After Iraq What? A Candid Assessment of Likely Developments

[lovedems]

I saw this man Edward Peck, the former Ambassador to Iraq on PBS last night and the speech he gave was absolutely brilliant. He has a scathing review of the bu$h administration. He mentioned that he is a republican who voted for GWB, but would not make that same mistake again. This is an expert in Iraq. He knows the area and he knows the region. The speech is rather long, but I suggest you take the time to read it.



After Iraq What? A Candid Assessment of Likely Developments

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Let’s start from the beginning. We have lost our national credibility. By the way I have to tell you this—I’m a Republican, I voted for President Bush. The catalyst that changed everything was September 11, as I’m sure many of you are aware and historians will look back and be able to identify that date and that event as one of those things that took place that changed the course of history to a considerable extent.

snip
Think about this for a second. We are going to convert Iraq to a democracy whether they like it or not. You cannot impose democracy, folks. An imposed democracy is a dictatorship. You can’t go in and say “you’re going to be democrats, right?” You can’t force them to do that. That’s a contradiction in terms. You cannot oblige them to be democratic.

snip
So, did we do the right thing in Iraq? Well, history will tell us, but I would say no. We’ve lost all the sympathy that we had after the horror of 9/11 when the president of France said, “We are all Americans now,” Do you remember? If tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen, if tomorrow another terrorist incident takes place—God forbid—an awful lot of people in this world are going to say, “Well, you really asked for it, didn’t you?” because we are out there doing the sorts of things which we revile other countries for doing.

snip
We have lost our credibility and credibility, like virtue, is not lost on a temporary basis. It’s gone. Nobody believes anything we say any more.