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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (4041)	11/2/2006 10:46:47 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10087

Re: "Leaving now would result in a decline in American credibility" Oh... I see now. It's simply because you DESIRE things to be a certain way. You want these things to be true. You see hallucinations. My argument has no connection to "I want it to be that way so it must be that way". I thought I was pretty CLEAR about the obvious benefits... but let's go over them again: 1) Both sets of extremists (Sunni & Shia) exhaust themselves, and their causes, in bloody fratricidal warfare against each other. Thus DEGRADING any military (or even political) threat they could pose to those out-of-region. (One exemplar I gave of this was the previous Arab/Persian conflict in the decade-long Iran/Iraq Gulf War: Over one million killed. Both nations near bankrupted, and their military potentials severely degraded. BOTH Autocratic regimes left near collapse, and deeply unpopular with their respective people. I thought that was your anticipated long term benefit. There is no way that would be a short term benefit. If they could so easily and quickly exhaust themselves than they already would have done so. Even the Iran Iraq war only was a temporary and partial exhaustion, and that war wasn't a short term thing it took 8 years. Iran and Iraq both continued to be a problem, so the benefit to the rest of the world wasn't really that great, and during the conflict each became more of a problem not less of one. Also I don't think war that big is either likely or desirable. If your talking about a million or more dead that's a major disaster not a benefit. Re: "That study also said pulling out without accomplishing the mission would provide a big boost to the support for extremists. It directly supports my claim, and you conveniently ignore that fact." No it DIDN'T. You free to choose your own opinion, but not to make up your own facts. You can argue that the report is wrong or unreliable, but then that weakens any argument based on the part of the report that agrees with your opinion. "perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere." informationclearinghouse.info Re: "I think you exaggerate the extent of the likely war... You also assume there will be no winner, at least for some time. I don't think that's a safe assumption." Define what the term 'winner' means to you in this context. Emerging stronger, and with more support. Specifically within Iraq it might mean controlling Iraq, or at least exerting total control over large sections of it, and being able to use these areas to recruit and train more fighters and terrorists to its cause. In that sense both sides could win. You could have a radical Shia area/state and a radical Sunni area/state. That may still be rivals, and occasionally work against each other to an extent but that aren't focusing all their attention on each other. You can't seriously* expect anyone to believe, though, that the Shiites are going to defeat the Sunni world, or visa versa, in any ultimate sense.* Totally and forever defeat? No of course not. But tactically beat back the other side, while gaining strength that they could use against us? Yes that could happen. Or they could come to at least a temporary accommodation with each other and focus on their common enemies. The idea that they would just ignore the US and the west while they exert all their efforts on destroying each other, for any protracted period of time is naive. And even if they do so for a short time, it would only be if they where involved in such a major battle that the destruction and general negative results would make things much worse than they are now. Meanwhile the pullout from Iraq would cause our enemies to think us weak and our current or potential allies to think us unreliable. More moderate and/or friendly states in the region would be undermined, or would move towards accomidation with our enemies.