I can’t let the anniversary of the start of the Iraq war go unremarked.
My thoughts are with everyone over there – our troops, our allies, and most of all the Iraqis.
Knowing everything I know today, I would have made the same decision three years ago – to support the invasion.
Knowing everything I know today, I still don’t know how it will come out. And neither does anyone else; so when you read proclamations of victory or defeat, I’d take a moment and reflect first on the messiness of history.
We are in an arduous struggle against a strong and evil enemy. We hope to win without becoming evil ourselves, and while that makes the struggle far harder, it is the only thing that makes it worthwhile.
[edited amazingly clunky grammar]
AL,
Good thoughts. But how do you come to terms with the fact that almost all the people who call themselves ‘liberals’ today are opposed to the war with every fiber of their being? They truly do think this is among the worst crimes ever committed (hence the frequent ‘Bush is Hitler’ line.)
How do you get along with other ‘liberals’? Will the rabid anti-war faction take over the Democratic party? Even the B-M-B Iron Triangle can win, as shown by how John Kerry got 48% of the vote.
GK- most liberals, and most of the country, agree on one thing. The Administrations incompetent handling of this war is why we are where we are today. It is a “nice try” to spin it with patriotic terms, and delusional visions of the “anti American Democrats”. You can push extremist language from the left all you want, and attempt to label it as the norm, but that does not make it so. Too bad for you that people are smarter than that, and everyone knows, this is one we should have won a long time ago, but did not because of political decisions made by the Administration.
#1- Not building a huge armed force after 9/11 when the nation had the political will to do so.
#2- Not having the patience to push the political initiative in the world scene to build a real coalition. Alienation of France, Germany, Spain etc. etc. etc.
#3- Not allowing the US Military time to build and train a force for the worst possible outcome of Nation Building in Iraq.
#4- Not senmding 700K to control the country after military Victory.
#5- Not backing the Western Sunnis in the Region. Not enabling the established authority to rebuild under a marshall type plan.
One could go on forever.
That is right my man, “THESE GUYS HAVE DONE A HECK OF A JOB!” Your man is no Ronald Reagan, and no Bush 1, for that matter.
Blame “liberals” all you want.
By the way, great post Armed Liberal. God speed to all the men and women of the US Armed Forces in harms way, this, and every night.
PC,
“Not senmding 700K to control the country after military Victory.”
May I enquire as to what sort of strange math you’re using that leads you to believe that this was even possible?
For me it’s becoming clearer and clearer that one of the biggest blunders, bar none, was not co-opting Iran early on in the aftermath of 9/11. Iran was already supporting the Afghan Northern Alliance and would have probably been quite eager to lend a hand in the toppling of Saddam if they felt they were getting something out of it. Instead they got slapped on the Axis of Evil list and perstantly antagonized to no gain whatsoever, and we now seem to be on an idiotic collision course. Machiavelli’s rolling in his grave.
700K possible… We just needed to wait one year to build an Army, that is it. If Bush jr had stood on the rubble of the WTC and announced to America his intentions to double the size of our Army and Marine Corps, it would have happened. If we had taken more time diplomatically to build a coaltion, it could have happened. 700K doable. 500K easily doable, if the Administation had done its job. If it had listened to experts like Zinnie, Stormin Norman, Powell, Skrocroft, Bush sr, Kissenger, Clark, etc etc etc. It did’nt. We did the first Gulf war with over 400K.
Now, of course, that the Admin has completely alientated the international community, divided the nation politically and religiously, of course, it is impossible. Think back to where we were after 9/11? The falgs, the enlistment rates, the whole world united behind us. Think about where we are today. All of that is a result of an arrogant foreign and domestic policy. Think about how Reagan and Bush 1 united the world, United our country, think about how much Europe loved Clinton. Think about where we are now. It is a shame what has happened to us. It is going to take us generations to get back what has been squandered… our image, our wealth, our stature as the only superpower in the world. What is the national debt now? How much are we borrowing daily? Are we better off, than we were 6 years ago?
Hell no.
And your point is well taken Matt, although I think that we should have aided the Sunnis to establish order, rather than the religious extremists. We can debate the Iran deal, one thing that cannot be debated, is if a nation with the population and wealth of the USA can produce an army of several million, we can, and have. We can do it in short order. The Nation just needs to be behind it.
