Post Hussein Plans?

Great Debates
21

I feel obligated to point out that the folks who finally managed to boot Napoleon out and dump him on Elba didn’t think he could ever make it back, either. :smiley:

And when he did come back, was the French people’s reaction to moan, “OMG, he’s baaaaack, let’s tear him apart with our hands…”?

Class?

Nooooooo…

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1815napoleon100days.html

Saddam Hussein, running around loose, hiding out somewhere, broadcasting over the Internet, would have an unbelievable capacity to screw up whatever the Good Guys were trying to accomplish in Baghdad by way of actual Democracy. Look at the uphill battle Hamid Kirzai is having in Kabul, and Osama Bin Laden is only quietly sidelined somewhere, presumed dead–imagine how bad it would be if OBL were actually hiding out somewhere, undeniably alive, broadcasting over the Internet.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/3128287

And that’s just the trouble he’s having with what are supposed to be his Own Guys, not the Saudi Arabian Islamic Fundie with a grudge against 99% of the rest of the world and a terrorist network to implement it.

Naw, Saddam needs to be either definitely dead, or definitely locked up somewhere. It won’t be enough to just “drive him away” and “scatter the Republican guard”.

And I also feel obligated to point out that if the folks in Afghanistan “love” us, why is Hamid Kirzai having so much trouble establishing “democracy”? When you love someone, you want to make him happy, and one way to make him happy is to do what he asks. We asked Afghanistan to please implement some kind of Democracy, and seems to me that if they really loved us, they’d do it, maybe not toot suite, with a scale model of U.S. Congress going up overnight, but at least they’d quit dragging their heels and get on the stick.

22

Two things, DDG:

First, the problem in Afghanistan isn’t that the Taliban is about to pop back into existence and resume control. At least, not as far as I’ve been able to see. Certainly there are problems in instituting this new government, but I don’t think the old one resuming control is one of our concerns. This isn’t to say a new bad one couldn’t come into power, of course.

Second, I said that Afghanistan loved us “by Middle Eastern standards.” I stand by that. Frankly, that’s not too hard to do, when the majority of the Middle East equates us with Satan. :slight_smile:

Jeff

23

Iraq will be broken up into three states-Kurdistan in the north, a central state for the Iraquis, and a state for the Shiites in the south. These governments will then be subservient to the US, and the US will supervise the export of oil, which will pay for the reconstruction of the country. Somewhat messy, but much preferable to letting the madman (Hussein) plunge the country into chaos.

24

Face it, Kurdistan will not be a reality anytime soon. If Kurdistan is created in the north of Iraq, it would be a matter of time before they starting pressuring Turkey to give up most of its eastern half to the new nation. Turkey, a key US ally, fears Kurd nationalism and has successfully convinced the US in the past to give only limited help to the Kurds.

UnuMondo

25

Saddam running around without a country would be far, far less of a problem than Bin Laden is. Bin Laden has a lot of popular support. Saddam has none. The only reason Saddam gets deference from other Arab nations is because they are scared of the bastard. Take away the fear, and Saddam becomes just another ex-despot like Idi Amin, buying his freedom by paying off local officials and staying in hiding.

26

Another longshot possibility for a post-Saddam Iraq is Jordanian involvement. A new Hashemite kingdom with Democratic institutions might not be a bad thing for the middle east. And King Abdullah strikes me as a man the U.S. can easily work with. He seems to be a reasonable, just man. Educated in England and the U.S., he is thoroughly modern in his thinking and predispositions.

And even better from the U.S’s standpoint, he is a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammed. And the Hashemites ruled Iraq in the first half of the century.

I don’t know if this is a realistic goal or not. Perhaps one of our middle-east experts (Collounsbury? You out there?) Would like to chime in on this.

The question is, is it even remotely feasible to attempt a Hashemite restoration? Would the people of Iraq welcome a new Hashemite king to restore their country’s lineage back to Muhammed? Is it politically possible? Desirable?

