So right now there's a huge fight going on in the progressive blogosphere, and it's over the question of what Iraq should look like in the future. I don't want to piss off any friends, so I'm only going to do a couple of links. Let me say that I don't know the answers and I am not convinced that any plan I've read will work. War is funny like that- you can plan all you want, but you never really know what the final result will be. And don't misunderstand- I dread a repeat of Cambodia in Iraq as much as any humane person. Via Moon of Alabama, the 'plan:'
The Democrats and the likely next U.S. president Hillary C. are ready to continue the Bush agenda.
In the Senate they claim to know what's best for Iraqis:
[T]he U.S. Senate on Wednesday overwhelmingly endorsed the decentralization of Iraq into semi-autonomous regions.
The nonbinding measure sponsored by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) -- which supports a "federal system" that would divide Iraq into sectarian-dominated regions -- won unusually broad bipartisan support, passing 75 to 23.
The media fails to note that this was Bush's original plan. In his confidential talks with the Spanish Premier Aznar in February 2003, just published, he said:
We know they have accumulated an enormous amount of dynamite to blow up the bridges and other infrastructure and also the oil wells. We expect to occupy those wells soon. The Saudis would also help us bring the oil to market if necessary. We are developing a very strong package of humanitarian aid. We can win without destruction. We are already planning the post-Saddam Iraq, and I believe that is a good basis for a better future. Iraq has a good bureaucracy and a relatively strong civil society. It could be organized into a federation.
At the same time Sec.Def. Gates tells Congress that the U.S. needs a Long-Term Presence in Iraq:
Mr. Gates told the Senate Appropriations Committee, “When I speak of a long-term presence, I’m thinking of a very modest U.S. presence with no permanent bases, where we can continue to go after Al Qaeda in Iraq and help the Iraqi forces.”
He added that “in my head” he envisioned a force as a quarter of the current combat brigades.
That would be five combat brigades and including headquarters, logistics and air support would add up to some 40,000-50,000 troops. Very modest indeed.
Gates did not explain how a 'long term presence' of such an army differs from 'permanent bases'. Will the GIs live as nomads?
We can be sure that pretty soon some Democrat will rise in the Senate and propose an ammendment calling for just such a 'commitment'. The relevant presidential candidates will certainly agree.
As for those - the elite media has decided that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic primaries. Reporting about other candidates has all but stopped. She is a 'wise woman' as you will certainly understand from her remarks on Israeli attack on Syria:
"We don't have as much information as we wish we did. But what we think we know is that with North Korean help, both financial and technical and material, the Syrians apparently were putting together, and perhaps over some period of years, a nuclear facility, and the Israelis took it out. I strongly support that."
The senator from New York also backed up reports, first exposed by The Washington Post two weeks ago, that that the IAF targeted a North Korean shipment of nuclear material that arrived in Syria three days before the strike.
This of course bullshit that was provided by 'anonymous sources' like John Bolton. Aside from an old Chinese research reactor that provides a few kilowatts and is under IAEA control, Syria does not have any nuclear program or aspiration.
Clinton knows as much:
She went on to emphasize that she had no other information on the incident because of its "highly classified" nature.
So she doesn't know any facts, but simply asserts based on anonymous partisan voices in press reports that have been refuted by the specialists and found baseless by reporters in Syria. Factlessness is certainly a pre-condition for staying in Iraq and attacking Iran and Syria.
I believe she expects to be elected by a significant chunk of Republicans while some progressive Democratic voters, miffed about continuous imperial Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton presidencies, will just abstain.
Shares of weapon manufactures and oil companies had quite a run during the Bush rule. It looks like they will continue to be a lucrative investment.
Bingo!
Still, it's going to be up to us, true progressives, to imagine the best plan for Iraq. Not that anyone listens to us now, but in terms of the Overton Window
, we've got to get the meme out there.
I believe the meme is "peace talks." Right now that's a crazy pipe dream, but eventually, they will happen. I don't know if that will be in 5 or 50 years. But I do know that conflict eventually ends, and power is eventually consolidated in the hands of the "winners."