PC,
My question was for Armed Liberal, not for you. You appear to be a typical fashion-parroter who thinks hindsight is wisdom.
What are your ideas for what we should do FROM NOW, going forward? Or are you just going to sit back, wait for something to go wrong (and ignore what is going well), so you can criticize it?
You won’t win any elections with your approach.
By the way, many countries are still pro-US, and these are countries with much large populations than France, Belgium, etc.
“Read this article and survey.”:http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/03/does_the_world_.html
PC,
Even assuming for the sake of argument that doubling the size of the Army and Marine Corps was politically feasible in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 (which is questionable), and assuming that the voluntary recruits would have been there (which is even more questionable), I don’t think you quite appreciate just how long it takes to train soldiers properly. If you want good soldiers and good unit cohesion, you’re looking at a good two years of training and socialization. Of course, if you just wanna fill body bags, you can do that in a few months.
Moreover, the first Gulf War was intended to be an in-and-out operation that only lasted a short time. You can afford to tap most of your resources for something like that. For a prolonged occupation, you need to leave a large number of troops at home so that you can rotate them in and out as the months and years go on. You can push it if you don’t care about troop readiness or morale, but let’s just say that’s not wise.
However, let’s expand our view to encompass more than the US. It’s worth remembering that back in early 2003 both Russia and India were considering sending substantial numbers of troops (40K and 17K, respectively). China probably would have considered similar numbers, had they been asked. Ultimately these boots failed to materialize for political reasons (i.e. none of them wanted to be seen as endorsing Bush’s intention to flout the UN), and because it wasn’t clear that the US had a plan for what to do in the aftermath. Their trepidations turned out to be well-founded, as it happens.
Bush’s gut instinct about Saddam needing to go was correct, but he has such an utter tin ear for diplomacy that he didn’t make much of an effort to sell it to other nations in terms of what was in it for them. Some of this was unavoidable: Germany and France would probably have never signed on in any case, and Turkey’s last-minute defection was a political calculation to appease France and Germany, who had it within their power to quash Turkey’s entry into the EU. But nevertheless, the overall dipmomatic effort toward the truly big players was pretty unimpressive.
I have to take issue with this:
“…although I think that we should have aided the Sunnis to establish order, rather than the religious extremists.”
Seriosly: huh? You do realize that Sunnis have been responsible for most of the violence in Iraq, right? Why on earth would it have been a good idea to side with the hated minority over a majority Shi’ite population that was much more friendly? You’ve got the strategic logic backward.
Now, of course, that the Admin has completely alientated the international community, divided the nation politically and religiously, of course, it is impossible. Think back to where we were after 9/11? The falgs, the enlistment rates, the whole world united behind us.
Or maybe you have a false impression of exactly how united the U.S. was politically, both at home and abroad prior to the war in Iraq?
Ronald Reagan alientated hundreds of thousands in western Europe during the Cold War…remember all the huge protests for disarmament and removal of the very weapons that were defending Western Europe against potential Soviet aggression? From a geopolitical perspective, 9/11 was a terrible event the global community could rally around that temporarily cast aside the growing post-Cold War opposition to U.S. policy on a host of issues (ie. ICC, Kyoto, Trade, Economics, etc). Alot of that good will, which was sincere but temporary, evaporated the day U.S. bombers showed up in the skies over Afghanistan.
Aside from that, maybe a unified front with the policies of France, Germany, China and Russia is overrated. I don’t hesitate in saying there is probably no policy that would’ve resulted in Russian, Chinese or French troops patrolling the Sunni triangle.
In conclusion, I would question the amount of weight you are giving to the idea that after 9/11 there was some new-found global unity that was only derailed through the policies of the current administration. The French and Chinese complained everytime Clinton had to order an airstrike in retaliation for US pilots being shot at in the no-fly zone and as early as 1997 both were actively lobbying to have sanctions removed from Iraq. So they weren’t much more supportive of the containment policy either.
GK, I think there are liberals (Nancy Pelosi and Schumer), and there are liberals (Marc Cooper, Norm Geras, myself), just as there are conservaties (William Buckley) and there are conservatives (The Powerline guys).
The problem is that you can see everyone who takes one position or the other, just a bunch of spokespeople.
I think you’d be shocked at the number of war supporters who have liberal domestic views.
