Today Show: "Iraq is Not Winnable"!!

[leftchick]

poor Meredith got the shock of her life this morning. Richard Haas was on and really laid it out well. He said there are no good alternatives left in Iraq and the hope of a stable government with a democracy is never going to happen. He went on for several minutes while Meri tried desperately for some positive spin. He essentially said it is hopeless. Poor Meri ended by saying "that is very sobering". Ya think Mer?

If only they had listened to a certain "focus group" four years ago. :argh:


edit: This Richard Haas....

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20061101faessay85601/richard-n-haass/the-new-middle-east.html

The New Middle East
By Richard N. Haass
From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2006



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary: The age of U.S. dominance in the Middle East has ended and a new era in the modern history of the region has begun. It will be shaped by new actors and new forces competing for influence, and to master it, Washington will have to rely more on diplomacy than on military might.
Richard N. Haass is President of the Council on Foreign Relations.


THE END OF AN ERA

Just over two centuries since Napoleon's arrival in Egypt heralded the advent of the modern Middle East -- some 80 years after the demise of the Ottoman Empire, 50 years after the end of colonialism, and less than 20 years after the end of the Cold War -- the American era in the Middle East, the fourth in the region's modern history, has ended. Visions of a new, Europe-like region -- peaceful, prosperous, democratic -- will not be realized. Much more likely is the emergence of a new Middle East that will cause great harm to itself, the United States, and the world.

All the eras have been defined by the interplay of contending forces, both internal and external to the region. What has varied is the balance between these influences. The Middle East's next era promises to be one in which outside actors have a relatively modest impact and local forces enjoy the upper hand -- and in which the local actors gaining power are radicals committed to changing the status quo. Shaping the new Middle East from the outside will be exceedingly difficult, but it -- along with managing a dynamic Asia -- will be the primary challenge of U.S. foreign policy for decades to come.

The modern Middle East was born in the late eighteenth century. For some historians, the signal event was the 1774 signing of the treaty that ended the war between the Ottoman Empire and Russia; a stronger case can be made for the importance of Napoleon's relatively easy entry into Egypt in 1798, which showed Europeans that the region was ripe for conquest and prompted Arab and Muslim intellectuals to ask -- as many continue to do today -- why their civilization had fallen so far behind that of Christian Europe. Ottoman decline combined with European penetration into the region gave rise to the "Eastern Question," regarding how to deal with the effects of the decline of the Ottoman Empire, which various parties have tried to answer to their own advantage ever since.

.... I am actually shocked thay had him on.

[Missy M]

1. Do any of the so called news reporters ever actually read....

or listen to the news. I'm beginning to doubt it. On the other hand do you have to be stupid to be a newscaster?

[leftchick]

2. she looked like a blithering idiot

obviously she had not read this recent piece by Haas. Yes they need to be stupid and malleable to be a newsreader.

[Missy M]

3. The other thing I can't understand is her need for positive spin....

instead of what is real. The only thing I want from the news people is real news, what is actually happening, not their opinion or propaganda from the White House. We don't need perky, we need facts and the truth but I'm afraid all we get are blithering idiots.