From a layman’s standpoint, it sure sounds like an ideal situation. A modern, western oriented king with solid credentials restored to a traditional throne by the U.S. Jordan gets access to Iraqi resources, Iraq gets to join the world of civilized nations and receives aid from the coalition that brought Saddam down. In return, the U.S. demands that Jordan give more power to its parliamentary system and enforce its constitution, which already ‘guarantees’ freedoms of speech and press, association, academic freedom, political parties, freedom of religion and the right to elect parliamentary and municipal representatives.

Jordan is composed of something like 53% Palestinians. There may even be room in here for a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem.

27

Read this op-ed piece from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for one view of Bush’s real plans vis-a-vis Iraq.

Interesting stuff – I’m not sure if I fully agree with it, but it certainly seems possible.

28

3waygeek: Excellent reference. Now THAT is a serious debate.

And I agree that it’s a possible motivation for the U.S. in this case, and that it’s a troubling new direction. Should the U.S. use this opportunity to establish a pax Americana? Is it time to assert global dominance and start forcing the despots out of business?

There are arguments for that, especially in an era of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But there are equally serious arguments on the other side.

I think this issue will eventually wind up as a major debate in the U.S., once the left learns how to debate again, instead of resorting to sloganeering, special interest pleading, and conspiracy theories.

29

Sam Stone – We’ve already done this debate. The only thing this article does is present the plan in a wider context. This we knew:

"Kagan, for example, willingly embraces the idea that the United States would establish permanent military bases in a post-war Iraq.

“I think that’s highly possible,” he says. "We will probably need a major concentration of forces in the Middle East over a long period of time. That will come at a price, but think of the price of not having it. When we have economic problems, it’s been caused by disruptions in our oil supply. If we have a force in Iraq, there will be no disruption in oil supplies."

Remember, the Saud’s are in big trouble domestically.
Regarding Afghanistan, I can’t find good information online at the moment but you only have to look at what the US is building at the Bagram airbase (in Afghanistan) to see there’s no intention of going anywhere for a very, very long time. …absolutely enormous. And not so far from that pipeline folks keep ‘speculatin’ bout.

Then throw in the Putin/Bush dance/US military deployment in those four central Asian States: Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Stan and Ollie and ya git yerself an Caspian oil plan, buddy. Yee hah !

Iraq/Saddam is just more of the same under the cover of a WOMD pretext.

Of course, you also git a whole bunch more folks itchin’ fer more bolt cutters but by then, the jobs done and Team Bush is retired.

30

Oh, come on… I seem to recall that when Afghanistan was invaded, everyone (including you) was saying that if the U.S. was going to do it, they had better be prepared to stay there for a long time. There was much hand-wringing over the possibility that the U.S. would invade, get what they want, then leave and let the place collapse into chaos again.

So now they’re planning to stay awhile, and you use this as evidence that the U.S. has bad motives?

Just out of curiosity, is there anything the United States could do that would please you, short of simply agreeing to everything Europe wants and receding into isolationism?

31

Sure there has to be a commitment to the long-term future stability of Afghanistan. That role was being played by the UK (working through the UN) and now Turkey has taken that over.

None of which has a whole lot to do with the US mission at Bagram, which is, supposedly, something to do with hunting down OBL and a-Q. Unfortunately, the locals are apparently forming a different view – something along the lines of the over-stayed welcome: “Thanks for coming. You got your revenge, you’re man’s is in power…why are you still here ?”.

That’s what the reports coming out of the region in the past month or so have been saying. Apart from those, I know about what you know…

That’s nice. Thank you. Mind your knee under the desk, there. Yeah, something between Isolationism and Imperialism would be satisfactory.

Imposing solutions doesn’t, in the end, work. Learn from the mistakes of the British Empire.

32

I share your misgivings about empire. But unlike many on the left, I’m not satisfying myself by just sniping at the current administration, without having an alternate plan.