A.L.
This is the same view I held at the time of the Invasion, that we should have held off and built a bigger Army. That we should have done a much better job in terms of Diplomacy at home and abroad. Two years, ok. Give it two years then. No rush, this “War on Terror” could last for lifetimes. Essectially, we are fighting Muslim Extremist. There are still other threats to the interests of the USA, as you know. Beleive it or not, I am not armchair being an armchair QB.
The violence in Iraq from the Sunni’s is do to the fact that we dispanded their army and held a policy of De Bathification until we realized it was screwing us. You forgot to mention that. We never gave them a chance to be a part of this, until very late in them game. They were the ruling power. Now, we are aligned with the likes of Al Sadir, and Iranian backed Islamofascists, you prefer that?
What we should do now, well, hard to say. To be honest, there is no easy answer because we have lost the initiative and the domestic support for the war. I am not sure we should even have a nation building policy in Iraq.
If I were president, what would I do? I would tell the American people that I have made a huge tactical error not going in with the proper planning and manpower. I would re deploy. In effect, at this stage, I would take the advice of Conservatives, and not neo cons. Like this man, and many others like him from past administrations.
http://niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ask_this.view&askthisid=129
That is what I would do.
MATT-
One last point, The President is advocating that the majority of the IEDs being used in Iraq are coming from Iran, that would indicate that they are being used by Shiites. So….?
Anyhow, check out the Odem Article. Smart man. We could use a few adults at the 1600 club.
AL,
I would be pleasantly surprised. War supporters with domestic liberal views often call themselves ‘Libertarians’. Of course, some who call themselves Libertarians are more interested in the legalization of pot than anything else.
I often fear that 10% of the US population is very anti-US, effectively rooting for the terrorists. Beyond that, 30% are what I call fashion sheep, who simply think in a manner that the media tells them to. After 9/11, they waved flags, because that was fashionable. Today, they oppose the Iraq War, mistaking hindsight for wisdom, because that is fashionable.
So, overall, what percentage of the US population shares our views on the principles of War on Terror (as imperfect as the execution of it has been)? Is it 50%? 70%? 80%?. What do you think it is?
PC: Not senmding 700K to control the country after military Victory.
Yeah, that’s only twice as many people as we had in South Korea in 1953, and only three times as many as we used to keep the Soviets out of Western Europe. Our maximum deployment in Vietnam was about 500,000 – for a very brief period of time in 1968, after which it rapidly dwindled to zero.
Yeah, it was really crazy and incompetent of Bush not to send 700,00 people to Iraq, tripling the number of Americans deployed overseas. It’s so obvious to the Democratic military strategists, but Bush is just so dumb.
So I guess if one of the armchair generals at the DNC had been in charge, we would have sent 50+ divisions to Iraq. Plus an undetermined number of Frenchmen and Germans!
But I already know your answer to that. Of course, if the Napoleons of Liberalism had been in charge, we never would have gone to Iraq, the only country in the world that was 100% free of terrorism, and squeaky-clean of nasty chemicals, too.
Instead, there would have been 700,000 troops in New Orleans the day after Katrina hit, holding back the sea with their hands. With the help of NATO, the UN, and a couple of Syrian infantry divisions. Assuming that we got international permission, of course.
Note that I am not turning off the sarcasm tag. It remains locked and loaded.
I agree, AL. My thoughts are with the soldiers. And, even given the mistakes made, I would still support an invasion today.
“I’d take a moment and reflect first on the messiness of history”
It’s important to remember that there was a great deal of dissent before and during WWII. It wasn’t unpatriotic, but it was wrong. The world is a much better place because we helped take out Hitler (funny how the Bush=Hitler crowd seems to be calling the kettle black).
I don’t think that France or Russia would have joined the coalition on any terms considering their lucrative oil contracts.
AL, you wrote a good article that’s stimulating interesting comments.
I’m amazed at the various assessments of whether we are succeeding or failing. It seems even hindsight is not helpful to some. There are good arguments for doing things exactly the way we have done.
While many of our actions may seem improper or untimely to some (primarily to those who find fault in ANYTHING this administration does), I think we have done well. Our leaders had to initiate a certain course of action not knowing for certain what the enemy was going to do. In this regard we made many good decisions and even caused the Iraqis to do certain things that played into our hands later.
