Any solution to Iraq?

Matthew

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I noticed that McClain is making a big deal about the resolution in Congress opposing the troop build-up, saying that it doesn't offer any solutions.

Once you've rashly jumped into something and made a gigantic mess, there isn't always a good solution at your disposal anymore. It shouldn't be a surprise that no good solutions are being put forward. Truly good outcomes in Iraq are not possible at this point. We don't belong there, we never belonged there, and we need to pull out - that's the solution. And yes, it's a bad solution among many solutions that are even worse (including all that recommend our continued presence there).
 

JustAsking

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...However having contributed to the problems in Iraq, even if we haven't actually caused them, I think we're duty bound to try and sort them out - if it's achievable. :smile:

Thats just my point. It is probably not achievable for the USA to sort things out. If in trying to sort things out, we are only exacerbating the problem, then we should just stop doing that. What you are saying sounds fair, but in practice it is just causing untold loss of life and tons of misery. That overrules any sense of "you broke it you have to fix it." kind of fairness. My approach is "you broke it, you are continuing to break it with your attempts to fix it, your attempts are causing others to break it further, so get out."


I find a number of things about your post slightly alarming JA.

... I can't see that the occupation and trouble is anything other than a direct consequence of US foreign policy. I don't think that anyone denies that proper thought had not been given to the aftermath.

Unsavoury though it sounds, a very strong leading party should be aided to gain firm control. After this we will part company, as I do not look at the region in terms of US interest. I would like to see a strong independent Middle East, with a strong reforming Arab League. Naive though it will sound to some, good relations should be nurtured between the west and Islamic countries and people.

Image:OttomanEmpireIn1683.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Image:Age of Caliphs.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Suppose I replace the references to "the West" with "the USA". You might agree with my list more if I did that. You might be right that a solution may exist, but I have very little hope the USA could find it and execute it.

I noticed that McClain is making a big deal about the resolution in Congress opposing the troop build-up, saying that it doesn't offer any solutions.

Once you've rashly jumped into something and made a gigantic mess, there isn't always a good solution at your disposal anymore. It shouldn't be a surprise that no good solutions are being put forward. Truly good outcomes in Iraq are not possible at this point. We don't belong there, we never belonged there, and we need to pull out - that's the solution. And yes, it's a bad solution among many solutions that are even worse (including all that recommend our continued presence there).

Yes, that is my point, too.
 

kalipygian

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W's desire for personal rule, and his poor decision making ability have many parallels with the first 15 years of the reign George III.

The Duke of Grafton, on learning of the plan to use Hessian mercenaries(sold into servitude by their Duke) 'He informed me that a large body of german troops was to join our forces, and appeared astonished when I answered earnestly that his Majesty would find, too late, that twice that number would only increase the disgrace, and never effect his purpose'.

The earl of Chatham, who had been a highly competent PM, and had been replaced with more obedient ministers: 'If I were an American as I am an Englishman, while their was a foreign troop on my soil I would never lay down my arms, never, never, never!'

To the House of Lords:
You cannot conquer the Americans. You talk of your numerous friends to annihilate the Congress, and of your powerful forces to disperse their army, but I might as well talk of driving them before me with this crutch . . . You have been three years teaching them the art of war, and they are apt scholars. I will venture to tell your lordships that the American gentry will make officers enough fit to command the troops of all the european powers. What you have sent there are too many to make peace, and too few to make war. You cannot make them respect you. You cannot make them wear your cloth. You will implant an invincable hatred in their breasts against you . . .
MY lords, you have been the aggressors from the beginning. I say again, this country has been the aggressor. You have made descents upon their coasts. You have burnt their towns, plundered their country, confiscated their property, proscribed and imprisoned their persons . . . The people of America look upon Parlaiment as the authors of their miseries. Their affections are estranged from their sovereign. Let, then, reparation come from the hands that inflicted the injuries. Let conciliation succeed chastisement, and I do maintain that Parlaiment will again recover it's authority, that his Majesty will be once more enthroned in the hearts of his American subjects, and that your lordships-as contributing to so great, so glorious and benignant work-will receive prayers and benedictions of every part of the British empire.

Good advice not taken.
 

dostoy

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There are all kinds of examples for success and failures in military and political endeavors. The USA has had phenomenal success when the will was present and failure when it was not.

Vietnam is an example of what was failure. There were political constraints that hampered that war. If the USA had just invaded the north it would have been over and very likely the Killing Fields of Cambodia may never have transpired, the USA shares a measure of guilt in that.

The USA is committed and to avert even more guilty blame we should give it one more shot. We should fire Bush if required to. There are any number of impeachable offenses but we should not give up on the basic humanity of the Iraqi people. We could even draw down the number of troops in Iraq today if we actually implemented some unconventional strategies.

This time around the same thing was allowed by the USA. There was a "political correctness" that does not understand what it is to invade, conquer, and yes subjugate a people.

On the other hand I agree that we should leave Afghanistan. It needs to be done to draw Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden back out in to the open and into our special forces target sights. There is one man, maybe the only man, who really needs to have secular, human justice dropped on him. We can't leave Al Qaeda in Pakistan for much longer since they are inevitably attempting to undermine Musharaf.
 