It seems to me that
-the Kurds more or less run their own state. I think the US could pressure Turkey to accept a Kurdish state, conditional on no new Kurdish "terrorism" against Turkey and her interests. The Kurds have enough oil and know-how to become a successful member of the world community. I think they deserve a chance.
-Iran is not going to just go away, and will remain an important influence in the south of Iraq. We need to work with them, and admit that without their help, much of Iraq will never acheive lasting peace. I don't like theocrats any more than you do, but for now we have to accept that they run Iran. So we need to bring in the more sensible Iranians, and get them to pressure the bands of religious thugs running around Iraq throwing acid on women's faces to stop. It's long past time to treat Iran as a nation, and not some nursery rhyme demon mothers invoke to scare children into being good.
-The Sunnis are a minority, and will need both protection, and pressure to accept that they will never again rule over a united Iraq. I'm not really sure what the Sunnis should be given, in terms of "which parts" of Iraq would be best suited for a Sunni state. But bringing them to a peace table with Shias and Kurds seems like a good place to start.
These are a few ideas of mine. Newberry has some others. I'd love to hear yours. And let me stress: I am not party to or tolerant of any blogosphere schoolyard bullshit on this issue. We're progressives and liberals, we're going to disagree on some things. That's a good thing, but the name-calling is just childish nonesense I think we can do without, OK?
- chicago dyke's blog
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I find one problem with the
I find one problem with the discussions on Iraq, especially with people like Biden is that they keep talking like there is a good solution for Iraq, if only you follow my plan or my plan.
I think the Dem candidates need to be making it clear to the public that there is no good solution for Iraq in the short term. Otherwise a Dem president is going to more or less continue with Bush's policy rather than pulling out and risking a "bloodbath," "chaos" or being the president who lost the Iraq war.
One problem for the next president, if a Dem, is that the Republicans will turn on a dime. They will be on a Dem president like a pack of wolves over Iraq. A democrat might actually start some diplomacy to find a solution for Iraq, but I don't believe there is a relatively quick solution that will result in peace and get us out of there.
If we are really talking about making Iraq a safe place to do business, it isn't a solution. So talking about whether it takes 5 years of 50 is sort of beside the point. We simply can't afford to be there for a long time in force. I am not prepared to continue pouring money into Iraq at the expense of our own society.
I don't think the country is prepared for the war to continue through the next presidency either. We need to be thinking of a way out of our present predicament in short order which means no good for Iraq. I think the long term is a different discussion entirely.
all good points, hobson
and something we need to speak more of: the saudis. they are funding the war in large part, and they are interested in preserving sunni supremacy. we seem to be incapable of extricating ourselves from our "special" relationship with the kingdom, and that's got to change. but in truth, none of the current dem candidates seem able to have a serious discussion about them.
Outcomes, CD dearest
At the end of the day, does the United States have a massive military presence in Iraq or not? That is the fundamental question.
Please realize that this "bloodbath" meme is just the latest in a 6-year game of 3-card monty played with shifting justifications for our occupation of Iraq. Do not be deceived by the fact that the justifiers now have a "-D" after their name.
It has gone from "Saddam has WMD" through many iterations all the way to "We need to stay to prevent a humanitarian disaster". But the end result is exactly the same: our boots on the ground in a country half way around the world.
Please explain to the families of Iraqis gunned down by Blackwater mercs, or the families whose sons were abducted and tortured by US-trained and equipped Iraqi security forces because they had a Sunni first name, how we want to stay for another 5-10 years out of our heartfelt concern for their welfare.
The bloodbath is happening NOW, and it has been happening since the day we got there. Besides that, it could be argued that we are making it worse by staying.
Maybe it will be like Cambodia if we leave, but that is not for sure. As horrible as that was, in the end the people in the region settled their own scores and now live relatively in peace. It's called sovereignty.
What is for sure is that whatever the USA's capacity for good, it will be nothing if we allow this war to continue to drain our financial and military resources. Soviet Union, anyone? Being stubborn about Afghanistan ended them as a nation. We need to take care of ourselves before we can care for others.