To further complicate the situation, the enemy also adapts to our tactics and changes its own strategy and tactics; we cannot know in advance how fast the enemy will adapt nor how it will adapt. Our military commanders have shown incredible flexibility and brilliance in many of our responses to the situations encountered throughout Iraq, especially when you consider there are a multitude of different strategies encountered simultaneously in different parts of the country, each requiring a different response on our part.
Of course, you wouldn’t know this if you just followed the disjointed and misleading MSM reports. How many MSM “news” articles have you read just stick to one operation or area at time? Most articles I’ve read bounce around from one part of the country and to another with each passing paragraph; I don’t think the writers even understand what’s going on. Not only that, but a lot of inaccurate commentary is attempted to be passed off as “news” in the reports.
I really like the alternative news sources such as this site, or billroggio.com or fyste.com, to give a broader and more accurate assessment of progress or failure in Iraq. There are many such sites. I highly recommend reading as many as you can. No matter how diverse or unconnected (by region, unit or rank), they almost always seem to reinforce each other, too, adding to their credibility.
I also take specific exception to several conclusions or opinions expressed. For example, there is not an authoritative argument that an absurdly large number of troops should have been amassed prior to invasion. Get real! The time delay alone to enlist and train 700,000 would have allowed the enemy to also amass additional defenses (not just personnel). Furthermore, the rapidity of our deployment and invasion probably far improved our effort than the addition of more troops. Think what the supply lines and coordination problems would have been like with four or five times the number of troops we actually used. Is cost a concern to you? The total cost would have been much higher, too. And having fewer troops can easily send a message to the Iraqis that we are NOT trying to occupy their country, and that THEY are going to have to be responsible for their own security. What better way to make them learn this important lesson.
If we had overwhelmed Iraq with massive troop levels and provided everything for them, we would just be reinforcing a welfare state mentality, and you know how hard that is to change (just look no further than our own country). No, I think our decision to use a minimal number of troops was a splendid and unexpected decision. Besides, hindsight reveals our incredibly professional and capable troops have done and are doing an amazingly successful job by any standards of measurement.
Who can rationally say we have acted hastily in this matter? Get real! We did amass a large coalition, though for some people any size coalition would not have been enough. Get serious about saying we alienated various “important” countries like Germany, France or Russia, etc. Those countries were never allies nor were they concerned about our or the world’s best interests. They were only concerned about their own selfish monetary and power interests; it actually seems their political leaders were more concerned for their personal interests than for their citizens’ interests.
Many other negative arguments regarding our performance and decisions in this war are similarly discredited.
PC,
“The violence in Iraq from the Sunni’s is do to the fact that we dispanded their army and held a policy of De Bathification until we realized it was screwing us. You forgot to mention that.”
Perhaps I forgot to mention it because it’s not half as obvious as you seem to think. Most of the Iraqi army deserted anyway, so the official “dissolution” of the Iraqi army was pretty much an afterthought. Personally I would have been content with rounding up everyone above the rank of lieutenant and placing them all under arrest rather than a complete dissolution, but I am very skeptical that this had a particularly large impact. The carbombings in particular have been carried out by Salafi jihadis, not disaffected Ba’athists.
“Now, we are aligned with the likes of Al Sadir, and Iranian backed Islamofascists, you prefer that?”
Actually I’m on record as wanting Sadr dead during the first little uprising he lead. To this day I remain baffled as to why he wasn’t killed in the first place.
“The President is advocating that the majority of the IEDs being used in Iraq are coming from Iran, that would indicate that they are being used by Shiites.”
No, it would not indicate that. Sheesh. Did it not enter your mind that the IRGC is funneling IEDs to the Sunni fighters? Because that is, in fact, what’s actually going on. That’s part of my point — Iran wouldn’t be doing that now if the US had treated them as a partner in this venture rather than taking every opportunity to antagonize them. There are some unsavoury Shi’ite militias, but they aren’t the ones blowing shit up. Read Tony Cordesman’s description of the insurgency, you might actually learn something.
ET: I really like the alternative news sources such as this site, or billroggio.com or fyste.com, to give a broader and more accurate assessment of progress or failure in Iraq.
Excellent commentary. I share your view that the administration has done what might reasonably be done in Iraq. News reporters just aren’t knowledgeable at all about military matters and are in no position to either comment on or choose reliable sources on military topics. And that’s leaving out their predisposition to favor America’s enemies.
