of information to an extreme liberal that wants to vent his left wing lecture style criticism against Bush. Of course the Baathists want to return to power. Who wouldn't!! Of course it's impossible now that the US has restored the Shia and Kurds to power in their respective regions. The Baathist Party has been completely outlawed by the new Constitution. I doubt the Shia or Kurds are so naive they would accept a reformed Baathish regime that would annilate the freedom fighters. The Sunnis were plain stupid by avoiding the first election. It cost them the seats necessary to negotiate a favorable constitution that would have paved the way for a Baathish revival. They won't make that mistake again as they realize the key tenant to democracy is representation in the government is absolutely essential, no matter what you think of it. Now that they are believers in free elections, they will have to follow the game plan. They have been coerced into the democratic process. In the long term, I doubt that the Sunnis would have any reason to associate themselves with the Baathists that remain in Syria. Who knows, they are getting so much help from the Shi'a in Iraq? It's a deliberate cluster fuck of identities. Who is a Persian or an Arab, a Sunni or a Shi'a, a Sunni Kurd or a Salafi Sunni? Is the government a secular dictatorship or a Islamic fundamentalist regime? Perhaps they are a moderate Islamic regime even though they want to see Israel wiped out? The only key is isolation. Keep the killers in one country from uniting with the killers in the next country. Seems easy to do since the brutal repression of the government is supposed to be so effective. Why can't the majority of the Shi'a in Iraq brutally repress the minority Sunni in Iraq? It's not like they aren't capable of brutality. I think the Saudis like to see the US taking order in Iraq to keep the Persian aggression from Iran spilling over, even if it means watching their Sunni brother lose control of Iraq. It is one sick exercise in risk management any way you look at the situation. People like Juan Cole can't accept the reality that we have been drawn into the confrontation by our enemies and we have no choice but to take control of the situation. Now, the negotiations can start by which the Sunnis use their political leverage over the jihadis to restore more peace. They will trade as much wealth and power as it takes to buy down jihadi attacks. That is their only strategy for success. It will take a long time for them to buy down the US military presence and other key bargaining chips. It all seems so obvious to me. However, they might want to keep in mind it would be better to have the US forces around to protect their necks from the Shi'a that are have been under insurgent attack for 2 and a half years. It would be better to have around the US military to keep the bloodshed to a minimum.