Nitrofiend

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The Republicans jumped the gun in invading Iraq and now we all have to suffer. Any withdrawl would create a political vaccuum that the fledgling Iraqi government would not be able to contain. As a result, the Middle East will further destabilize on the grounds of us backing down. War by definition is the breakdown of diplomacy and unfortunately there never was any diplomacy to fail in the war in Iraq.

So what now?

We cannot withdraw, yet people don't want to increase troops -- the great conundrum of our time. Now comes the debate of who's to blame. Why should we resolve a war that we did not support in the first place? Why should we pay for the Bush Administration's mistakes?

I'll tell you why. It's because America has presented herself as the guardian of the free world, and now that image is no longer substantiated by reality. For too long we've gloated to the world about our values, our accomplishments and our economic triumphs, thinking we know what's best for the world, and thinking that we in fact are the world. We've intervened in regions that we should have never stepped foot into. We've valued one American citizen to be equal to one hundred nonamericans, and thus have put a price on our lives.

Now our enemies are taking advantage of that concept.

For every man or woman or child that detonates themself, the net loss to us is one hundreth of a person, but the net gain to them is one hundred innocent lives taken. Now we are scared to defend our own sanctity of life. The enemy has used our own arrogance against us. Our high standard of living is our Achilles heel -- and it will be our undoing as a nation united.

The only steps toward a just solution in the War in Iraq will have to come in the form of a period of self-reflection among ourselves as a nation. We must admit our wrongdoing in allowing this catastrophe and others like it, and apologize to the world for our actions. The American public are as much responsible for Iraq as is the entire US government. The day that democracy fails, and the will of the leader abdicates the will of the people, is the day where we must take it upon ourselves to stand together and assert our rights as a majority to be recognized and heeded.

We cannot blame Bush anymore. One person cannot represent over three hundred million opinions. We are all at fault in letting this happen and for allowing ourselves to be hoodwinked by our own values. All solutions to Iraq can be justified as correct ones. There is no right or wrong in politics. The Administration will play out all extremes good and ill, and there will be an outcome -- one way or another.
 

SpeedoGuy

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Remember when Bush administration spin bots were assuring us that the elimination of Baathists like Saddam or Al Quaeda thugs like al Zarqawi was going to result in an improvement in the situation in Iraq?
 

kamikazee_club

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Thats just my point. It is probably not achievable for the USA to sort things out. If in trying to sort things out, we are only exacerbating the problem, then we should just stop doing that. What you are saying sounds fair, but in practice it is just causing untold loss of life and tons of misery. That overrules any sense of "you broke it you have to fix it." kind of fairness. My approach is "you broke it, you are continuing to break it with your attempts to fix it, your attempts are causing others to break it further, so get out."

Sounds fine, there seem to be two stumbling blocks:
  1. The US et al are unwilling or unable for primarily polictical reasons to concede that they are unable to resolve the mess they made.
  2. While staying is not helping, the consequences of withdrawal may be worse, yes staying is continuing to 'break it' but getting out could be even more catasrophic.
Put another way. Is that finger in the dyke, which may be merely delaying disaster in [vain?] the hope that the villagers can come up with a plan any better than cutting and running now and thus leaving the village to drown now because, what the hell, it's going to burst anyway so lets save ourselves.

The US is in the position where it's damned if it does and damned if it don't. Of course it's been there before, in situations of it's own making so maybe we should look at history to suggest what may happen. Either way the short to medium term outlook for Iraq is bleak.
 

DC_DEEP

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I keep hearing and reading that a US withdrawal from Iraq "would be a disaster." No one is really explaining what they mean when they say it. Our initial involvement in Iraq was poorly planned, poorly executed, and is poorly maintained. There are no good solutions that I see, only "less bad" ones. So, exactly what is the "catastrophe" that would occur if we end our occupation? Well, I mean other than cutting down on our troop casualties?
 

kamikazee_club

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I keep hearing and reading that a US withdrawal from Iraq "would be a disaster." No one is really explaining what they mean when they say it. Our initial involvement in Iraq was poorly planned, poorly executed, and is poorly maintained. There are no good solutions that I see, only "less bad" ones. So, exactly what is the "catastrophe" that would occur if we end our occupation? Well, I mean other than cutting down on our troop casualties?

I suspect anything from more violence to even more violence and, quite probably full blown civil war possibly sewing the seeds for a wider regional conflict. I wasn't saying there would be a disaster, just suggesting that perhaps JA's argument [while well thought out] that "in staying the US making it worse" is grounds in and of itself for them to leave is not definitive, nor does it necessarily represent the only or even best option.

I agree there are probably only a range of varying levels of potential 'disasters' to choose from, most of these suffered from an Iraqi perspective. If the US pulls out unilaterally it would certainly suffer politically [even more], perhaps in other ways but who can know for sure. The cynic in me also asks to what degree is reducing that political damage more valuable to the US than the loss of more troops?