Anyone who wants to have some basis for comparing the way the war has been prosecuted should stop reading either blogs or the news, and pick up a few books about both conventional and guerrilla wars – not the “analyses”, but an accounting of winners and losers, body counts, length of war, atrocities, and so on. A lot of news reports on Iraq are just so much useless mush – they are Army of One reports about what war does emotionally to individuals or groups of individuals. They are the equivalent of the tightly-focused shots of anti-American demonstrations to make the crowds seem bigger than they really are. They are also the moral equivalent of the BS essays that non-technical people like to use in science-related tests in order to cover up their ignorance. The reality is that war is hell.
In big wars, lots of people are affected. In small wars, far fewer people are affected, but they are affected by the same trauma as the people in big wars – relatives are killed or grievously wounded. But this doesn’t mean that a small war is anywhere near as tragic as a big war. Yet this is the impression that the media are trying to foist upon us.
After the destruction of Saddam’s conventional forces, the campaign in Iraq has turned out to be a series of skirmishes. It is terrible for the families of the soldiers killed. But that’s the nature of warfare. And in the larger scheme of things, this is one of the lowest friendly body counts in a major guerrilla war that we (or anyone else) have encountered.
We could have made this a much less painful exercise for American soldiers. After Baghdad fell, we could have administered what East Asian powers have done to ensure submission after defeating the other side’s main forces – mass executions of able-bodied males. It worked for the Imperial Japanese Army during WWII and for the Chinese and Vietnamese Communists in their respective post-liberation eras. They did this not because they were evil or the spawn of Satan, but because they held the lives of their men to be more important than the lives of potentially hostile civilians. And the subject populations cowered before this display of force because it’s well and nice to talk about self-rule and killing those who seek to dominate you, but when the potential consequence is the death of you and everyone you know, most will choose to submit.
But we are PC, and the rules of earlier wars don’t apply. At heart, this is why we are sustaining the (minimal) casualties we are. The hard reality is not that guerrilla warfare is tough, but that it takes a long time. The enemy doesn’t have to come out and fight until he’s good and ready – and he can hide out for decades.
Ted Kaczynski maimed and killed people for 18 years, and he was one man who lived in a country that was not sympathetic to his avocation. It would be crazy to think that Iraqi guerrillas can’t keep the fight up for at least 10 years, especially since they live among a sympathetic population that may run into the millions. During the Malayan Emergency, the British military fought a ethnic Chinese Communist force in (majority ethnic Malay) Malaya for ten years. During that period, the governor (High Commissioner) of Malaya was ambushed and killed, despite the fact that the guerrilla were fighting mainly with surrendered Japanese weapons stores from WWII, and numbered no more than a few thousand actives during their peak. These guerrillas fought on for twenty-odd years after the British left, until China’s Deng Xiaoping stopped funding them in the late 1970’s, in an effort to rally Malaysian diplomatic support for China’s invasion of Vietnam in 1979. But this multi-decade guerrilla war is the model that the Brits keep pushing – and they hail it as an example of British flair for these kinds of operations.
Bottom line – (1) the media doesn’t have a clue what it is talking about, (2) look at history, not what pundits and/or ex-military men claim to be possible, as your yardstick for relative success and (3) despite the hoopla, this has been a relatively easy guerrilla war.
As to questions of why there was a guerrilla war in Iraq and none in Germany or Japan – it’s actually pretty simple – we burned their cities down and killed millions of their soldiers and civilians. They were exhausted and practically starving. 10% of Germany’s population was killed in WWII. 4% had been killed in WWI. Germany was all fought out. Something like 4% of Japan’s population had been killed in WWII. They had had enough. All the aggressive young men in Japan or Germany who wanted to fight the foreigners seeking to hold their countries down had either been killed or had been in combat long enough to discount romantic accounts of military glory and were tired of the constant fear and danger. Iraqi Sunni insurgents will eventually reach that point. But we are not there yet, and no amount of American planning would have convinced them that it was better for Shiites to rule Sunnis than for Sunnis to rule Shiites. They just have to get to the point where they realize they can’t win and they are personally tired of risking their lives for the cause. And that will take years.
Matt Mc– Iran was approached numerous times to get with the program, to no avail. Why?
