Iraq disintegrates

[Skyrad 0]

I just saw G W Bush on the news saying he's got it wrong in Iraq and its not working. Blimey

Three options

1) Forget democracy and stabalise Iraq.

2) Partition Iraq

3) Phased withdrawl

Its a mess. Its also no longer winable.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610170008
No wonder its in the state it is.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[freethefly 6]

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I just saw G W Bush on the news saying he's got it wrong in Iraq and its not working. Blimey

Three options

1) Forget democracy and stabalise Iraq.

2) Partition Iraq

3) Phased withdrawl

Its a mess. Its also no longer winable.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610170008
No wonder its in the state it is.

So much for democracy building...
I wonder how many Iraqis are wishing for the good ol'days when Saddam ruled the roost?

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

[billvon 3,078]

>I wonder how many Iraqis are wishing for the good ol'days when Saddam ruled the roost?

Who knows? Rate of violent death was lower under Saddam, but at least the threat isn't coming from the government nowadays. And on the plus side, Iraqis are now free to flee the country if they don't like it.

[opurt 0]

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Now this is scary.

An article from the Armed Forces Journal talks about exactly the same sort of division of Iraq. Iraq becomes:

Sunni Iraq
Free Kurdistan
Arab Shi'a State
Baghdad city-state
...

Here is an animated map of the Middle East. It shows the different empires and the territories they controlled fading in and fading out.

Gives one a bit of perspective regarding the establishment and partition of modern Iraq.

(NOTE: the map seems generally accurate, but I haven't seen a discussion on snopes or similar as to it's accuracy.)

[kallend 2,108]

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> And on the plus side, Iraqis are now free to flee the country if they don't like it.

Sometimes the silver lining is hard to locate...

Iraq is a quagmire of our making.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 2,108]

Lest we lose track of important things among the Congessional scandals:

69 American boys killed in Iraq so far this month.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[opurt 0]

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Lest we lose track of important things among the Congessional scandals:

69 American boys killed in Iraq so far this month.

For perspective:

About 120 people died yesterday on the nations highway. 120 more will die today on the highways. 120 grieving families a day. 120 times a day, day in, day out, police show up at a family's house with the ghastly news. (FYI, the yearly traffic death stat is on page 7 of that PDF file. Divide that by 365 and you get the daily death rate.)

Of course, being in Iraq is many times more dangerous than driving on the nations highways.

My point is that the question we should ask is, "Is the mission worth it?"

Dead and injured soldiers have a lot of political force. That force should be used for the good of the country, not just for petty local politics, IMHO.

[billvon 3,078]

>Here is an animated map of the Middle East.

It's _way_ oversimplified; the idea that at any given time you could describe most of the Middle East as completely under any one empire's control isn't that realistic. But it's a great overview of how often control within that empire has passed back and forth between the various empires of the region.

[redlegphi 0]

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>I wonder how many Iraqis are wishing for the good ol'days when Saddam ruled the roost?

Who knows? Rate of violent death was lower under Saddam, but at least the threat isn't coming from the government nowadays. And on the plus side, Iraqis are now free to flee the country if they don't like it.

In my limited experience, people don't particularly care where the violence is coming from, they just want it to stop. This is part of the reason the Taliban was able to seize power in Afghanistan after decades of civil war. Sure, they were ass holes, but they brought a level of order that allowed people to gain some level of predictibility and peace in their lives. For the same reason, I think we'll be seeing (are seeing) various powerful personalities gaining more and more individual power for themselves as this war drags on and only they are able to bring peace to areas (muqtada al sadr springs to mind).

[4201 0]

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>I wonder how many Iraqis are wishing for the good ol'days when Saddam ruled the roost?

Who knows? Rate of violent death was lower under Saddam, but at least the threat isn't coming from the government nowadays. And on the plus side, Iraqis are now free to flee the country if they don't like it.

------------------------------------------------------------

That's for sure.
What happen to the good old days when all an ordinary Iraqi had to worry about was not pissing sad dam off. Hell, if you even mentioned terrorism back then, you would be in some shit. Now you have to be a terrorist to not be in a world of shit. But your right, they can always flee!

[4201 0]

Oh i forgot though.

"The world is safer without Saddam Hussein."

[4201 0]

My favorite bush quotes.



BUSH WANTS OSAMA DEAD OR ALIVE... "I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" [President Bush, on Osama Bin Laden, 09/17/01]

...BUSH DOESN'T CARE ABOUT OSAMA "I don't know where he is.You know, I just don't spend that much time on him... I truly am not that concerned about him."[President Bush, Press Conference, 3/13/02]

[Amazon 7]

Sounds like a flip flopper to me......why arent the Swift Boaters and other Ultra Right Wing smear groups all over this...

[4201 0]

ahh, it's old news. I thought it sounded bleeding heart. Guess i shouldn't have said it. Why kick a man when he's already down? Especially with his own shoe.

