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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George Papadopoulos who wrote (7551)	11/18/1998 8:04:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 9980

George, I was referring to individuals and terrorist groups. Guys like Osama Bin Laden etc. We must observe, though, that these groups have yet to use weapons of mass destruction. From this we can conclude either that they are not so easy to obtain and deploy as some would have us believe, or that the terrorist groups can obtain these weapons, but are not using them. If the latter, it can only mean that the states backing the terrorist groups refuse to allow them to use these weapons, presumably because they expect awful retaliation. In other words, the policy of deterrence has so far been successful, though we have no way to determine how long it will remain so. In any event, what other policy option exists? One that comes to mind regarding Iraq is the way that the US has tried to deal with the anti Sadamm internal opposition. Never really backed a particular group with enough money to make a difference. Again, a complicated issue. The Kurdish rebellion against Saddam is regional, aimed at secession; it can weaken Saddam, but cannot remove him. US policy toward the Kurds is also constrained by our relationship with Turkey, an ally which has its own Kurdish rebellion to deal with. For this reason the US can defend Kurdish territory, but cannot supply significant amounts of money or armament. I am not aware of any other anti-Saddam group which can be overtly supported. If resistance exists within Saddam's turf, it must by definition be deep underground, and any support for it would have to be invisible. The status quo in Iraq is not good; the deployment is expensive, and the sanctions have been destructive. But how can the sanctions or military deployment be lifted, in the absence of any real change in Iraqi policy, without effectively conceding victory to Saddam? While many decisions made regarding Iraq may appear to be defective with benefit of hindsight, most seemed entirely proper at the time they were made. Yes, the policy did not follow a preconceived set of rules, but evolved as the situation did. This could be called inconsistency, but how could it have been otherwise? Steve