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

To: Sam who wrote (217061)	2/8/2007 11:17:42 PM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 281500

Not just "may" not have been achievable; it could not be achieved. Well, yes, that's what I believe. I might also point out that those who criticize the American public for their lack of will to "stay the course" should consider the impact that the administration's inaccurate assessment of the challenges may have had on America's political will. Telling people that a hard job is going to be easy is likely to result in a failure of will down the line.

To: Sam who wrote (217061)	2/9/2007 12:15:19 AM
From: geode00	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

"The place is and has been a tinderbox for a long time." OK but how did Saddam and the Baathists achieve this? It doesn't make any sense to me to say that Saddam could do this while Bush could not given the incredible difference in resources. Is Bush + American Military + Britain + $750 BILLION less powerful, less effective than Saddam and his Baathists? Really?

To: Sam who wrote (217061)	2/10/2007 4:27:06 PM
From: Don Hurst	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

>>" To think that all that had to be done was get rid of Saddam was the height of idiocy and ignorance of history. Anyone who goes back to when Iraq was founded should have known this. Even before the Baathists came to power, there was no stable govt in Iraq. The country was basically made to fail by the British, and it hasn't improved much since. There were something like 57 different govts formed in Iraq between 1921 and 1958. Certainly not all of them failed through violence, but a number of them did. The place is and has been a tinderbox for a long time. "<< Sam, your above comment is something I have wondered about. Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, supposedly very knowledgeable ME scholars and historians, were advisors to the Bush Administration before the Iraq invasion and Lewis, I believe, even had personal meetings with Bush. What were they telling the Bushies? They still get space on the WSJ editorial pages (not a surprise) to write op eds as if they have some kind of expertise that should be worth paying attention to. I never had very much regard for either one. Their reputations should be a joke.