I do agree with JA that sticking at it 'for the sake of it; because the US broke it it must fix it' approach is futile, based on it's performance and [lack of]strategy to date that much is clear. I'm also unconvinced that further troop deployment would not more be akin to pouring more fuel on a fire than better enabling the US to maintain or even establish order. I'm not a military expert but my instinct tells me the former is more likely.

I wish I knew what the answer was, I suspect you're correct in it's a choice of bad or worse. It may be that by abandoning Iraq to it's fate it will be forced to stand on it's own feet or maybe it will have those feet kicked from under it and who knows where that could lead.
 

PussyWellington

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I personally would like to see the US Military start leaving. The 'surge' should be the re-construction of infrastructure. Get the men off the streets. Give them jobs rebuilding - instead of Haliburton. Build schools, so that the children are off the streets.

The people of Iraq should be rebuilding their lives, not fighting for them.
 

dostoy

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I personally would like to see the US Military start leaving. The 'surge' should be the re-construction of infrastructure. Get the men off the streets. Give them jobs rebuilding - instead of Haliburton. Build schools, so that the children are off the streets.

The people of Iraq should be rebuilding their lives, not fighting for them.

How do you realistically implement this plan if the US military leaves?

I'd think you'd have to wait several years through a civil war. Then once an Islamic, theocratic state was in place making tons of petro dollars they would not let you the infidel infiltrate their society under the guise of charity.
 

Lordpendragon

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Suppose I replace the references to "the West" with "the USA". You might agree with my list more if I did that. You might be right that a solution may exist, but I have very little hope the USA could find it and execute it.

Can I read this as "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem?"

I admit that the rest of the world has become too reliant on US military might, but do you think the US Administration would be happy with the rest of the World sorting out their own issues without the US?
 

DC_DEEP

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kamikazee, see, that's just the exact problem with the current US policy. Yes, perhaps there will be continued violence after the US exits, whether tomorrow or in 80 years. There's violence going on now. Regardless of the rose-tinted picture that our administration tries to feed us, the degree of continued sectarian violence, and the abuses of billions of US tax dollars earmarked for reconstruction, there is no evidence of any progress at all. Aside from the atrocities perpetrated by Saddam, the violence and infrastructure in Iraq are several orders worse than when the US went in with its "shock and awe campaign." The claim is that violence and chaos will take over if we leave; how is that any different from the CURRENT situation with us there?

LPD, that's another of my hot buttons - the current US "colonial/imperial" policy MUST end. We have neither the authority nor the resources to jump into every single playground squabble around the world.
 

HUNGHUGE11X7

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It seems nowadays Iraq is going to hell in a handbasket. I guess it's been like that for a while, but it seems to be getting progressively worse. It also appears that our politicians don't have much of a solution either, both on the Democratic and Republican side. So what is the answer? A pullout?


You can't get more progressively worse than a civil war.

Our occupation is feeding their anger and making the feud between the sectarians more violent.

Democracy is NEVER gonna work there. It is a nice dream but that's all it is. NINETY PERCENT of the Iraqis want us out of their country cause they have the good sense to know what we are slow to learn that us being there is making things worse.
After we leave yes there will be much bloodshed and it will be most disheartening but many other countries have gone through the same thing and in many cases we have sat idly by watching it unfold. Ohhhhhhhh and also this area holds the majority of ALL fossil fuel left on our little planet we call Earth.
The only difference being in this case we know we are the catalyst for this situation and that is the main reason the world hates us.
Our adminintrsation is so fukin arrogant that they believe they know what is best for people that have been around longer than we have yet b/c Jesus told King George to bring Christ to them we suffer the consequences.
They have been feuding for thousands of years how in the hell are we supposed to be able to stop that ? That to me is the height of arrogance and stupidity.


:banana:
HORSE
 

kamikazee_club

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kamikazee, see, that's just the exact problem with the current US policy. Yes, perhaps there will be continued violence after the US exits, whether tomorrow or in 80 years. There's violence going on now. Regardless of the rose-tinted picture that our administration tries to feed us, the degree of continued sectarian violence, and the abuses of billions of US tax dollars earmarked for reconstruction, there is no evidence of any progress at all. Aside from the atrocities perpetrated by Saddam, the violence and infrastructure in Iraq are several orders worse than when the US went in with its "shock and awe campaign." The claim is that violence and chaos will take over if we leave; how is that any different from the CURRENT situation with us there?

In practical terms probably very little and I agree with you. DC_D, please don't construe arguments about the consequences of any courses of action as support for them, I'm just articulating possible scenarios as this is a discussion forum yes? I agree that in most ways that matter Iraq is far worse off now that pre 2003 and that early US withdrawal is probably inevitable but I'm not qualified to make that detirmination definitively other than from an armchair footballer perspective, I suspect that applies to most if not all commentators here. The thing is that many advocate it for the wrong reasons and they will be the first to bitch about it when the [probably] inevitable results.

LPD, that's another of my hot buttons - the current US "colonial/imperial" policy MUST end. We have neither the authority nor the resources to jump into every single playground squabble around the world.

On that I wholeheartedly agree, the chance to start [end?] that process comes on both sides of the pond in two years or less, we should seize it with both hands.