Is The Situation In Iraq Hopeless?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I'm watching Henry Kissinger and Zbiginew Brezinski discuss the situation in Iraq on CNN and find myself agreeing with both of them . Zbiginew Brezinsi is saying we should set a date for our departure and that date should be next April. Henry Kissinger is saying that we need to stay until Iraq is secure with a functional and stable government... Zbignew Brezinski's retort is that under Kissinger's scenario we will be occupying Iraq forever and Kissinger's retort is that under Brezinski's scenario the insurgents will just wait us out and grab power as soon as we leave...

We can't leave... We can't stay.... The classic definition of a quagmire.... It's the old "we have to destroy the village to save it" oxymoron revisited....

Iraq was hardly an idyllic place before the invasion. Saddam was a brutal despot who abused his own people but he was being successfully contained.. He was in the proverbial box...

We invaded Iraq and threw the place into chaos....

What should we do

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. I Sometimes Think The Situation Is Hopeless

I don't see Iraq evolving into a democracy....I don't see it evolving into anything good...

It's a mess....

[bullimiami]

2. Stop stealing the Iraqis blind

and the selfish greed and start actually doing things for the best of the Iraqis.

Things would change over there in no time and it wouldnt matter as much if we pulled the troops now or later.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. The Americans Are Getting Ripped Off

We would have been better off just giving Haliburton and like companies grants...

It would been cheaper than the two hundred billion plus dollars we are in the process of spending on Iraq...

[graham67]

3. I think its hopeless....

I don't think NATO or the UN will participate in more than symbolic gestures even under John Kerry.

[greatauntoftriplets]

13. Agree totally re NATO participation.

It would invite a tremendous backlash by the citizens of antiwar countries like Germany in France. Schroeder and Chirac don't want that.

And, as Bandera says below, it is our presence that is sending Iraq into total chaos. Beyond that, it is western presence.

There is an article by Peter Bergen in the Mother Jones that arrived yesterday (not yet on their website) that says essentially the same thing.

Our invasion opened Pandora's Box in Iraq and is turning Al Qaeda from a relatively small coterie into a worldwide movement.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. The "problem" in Iraq is the American presence. Out now!

A recent poll of Iraqis showed that the vast majority want the Americans out.

It's a quagmire because BushCorp doesn't want to lose face. Now he's trying (unsuccessfully) to turn it over to whoever will take it. But, nobody is stupid enough to embrace that tarbaby.

It's not a matter of how, it's a matter of how long it will take for the Iraqis to throw the invaders out.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. I Agree...

but if we leave tomorrow Iraq will descend into even greater chaos with the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds jockeying for power...


Sadaam was to Iraq what Tito was to the former Yugoslavia... He kept disparate peoples together through the use of the iron fist but I would argue that Tito was far less corrupt and far less gratuitously cruel...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. It's "descending" that way because of our presence.

Your analogy with Tito is apt. And, as you say, Tito was nowhere near as corrupt or brutal as Saddam. However, the various forces in Iraq are jockeying for position under the umbrella of American protection as we try to decide which side to back.

That there is likely to be violence and bloodshed if we "just pull out", is probably a given. But, I doubt that it will be on any greater scale than it is now. And, because most of the Iraqi people, do not want a theocratic state under Sharia law, and are weary of the bloodshed, I believe that the Iraqis themselves will demand some sort of workable coalition government. Perhaps, not one entirely to our liking, and certainly not to Dubya's, but workable for them.

And, it would take the wind out of the sails of the Islamist fanatics who are having a grand time recruiting every time out military commits one of those "unfortunate" incidents.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. Maybe They Need A Benevolent Despot

Unfortunately no such creature exists...


I don't think a coalition government will work... I can't think of one Arab government that has anything approaching a true coalition governement...

Jordan , Morocco, and to a lesser extent Egypt have at least a semblance of pluralism...


It was the height of arrogance or duplicity to say we would install a democratic regime in Iraq...

What Iraq needs is a kinder and gentler Saddam.....

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Maybe.

Who knows? I happen to think that the Iraqis are fed up with living under any kind of authoritarian regime. Whether it's Saddam or the Americans. But, we could try taking a page from our own history and give the Iraqis a shot at deciding their own destiny.

What's ignored by most folks, is that our own country didn't get here without a helluva lot of bloodshed between Americans.

[maggrwaggr]

8. I agree. The Iraqis are gonna do what they're gonna do

whether we're there or not. They'll wait a generation or two if they have to. We can't stop it. We can only lose our own people and our own money trying to save face.

And I don't want to spend a dime to save Bush's face.

Fuck him. Get out now, let the bricks fall where they may.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. "Let the bricks fall where they may"

What if the "bricks" fall on the heads of innocent people because we broke the foundation of their socity?

[maggrwaggr]

14. well right now we're the ones throwing those bricks

I'd rather the Iraqis throw bricks at each other than have our guys throw bricks at them.

We had a civil war in this country, too. It ended. We learned from it. It was inevitable.

[Mz Pip]

7. Best advice I ever received

was: If what you're doing isn't working, stop doing it.

Bush doesn't listen to advice and will continue down the path we're on until he's removed from office.

