You are kidding right? Please tell me you are kidding. The Spanish essentially carved out their ‘provinces’ and ‘dominions’ from native peoples through conquest. Those colonies then became tied into the Spanish Empire until fairly late in the day (i.e. after the Spanish had pretty much lost their grip on things). Even then the Spanish didn’t always let those colonies go simply because they ‘asked nicely’.
As far as your assertion that it’s only in the present day that people think they have their own cultures and they ought be sovereign…tell that to the Aztecs or Maya, or the other native peoples who they carved their empire out of.
Ok…I’ll buy that. The Spanish conquests were fully integrated into the Spanish Empire…there wasn’t even the pretense of a puppet. How about the British in India…I’d say that was a good example depending on the period we are talking about.
That is not a question with a factual answer, so it doesn’t belong in this forum. If you want my opinion on the matter, I think the US would leave. I don’t see how we could stay. We might drag our feet about getting out, but get out we would. If not, I expect the US president would be impeached (I don’t say Bush, because he’d probably not be president at that time).
You don’t realize it, but you are helping to prove my point that the Maliki government is a sham pushed into power through elections held before there a political reality on the ground to sustain them and designed in a process to achieve the desired end. It cannot possibly succeed in attaining the political goals wanted by the U.S. because it does not control its own country and has little support from the factions deliberately marginalized in the process. Saying that the Iraqi government is helpless to achieve any of the results desired by the U.S. is merely the other side of the coin that says that the Iraqi government cannot oppose the U.S. in any of its interests.
It’s not going to happen, but my point was that a truly sovereign state would have the power in a hypothetical to do so.
Commentators seem to agree that the purpose of this agreement - not a treaty and thus not given to the Senate for approval - is to try to tie the hands of the next president so that withdrawal of troops is made more difficult. This is not news. Bush has said repeatedly that this was his intent. The notion that “Bush would declare victory and get out” is not supportable by any of his statements, including the purely diplomatic language used in your cite.
So what? The US has “enduring bases” in dozens of countries. Do we “control” all those countries. Hint: No.
And we had “enduring bases” in the Philippines. What happened when they asked us to get out? Can you cite any instance in which US forces have been asked by a sovereign nation to leave and we refused to do so?
to exercise restraining or directing influence over
The political benchmarks haven’t been met because our “directing influence” is far from absolute, though it still exists to such a degree that it would qualify as “control” under this definition. Our “restraining influence” is even more obvious. The entire purpose of the US military occupation is to restrain large portions of the population who would rather that we leave. This control is to continue indefinitely, or until democracy springs forth.
And as far as the OP goes, I don’t believe another world leader qualifies. Even if we accept that Tibet is separate from China in the same sense that Iraq is separate from the US, they’re still neighboring states. The title specifies “overseas” control. It’s pretty easy for a “despot” to conquer a neighbor. It’s much harder for any leader to exert the kind of control over a nation halfway across the world as we do Iraq. We’re the only country that can do it.
The answer to the question in the title, then, is “yes”, given a lack of accuracy about the whole despot thing.
Oh, it’s “far from absolute” alright-- so far, that none of the key benchmarks has been met. Not one. So, while we have “influence”, we do not have “directing influence”. We cannot direct them to do stuff they don’t want to do. Otherwise, we would.
And yet that population has elected a government which has not asked us to leave. That’s all that matters. Iraq is already a democracy, by any reasonable definition of the term. It’s not a “stable democracy”, but that’s a different matter.
All this talk about the definition of “control” is besides the point. It seems clear to me that the OP means that the United States ignores the sovereignty of Iraq, in spite of the fact that it is textually a distinct state. The question is whether there are other places with this bizarre situation of a state’s sovereignty being ignored by another state, but not in the context of explicit warfare against the invaded nation’s government.
There are certainly many, many historical examples of this. Vietnam, for instance, was very similar. UN peace building operations such as those in East Timor provide more benign examples of the same phenomenon.
Why should anyone bother trying to reply to this? You and others have shown that you believe that because the U.S. pays lip service to Iraqi sovereignty that nothing happens behind the scenes, that the government is never forced to do anything it doesn’t want, never has to belatedly announce that it has “agreed” to something the U.S. has already decided. Since you have decreed by definition that nothing the U.S. can possibly do is against Iraq’s sovereignty there can be no debate.
Those of us on the other side say that, in reality, Iraq’s government has no more than nominal control over its country and everything it does is subject to U.S. approval or reversal. One fine example of this is the imposed agreement that Iraq cannot punish the actions of companies like Blackwater. This is a complete violation of national sovereignty, but apparently you would decree that since the Iraqis “agreed” to it, that makes it all kosher and they obviously have complete control over what happens inside their country.
I am not debating when I say that I view your position as delusional. I am also forced to drop out at this point because there can be no further use in a debate between sides whose definitions of reality are irreconcilable.
This isn’t a debate…it’s in GQ. Why should anyone bother trying to reply? To fight my ignorance I suppose. I’m ASKING for cites. I didn’t make the statement there…I’m asking the poster to back up what they claimed. You know…because this is supposed to be factual and all? It’s in GQ?
FTR, I’ve decreed nothing…how could I? Even if this WERE a debate I don’t have the power to decree shit. It’s on you to back up your position with either logic or facts…not to declare by fiat that I’m being unreasonable because I’m unconvinced by your arguments. Or to get all frustrated because I asked for a frickin cite.
C’est la vie I guess. I suppose if you don’t have anything, you don’t have it. It’s not a debate though.