Maybe if Chicago Dyke were running for President I would be inclined to believe her true intentions were humanitarian and maybe I could get behind this plan. But there is no way I can trust Hillary or anyone from the Beltway establishment when they tell me their motives for staying in Iraq are purely humanitarian and not, say, to protect corporate and strategic interests.
It's the same crap product wrapped up in new marketing. They realized the voter demographic has changed so they changed the packaging from "get the evil brown boogieman" to "help the poor brown people not slaughter each other". The salesman is not some fake cracker from Texas anymore, they've switched him out for a blonde lady with nice suits. But when you open the box it's the same damn thing inside.
I do not believe any candidate, pol, or pundit who says
the US will NOT leave behind a large, residual force on military installations designed for the express purpose of extending USer 'influence'--i.e., military (aerial) threat--between the Black Sea and the Caspian. It's one of the main reasons/objectives for the ICORP in the first place. Carrier battlegroups come and go, but airbases are forever.
On the mater of Kurdistan? I do not think the Iranian, Syrian, OR Turkish authorities will long tolerate an independent Kurdish "state" which would exert a claim--if not on the traditional lands of the Kurds in those States--on the Citizens, who will be drawn to the Kurdish 'State' and will likely wish to bring along with them their ancestral lands--which will undoubtedly, and without any reference to the rest of the world-- stimulate interference from governments in Damascus, Tehran, and Istanbul, all of which have centuries of copnflict with Kurds indelibly etched into their histories...So a Kurdish Iraqi 'State' virtually guarantees continued conflict in the region
...This may be to some extent ameliorated, or damped down in direct proportion to the number of USer troops in the Kurdish claim areas, which there will be, because of the USers manning the air-bases by which USer policy hopes to maintain and extend 'influence' over this tension-clad, but energy-RICH region.
this has been my prediction since the beginning and I see no reason, nor any events on the ground, which make me want to alter it now.
Me? A Quick Study, But A Slow Learner
Me? A Quick Study, But A Slow Learner
but the kurds are a defacto state now, woody
they are getting oil out of the ground and cash into their pockets, and while i respect that some may eventually call for an 'extended kurdistan,' their relative success so far leads me to believe that the turks and iranians may indeed go along with kurdish statehood, eventually.
your point about bases makes a lot of sense, which is depressing.
shy- of course i agree with everything you said 10000%. however, i'm trying to be realistic about what will happen, not what should happen. i honestly don't know how to make our dem leadership address the question of giving all this money to war profiteers for no good reason and to no benefit or positive result. at this point, i think most of them are either bribed, on the payroll, blackmailed, willfully ignorant, or some combination of all three. there is no reason to deny that an overwhelming majority of americans wants the war to end, and yet harry and nancy keep on doin just that.
sigh.
Hmmmm
"First do no harm."
The one thing that Iraq has done for me is that I now know where all the black helicopters came from...
that one went right by me, liberty
but then again i've spent the past few days with a 3 year old, so my ability to perceive adult snark and wit is depressed. lambert will tell you. ;-)
Blackwater
The AP has a picture of a Blackwater mercenary hanging out of a black helicopter firing an automatic weapon.
That should make the right-wing CT heads explode.
A Blackwater merc firing from a black helicopter.
Now at least we know who makes 'em: not the UN. The Company.
No Hell below us
Above us, only sky
No Hell below us
Above us, only sky
Too much...
Extremes meet, don't they?
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Iraqis aren't buying partition, not yet at least.
Though Biden's plan for partitioning Iraq may make sense to U.S.-based observers, I've heard that public opinion in Iraq is solidly against partition. Maybe the Kurds feel differently, but polls seem to show that Sunni and Shia and everybody else in Iraq is for somehow keeping the country as one.
Iraqis' unity sentiment may stem from a simple desire to keep oil revenues coming mostly from Kurdish areas, or from chimerical notions of eventual Sunni supremacy, or from Shia desires to dominate everyone else due to the sheer numbers of Shites in the country. Or perhaps it stems from national sentiments and nationalist longing. I have no idea, really.
But what's the point of non-Iraqis continuing to flog this horse of partition? The U.S. leaves and things go to hell in ways the U.S. and the rest of the world cannot control. There is no good way out or good way to stay in.