That’s my big beef, by the way. I’m not trying to claim that the administration is perfect. But those who are criticising them are not offering alternatives. The Democrats are just voicing ‘misgivings’ and being ‘troubled’, but they won’t say exactly what their misgivings are, and they won’t offer an alternative plan.

As for the Bagram base, why are you taking the word of the locals? What could they possibly know about the U.S.'s plans? Are they military analysts? Specialists in anti-terrorism? Or are they just a bunch of locals who don’t like the fact that the U.S. is there?

My guess would be that the U.S. is building a base there for the simple reason that they suspect they’ll need a strong military presence in the region for a number of years. And I thought that’s exactly what critics of the administration WANTED them to do.

You’re making the claim that it’s part of a grand scheme of empire building. Do you have any evidence of that? Just what exactly is your criticism? What is the U.S. doing in Afghanistan that it shouldn’t be doing, and what would you propose as a better alternative?

33

For pity’s sake, man. Try at least reading some of the posts addressed directly to you. Start with this thread, for instance. The fact that what is being said conflicts with your preconception of the day does not mean it is not being said.

London, do you have any links for your statements about the Bagram airfield? That hasn’t been discussed, or even mentioned, much at all over here.

34

**
Hmmm.

http://www.rense.com/general29/USplanstomerge.htm

I’m not sure I buy it, though. While you might be able to jolly the Kurds along under their current ambiguous arrangement, what would you do with the Shiites in the south? There are huge oil reserves in the south around Basrah. There is no way that the U.S. is going to hand the southern third of Iraq over to Iran. This probably means deploying a permanent U.S. force in the south, which would be far more dangerous (as well as, admittedly, strategically valuable) than having such a force in the north.

This is, unfortunately, the reality of Iraq. It’s not a proper country and if you remove the coercive element, it will fall apart. Saddam Hussein has been providing that element. Who is going to provide it when he goes?

35

Long shot?

I don’t even know how to characterize this idea, other than to say it might have been reasonable in 1950.

The last King ended up quite dead.

Abdullah is not overwhelmingly popular in Jordan, has serious issues in re his own populace in re getting too close to the US when the unresolved I-P conflict continues.

And you think he will bend over to grease up his ass for the US to take on an Iraqi population that is divided between
(a) Shiites with no love for the Hashemites
(b) Sunnis with no love for the Hashemites
© Kurds with no love for the Hashemites

Claimed descent. The Bedou take that seriously, it’s the sort of thing that has some currency but…

Sam might take care to reflect that (a) the Hashemite king was alien to Iraq, it was a colonial deal that set him up there (b) the Hashemites weren’t too popular there to begin with © almost none of the present Iraqi population recalls the Hashemites (d) the general trend in the Arab world has been away from these traditional power structures.

The only models at present are (1) Republican (2) Islamist. Make no mistake about it, the Islamists are a modern phenomena. They are not the same as the Taleban (despite your continued inaccurate conflation of Saudi Wahhabisme and the Taleban, who are/were in fact a 14th century backwards movement).

No. It is a BAD IDEA. If the US muscles him into doing it, it will blow back.

On the other hand, I see the entire project of occupying Iraq, this entire policy as a policy error of such collasal proporations its hard to put into words.

Bloody shot in the arm for the al-Qaeda people.

No. no. No.

The bloody Hashemites are native to the Hijaz, their best connections are with the Bedou tribes, not to urban Iraq. They had and have no roots there.

Bloody unrealistic fantasy.

36

I see Saddam, and I think of Tito and the former Yugoslavia.

As brutal as he is, Saddam may be the only thing holding the place together. When he is gone, will the various ethnic groups cooperate to form a unified government? Or will they split into feuding tribes, a la the Balkans, each seeking its own piece of the pie?

