Facing up to defeat in Iraq

[never cry wolf]

Amazing Perspective section in today's Chicago Tribune, this is the first of four articles I intend to post.

Facing up to defeat in Iraq
A game plan that makes the best of a tinderbox

By Marvin Zonis. Marvin Zonis is a professor emeritus in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago and a co-author of "The Kimchi Matters: Global Business and Local Politics in a Cr
Published June 27, 2004

Expect a massive U.S. defeat in Iraq. By defeat, I mean that we will not accomplish any of the goals articulated by President Bush for starting the war against Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

We will not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because there are none to be found. But the U.S. invasion has guaranteed the increased proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. Iran, certain that if it possessed a nuclear arsenal, those weapons could deter any American invasion of its country, is rushing headlong to develop them.

We will not end Iraq's support for international terrorism because there was no Iraq support for terrorism before the U.S. invasion. But the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq has acted like a magnet to attract terrorists longing to inflict casualties and defeat the U.S. in its Iraq adventure.

We will not create a democracy in Iraq because while advanced weapons and sophisticated communications equipment can accomplish many things, they cannot bring about the democratization of a society. That requires the social or psychological prerequisite for democracy, utterly absent in Iraq. In fact, it is quite strange that having invaded Iraq for the benefit of Iraqis, we have not managed to collect any data on the number of Iraqis we have killed or wounded in the course of trying to liberate them from tyranny. But what we have managed to do is generate so much hatred around the Islamic world that a surge of recruitment to terrorist organizations has occurred.

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[never cry wolf]

1. self serving kick, it's a good piece.......n/t

[never cry wolf]

2. self serving kick.........just because. last one

[skooooo]

3. kick

:kick:

[mike1963]

4. Good piece as you say, but there's not much reason to reply since it's

a lot of facts we already know! ;-)

[skooooo]

5. True, nothing we didn't know but...

...for something like this to be published in a major newspaper is a new development as far as I can tell. We've lost the war in Iraq.

[never cry wolf]

6. True, that....

I spose you're right. This is preaching to the choir but I was just floored by the truth FINALLY being reported in ink on paper in my driveway this morning.

Carry on...

[Veggie Meathead]

7. A well written and truthful article.Thanks for your great post.

To complement your post, I would like to quote the British historian A.J.P Taylor: " Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War,the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one."