Because Iran wants Persian Empire 3.0 and the US stands in the way. Hence unremitting hostility towards the US. Understandable in another sense as Iran wishes to destroy the engine of modernity and change (the US) before it destroys their culture with literacy, urbanization, and hence secularization.
There is nothing we could have done or offered to make Iran NOT be our mortal enemy. They want us destroyed so modern culture doesn’t destroy their tribal Dark Ages culture; and an empire in the ME besides.
That being so, it makes sense to destroy them before they can try anyway and destroy us. However at 2003 it was unclear if Iran would get with the program or not, hence Saddam drawing the self-selected short straw.
Matt- If the introduction of IED’s into Iraq from Iran is an excersize being undertaken agaisnt the wishes of the Iranain Gov, why is our gov insinuating that it is a Iranian Government sanctioned action? In short, who are our allies in the region? Iran is a memeber of “The Axis of Evil”. They have publically advocated for the anihilation of Israel. They are attempting to build the bomb. I fail to see how aligning ourselves with such a hostile power will help us.
Zhang- Your point is taken. You seem to have a pragmatic approach. However, what is your view on the cost in terms of dollars. How does this improve our global position economically. Does it hurt our ability to compete with China, the EEUU and others? Can we continue to deficit spend at this rate, forever? If not, what is your view on when we will reach critical mass if this deficit spending continues?
One final point. The polls. No one here has addressed the fact that the polls show the public no longer supports this war. We can find all the “reasons” we want for this, but it does not change the reality. Without public support, how do we win if it is going to be as long, costly, and arduous as many of you are saying?
Did anyone read the link I posted?
ET:”we had overwhelmed Iraq with massive troop levels and provided everything for them, we would just be reinforcing a welfare state mentality, and you know how hard that is to change”
Yeah! Stop looting your nieghbors and get a job! Seriously, a welfare state? I think having another 100,000 troops (don’t we have a few in Europe that aren’t being used?) would be worth preventing rioting and looting and (gasp!) establishing peace for the first few months. (For further reading on mismanagement read Atlantic: welcome to the green zone, Nov. 2004)
Zhang Fei: I have trouble reading sarcasm online. Are you seriously advocating widescale slaughter of individuals, or just joking around?
The Media: American news is incredibly bad at following up any news story if it’s complicated, so it’s not biased, just lazy. Additionally, it follows the sensationalist story (ie things blowing up) over less sensationalist stories. Again, not a specific bias per se. Finally, many journalists are terrified to walk through down town baghdad, which makes travel to many succesful parts of Iraq difficult (apparently Kurdistan is ok…)
Wether you agree with the war or not, you have to admit that the administration has badly handled almost this entire war.
1)Took almost a long time for fullscale training of Iraqi troops (atlantic, Why Iraq has no army. dec. 2005)
2) Power situation still critical
3) Difficult to get fuel for Iraq civilians
4) Despite claim that 15 provinces are peaceful, 20% of Iraq population lives in Baghdad, were things are very, very bad. as a result of which:
5) The pollitical process is hampered by kidnappings and assasinations
6)The professionals needed for rebuilding Iraq
(Doctors, Engineers, Business Ownders) are leaving in droves.
And then there’s Allawi:
It is unfortunate that we are in civil war,” former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told the British Broadcasting Corp. “We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.”
I’m not neccessarily going to argue civil war yet, but I will argue that things are getting dire in Baghdad.
“The Media: American news is incredibly bad at following up any news story if it’s complicated, so it’s not biased, just lazy.”
I totally agree with this, but one element of laziness is a tendency to assume what you naturally believe to be true. In other words you tend to fact check things that seem odd to you more assiduosly than things that fall in line with your expectations. That’s just human nature.
“Finally, many journalists are terrified to walk through down town baghdad, which makes travel to many succesful parts of Iraq difficult (apparently Kurdistan is ok…)”
True and these two factors leads to a weird dynamic. Journalists wont go to where its peaceful because its boring and they wont go to where its violent because its dangerous. The end result is that they end up generally staying in safe enclaves and getting their news from the Administrations (which they must question- rightly so) and use stringers to investigate. The downside of this is that reporters are basically stuck playing gotcha with their military/administration sources instead of digging up their own news.
