Media and most political attention to the "War on Terror" has lately been focused on Pakistan and Afghanistan, perhaps leaving the average American news consumer under the illusion that the US disengagement from the Iraq war is proceeding smoothly and on schedule. For months, MSM reports about election preparations in Iraq lack the urgency of the high-stakes poker games we are reading about in stories from Kabul and Islamabad.
The Iraq narrative, related in an unsexy drone, except for the scattered attacks, bombings and beheadings that in recent years have come to be viewed as almost normal, is most remarkable for what is not happening: progress toward the political reconciliation that American military effort has surged to allow. With major US troop withdrawals scheduled over the Summer, this lack of progress is stirring unease among military experts, who worry that civil war could result from a premature exit of American forces.
Thomas E. Ricks, a Pulitzer prize winning former Wall Street Journal reporter, who has written extensively on defense matters, including two books on the Iraq war, argues in a NYTimes op-ed today, that President Obama should consider softening the deadline for ending the war, saying the Iraqi government will most likely not be strong enough to stand on its own for the forseable future. What he does not offer is any scenario more hopeful than what we beheld in the days immediately after Saddam Hussein was toppled. In another op-ed in the same issue, Tom Friedman wonders whether Saddam was a brutal dictator because that was the only way to hold Iraq together.
Is Iraq capable of peacefully sharing power [and oil wealth] among three different cultures? Are good faith negotiations to that end even possible under the American occupation? These will remain unknown until all foreign forces leave. Until then, the intrigues and manipulations by numerous individuals and factions of various interested outsiders make for an unstable political environment indeed.
Since 2008, America has been paying with blood and money for the relative tranquility in Iraq, and thus avoiding possibly disastrous consequences of its 2003 invasion. Will the likelihood of civil war diminish as we buy time, making an extended stay by American forces worthwhile? Or are we, after thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars spent, in exactly the same place we were in the summer of 2003?
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"Tom Friedman wonders whether Saddam was a brutal dictator because that was the only way to hold Iraq together" - CORRECT.
ReplyDeleteHistory teaches that this part of the world is consistently brutal. They understand and respond to sheer force. Unlike the West, they have not adopted democracy (except for Israel. Which is why it is such a diamond in the rough.) Its mostly against their nature and their culture. In that way, we might say that they are mideaval. But that's just who they are.
Either we have to come to grips with this reality, or plan on converting the entire region to democracy. And since we're obviously not out to nation-build, the most realistic plan that we can have is to at least leave them to their own devices, so long as they don't plan on killing us or Israel.
" ...the most realistic plan that we can have is to at least leave them to their own devices ... "
ReplyDeleteWere it not for the oil, that would have been our policy from the beginning. How will we protect our oil supplies?
Easy. Build as many nuclear plants as we can; and DRILL, DRILL, DRILL!
ReplyDeleteOver time, we can develop better solar, wind and bio fuel alternatives. But over time. IMMEDIATELY, however, we can do the above.
Our legislators have choked us off from our own energy, and I submit, forced us to rely on foreign oil. In 2010, nuclear energy technology is extremely safe and clean.
And our own oil drilling and processing capabailites are amazing, if we can ever get them going over all the red tape and noise.
It's not that easy. Our drilling and processing capabilities are working full time - in the middle east, Africa and South America. The fact is, we just don't have the oil we need in our territory.
ReplyDeleteLately, Obama is pushing nuclear energy, but if you have been following the decertification of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, we have not completely ironed out the maintenance and disposal issues yet.key
The operators of that plant were looking to sell the plant as it nears the end of its useful life [it's 38 years old], and avoid the decommissioning costs.
Really the key here is conservation, but it can't be unilateral. If we cut our oil use, but China and India continue to surge, we haven't really made progress.