I honestly don't know what the answer is. It is such a mess that there may not be any "good" solution. If we just up and leave, civil war will break out. I'm really surprised Bush hasn't decided to declare victory and leave. It sort of worked for Nixon. We left Vietnam in chaos but nobody really cared at that point.

Hopefully, we can engage in the International community to help out, though why anyone would want to wade into that hell hole at this point is beyond me.

Maybe we could take a "Cold War" approach; call it the Sand Curtain instead of the Iron Curtain. We would have to end our dependancy on their oil and I just don't see folks wiiling to give up their gas guzzlers to do that.

MzPip
:dem:

[maggrwaggr]

10. civil war may break out no matter what we do, or when

why should we spend any more lives and money fighting the inevitable?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. Cuz We Owe It To The Innocent Victims Not To Abandon Them....

What's going to happen when the Kurds declare independence in the oil rich region of Kirkuk...


Do you really think the rest of the Iraqis will stand for that?

[maggrwaggr]

16. then maybe the Kurds should think about that

before they do it.

And maybe they should work something out diplomatically rather than inviting war upon themselves.

People need to think and take responsibility for themselves and learn to work with their neighbors without some foreign invader from halfway around the world forcing a situation upon them.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. People In America Couldn't Solve Their Own Problems

without a strong sovereign to mediate....


How are the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis going to solve their problems in an anarchic situation?


I tell you how they solved it... Sadaam ruled with an iron fist and squashed any group that challenged the status quo....


Now Saddam is gone...... And chaos loves a vaccum.....

[maggrwaggr]

23. I respect your concerns but bottom line it's none of our business

they're gonna have to work it out among themselves.

America's problems weren't mediated by the Ottoman Empire, or by China.

Iraq's problems are only gonna be mediated by a fellow muslim country.

We have ZERO credibility there. As long as we're there we're making the situation worse, not better.

[The Commie]

20. The Kurds deserve independence

I find it Ironic that Saddam called himself the next Saladin, yet Saladin was a KURD. :D

[Delano]

17. Leave now.

Take out all US contractors ASAP, then give the Iraqi goverment the amount we were spending on US war profiteers in foreign aid, and gradually wean them off it over 5 years. I'm sure they could make good use of the money, and it would be a good way to show our sincerity in "liberating" them.

[Jack Rabbit]

21. I lean to leaving now

There is no way a US-installed government will have any credibility. The Iraqis must be free to choose their own government and manage their own resources and assets for their own benefit.

Our interest in a stable Iraq is that al Qaida has no place to operate. Beyond that, it doesn't have to be a government of our liking and certainly not of our choosing.

Ironically, Saddam didn't provide al Qaida with a base for operations. Terrorists have more opportunities in Iraq since his downfall. Invading only made a difficult situation worse.

[freeforall]

22. Leave now

If the US government were responsible, they would leave Iraq to the Iraqis and send money for reparations.

Not intended as a flame, but the US should clean up its own backyard and mind its own business.

[Make7]

24. Hopeless from who's perspective?

Quote: Henry Kissinger is saying that we need to stay until Iraq is secure with a functional and stable government...

If there is no chance of Iraq being secure and stable, then we will have to stay there indefinitely. I think that's been the plan all along. If indeed that was the goal, things are going fairly well and one can be hopeful that will be achieved. (That is if you don't mind tens of thousands of deaths and injuries.)

-Make7

[robertpaulsen]

25. We will leave Iraq exactly as we left Vietnam on April 30, 1975

By cramming as many people as we can into the remaining helicopters and hoping they don't crash as we flee the country. This is not how I want to see it all go down, I voted that we should leave now. But we won't. And every day we stay in Iraq, we just make the situation worse. There isn't a prayer that we will bring our troops home until 2005 at the earliest under President Kerry. But even then, will the situation in Iraq be resolved? Of course not. I believe it will take another 20 years for the situation to be truly resolved, taking in all the variables into account that have been shaken up by the opening of this Pandora's Box. Anyone with half a brain knows that the US cannot solve their problems unilaterally, i.e. the "Coalition of the Willing". But does anyone here really believe that the insurgents will wither away once the UN takes control of the efforts to keep the peace? They hate the UN because they associate them as being tools of the US; America with an international face. Remember what they did to the UN building in Baghdad last August, killing 17 including de Meillo, Brazil's envoy? We're only going to see events like that on a greater scale with more frequency until every last vestige of this American-led occupying force has left Iraq. It's not a question of if, but when. We've already lost. The only question is how many have to die before we accept it and leave. Getting back to the Vietnam comparison, my guess is that unfortunately, just like in Vietnam, American policy makers both Democratic and Republican will continue the quagmire longer rather than end it sooner.

[number6]

26. Leave Iraq now

we there to steal the oil .

[Veggie Meathead]

27. Just like in Vietnam, our ignorance of these ancient societies

will prove to be our undoing.It does no good to keep repeating that Saddam was a vicious dictator.In these societies,the man at the top cannot survive unless he is seen as ruthless and able to kill off his opponents if he has any instinct for survival.In this sense, Saddam is just one in a long line of despots.Our stepping into these tradition steeped societies waving the flag of democracy invites scorn and contempt for us.Add to this contempt our beng seen as agents of Israeli interests and is it any wonder our goose had been cooked from day one?

Our best hope is for an early withdrawal, lock,stock and barrel and let the Iraqi society find its own solutions.