“And then there’s Allawi:
It is unfortunate that we are in civil war,” former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told the British Broadcasting Corp. “We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.”
Its important to remember that Allawi is a politician fighting for a job and hence his conclusions are suspect. We can all think of plenty of examples of what Civil War looks like historically and contemporarilly that are orders of magnitude bloodier than we are seeing now.
Rockford,
“Iran was approached numerous times to get with the program, to no avail.”
Um, excuse me? When? Was this before or after they got slapped on the Axis of Evil list? What does “getting with the program” mean in this context? When did the White House ever take anything other than an overtly hostile posture toward Iran? When has there ever been a serious effort to work with them rather than just make demands while offering nothing in exchange?
“There is nothing we could have done or offered to make Iran NOT be our mortal enemy. They want us destroyed so modern culture doesn’t destroy their tribal Dark Ages culture; and an empire in the ME besides.”
Oh bullshit. Repeat this three times daily: rhetoric is not reality. The Iranian regime wants power and influence, and frankly they have that whether the US chooses to acknowledge it or not. The question is whether that influence is constructive or destructive. Taking down the Taliban and Saddam was a huge boon to them. There was a significant alignment of interests for the US and Iran in both Afghanistan and Iraq, which could have led naturally to strategic co-operation that would have made life easier for the US. Instead of taking advantage of it, Bush pissed it away.
PC,
“If the introduction of IED’s into Iraq from Iran is an excersize being undertaken agaisnt the wishes of the Iranain Gov, why is our gov insinuating that it is a Iranian Government sanctioned action?”
Uh, hello, the IRGC is part of the Iranian government, under Khameni’s command. I never said their meddling wasn’t sanctioned by the Iranian government, merely that it wouldn’t have been if Iran had a stake in a stable Iraq. They could have and ought to have, but they don’t because they know bloody well that as soon as the US has a free hand militarily they’ll be sitting ducks.
Iran is a memeber of “The Axis of Evil”.
I KNOW. THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN. THAT WAS MY ORIGINAL POINT. Oy vey.
“They have publically advocated for the anihilation of Israel.”
Yes, and they’ve been ritually intoning this for over 25 years. And if you believe they truly care much about Israel as anything other than a political distraction, I’ve got some seaside property in Wisconsin to sell you. Like I said to Rockford, repeat this three times daily: rhetoric is not reality. And if you can’t seperate the two, I have to wonder what you’re doing commenting on politics.
“They are attempting to build the bomb.”
Yes, and? You say this as if it’s something distinctively nefarious. All the more reason to make them feel like they’ve got a stake in using what power they have constructively.
“I fail to see how aligning ourselves with such a hostile power will help us.”
Well that would be your own personal failing. “Hostility” is not a constant, it’s a variable. Nobody in the White House has made a serious effort at making Iran’s government believe that co-operation would be in its best interests. There should have been a “Nixon goes to China” moment with Iran immediately following the invasion of Afghanistan, but instead Bush went 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Even now I think something can be salvaged, but Bush shows no signs of wising up.
Matt,
good to see some sense on Iran. There are few things I don’t like about Bush, but his attitude toward Iran is one of them. Sanctions should be lifted, Iran’s drive towards civilian nuclear power should be supported and all the antagonising should stop. As you say, Iran would make a great ally in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even with all the antagonising they’ve been quite helpful in Afghanistan.
Axis of Evil or not, I’m not so sure Iran would ever had honestly taken part* in an alliance with America. Yes, they may have done it, but with the intention of shafting the USA as soon as possible.
I think that those who say it is possible have to provide evidence.
* That sentence stretches English grammar a bit
Fabio,
Evidence? How’s this: there was a meeting in 2001 just prior to the Afghanistan invasion between Iranian diplomats and NSC people where potential co-operation in Afghanistan was discussed, they supported the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and several militias in Iraq, were helpful in Afghanistan in general despite getting cold-shouldered, and even now are entering talks with the US over Iraq. They’ve signalled multiple times that they’re willing to negotiate and gotten their hand slapped away every time up to now. I don’t doubt for a moment that they have their own interests in mind, but that is exactly my point: there is a large overlap in US and Iranian interests as far as Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned, and Bush ought to have recognized that. France has its own interests in mind too and occaisionaly steps on the US’ toes, but we understand that’s part of the territory and work around it.