[tbrown 26]

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>the only problem of a kurd state is that the rest of the
>country is wanting the cash that the mineral rich kurds have.

And the Kurds will want the oil that the rest of the country has. I sense an opportunity for some trade here!

I think a recognized Kurdistan nation is a wonderful idea. But the US will find an excuse to stab them in the back, probably to suck up to Turkey. Ironic that we'll probably kill the ONLY success story in Iraq ourselves.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[juanesky 0]

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So per predictions three years back, Kurdistan is now becoming a reality. They have their own flags, they have passport controls at their borders, and they barely pay lip service to the government in Baghdad. Kurdistan is signing contracts on their own. Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader, recently prohibited the display of the Iraqi flag within Kurdistan.

There's a lot of talk about what will happen if Kurdistan secedes, but in effect it's already happened. And I hope we have the wisdom to let them go. Sure, maybe it's a "defeat" to someone who still believes all the nonsense about a unified democratic Iraq, but Kurdistan is working - there's less violence there than nearly anywhere else in Iraq.

And that leads me to consider a similar solution for the rest of Iraq. Most people are talking about two options:

a) Pull troops out now; the country will likely collapse into violence.

b) Leave troops there forever, at least until it becomes so much like Vietnam that we are forced to leave.

Perhaps there's another option. Baghdad is getting worse day by day, and it's pretty clear we need more troops there to quell the violence. So pull all our troops into Baghdad. Make the entire city a "green zone." Support the Baghdad government with our military, and set them up with excellent defenses/border controls.

This achieves objectives sought by both US political parties. The democrats can get a significant reduction in military deaths, since it will be a lot easier to pacify a city smaller than Los Angeles than a country the size of Florida. It will likely be possible to reduce the size of the military once the current violence is quelled; you could double the number of troops in Baghdad and still send the majority of US troops home.

The republicans get their desperately-needed "victory in Iraq." The primary objective of PNAC - a stable US-supporting democracy in the Middle East - will happen, albeit on a smaller scale. And since there will be constant border clashes, they will still have an active "war on terror" to point to when they need something threatening, or when they want more money.

Outside Iraq, the various regions would likely devolve to Afghanistan-style warlord control. Some will likely remain friendly to Baghdad. Some regions will support extremists like the Taliban, but that's no different than what we have now in Pakistan. Some will align themselves with the Kurds or the Iranians, which is also OK - it's up to them.

The city of Baghdad itself would likely become a Shi'a stronghold, controlled implicitly or explicitly by the US. That's important to many military types, because the last thing they want is a Shi'a country willing to ally with Iran (another Shi'a country.) Sunnis could stay or move to Baquba, Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra or another traditionally Sunni city/area.

This voluntary division would also have the great advantage of heading off the threatening civil war by allowing the country to divide without as much bloodshed.

Finally, while violence will likely continue outside Baghdad, I strongly suspect it will decrease once the 'occupiers' have left. More importantly, it will not be US troops doing the killing; that will allow the emnity we've fostered in those areas to slowly die. No doubt it will be replaced by a new hatred, but at least we won't be directly fostering the development of the next anti-US hate group.

Bill, you may want to revisit this theory of yours, as you never left the option 3.

3. Win, stabilize the country, with the help of locals, sheiks, etc, help them as we have done in the past wars, in Germany, Italy, Japan for example.

"According to some of the conservatives here, it sounds like it's fine to beat your wide - as long as she had it coming." -Billvon

[Skyrad 0]

Its not over until the fat lady sings. Remember what happened last time someone started shouting "Mission accomplished"

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[juanesky 0]

I guess with are going to have to wait a long time then till your old piece of crap queen sings then?

"According to some of the conservatives here, it sounds like it's fine to beat your wide - as long as she had it coming." -Billvon

[christelsabine 1]

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I guess with are going to have to wait a long time then till your old piece of crap queen sings then?

Holy Goat.

Culture never hit your corner of the world, right?

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[kallend 2,108]

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I guess with are going to have to wait a long time then till your old piece of crap queen sings then?

Holy Goat.

Culture never hit your corner of the world, right?

I think he's still sore over the Falkland Islands.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[juanesky 0]

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I guess with are going to have to wait a long time then till your old piece of crap queen sings then?

Holy Goat.

Culture never hit your corner of the world, right?

I think he's still sore over the Falkland Islands.

Hmm, last time I checked neither Venezuela, Spain, or US (which I'm a citizen of) had any claims, or territorial waters to those islands.

Check your books there Kallend. The only sore I have if any, would be of pulling my trigger to many times these days.

Wish me happy hunting, as it seems the area has become too quiet and it's harder to find decent "game".

"According to some of the conservatives here, it sounds like it's fine to beat your wide - as long as she had it coming." -Billvon