37

Best I can find at the moment, Elvis – some of the BBC radio stuff isn’t as well archived. It addresses some of my post but I also found this kind of sad but amusing:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/from_our_own_correspondent/2285638.stm
"Now I was confronted by huge fortified walls and sand-bagged watch towers bristling with machine guns.
“How do you feel about being here?” I asked a young corporal from Florida.
“I’m proud to be serving my country, sir,” he said. “We have a job to do and I’m glad to be part of it”.
Every soldier I spoke to was the same, proud, committed, raring to go. But a few minutes later I was wandering towards a long line of plastic portable toilets.

I was hailed by two young soldiers lounging in one of those huge American Humvee jeeps.
Clearly these two were not part of the guided tour.
“Excuse me sir,” they asked. “But do we really have to say this baloney?”
The actual word they used was a little more colourful.
“What baloney?” I asked. They handed me a small laminated card.
On it were instructions on how to deal with journalists. Every soldier had been given one.
These were not just general ground rules. It actually listed suggested answers:
“How do you feel about what you’re doing in Afghanistan”?
Answer: “We’re united in our purpose and committed to achieving our goals.”
“How long do you think that will take?” Answer: “We will stay here as long as it takes to get the job done - sir!”

I guess the thing is, this is now happening in various locations across at least five central Asian countries (plus that huge new base at Qatar).

I’m not sure if all of this is the ultimate US neo-conservative wet dream but if they get Saddam’s field’s in addition to what they’re already firming up, it’s got to come pretty damn close…

38

That’s the evidence of a U.S. empire? A military outpost with sandbagged walls? Would you have expected to find something less in Afghanistan right now?

Collounsbury: Looks like someone’s taking the Hashemite idea a little more seriously: Ha’aretz today.

39

Interesting article Sam, but what little it’s worth I have to agree with Collounsbury - It’s a very stupid plan. If the U.S. is seriously contemplating it ( as opposed to perhaps just using the idea to rattle Syria’s cage or play some brinkmanship game ), I think it is a mistake.

Not that it couldn’t work, necessarily. Put U.S. armed might behind a Hashemite prince for a long enough period of time and he might be able to develop some sort of powerbase. But I suspect it would be a very precarious and limited one - Much more limited than say the old Pahlavi dynasty’s.

The reason the Hashemite regime was successful in Jordan and not in Iraq, is because the old pre-WW I Transjordan was scarcely populated at all. Much of the people that the Hashemites reigned over in those early years were actually Bedouin that migrated in with the Hashemites from the Hijaz and had a traditional tribal loyalty to the dynasty. Even after Jordan became a majority Palestinian state with the capture of the West Bank, it was this Bedouin group that for many decades continued to provide the bulk of the army, both rank-and-file and officer corps. This has begun to change because of demographic realities ( and hence the Jordanian regime has become more reactive and defensive on the Palestinian issue ), but it was that loyalist Bedouin support that ensured the survival of the regime.

But in Iraq the Hashemites were very much an alien dynasty and never terribly popular. They were plagued by urban instability and outlying revolts and it was surprising they survived as long as they did. Really they were always very much under the thumbs of, and dependant on, the British ( who actually intervened militarily in WW II ), right down to their eventual overthrow, unlike the more independant-minded Jordanian branch.

I realize there is a dearth of good candidates to try to maintain an intact Iraq, but I am very dubious about the possibility that a Hashemite monarchy is a good solution. MHO.

shrug But who knows?

  • Tamerlane
40

Yeah, I wasn’t trying to suggest that this was a *good plan. I just read it, and thought it would be of interest to people reading this thread.

By nature, I am highly skeptical of grand plans at reshaping the political character of an entire region. First, show me you can install a single stable government in Afghanistan before you try to shape the Middle East like modelling clay. This seems to me to be like the grand scheming that used to get the old British Empire into so much trouble.

But it’s certainly an interesting plan, and has a certain appeal to it - solving the Iraq and Palestinian problem at once, while giving Israel even more security and at the same time de-radicalizing a large portion of the Middle East.