As per the tread title. Berlusconi has lost and Prodi has won. Prodi is anti the Iraq coalition and more pro European and less pro American than Berlusconi.
With Spain gone the same way, which meaningful allies are now left in the “Coalition”. (Apart from Toady Blair of course).
And hints are being dropped in the Press here that British Forces may be leaving by Christmas- the Brits support the Armed Forces but are solidly against the Invasion and continued occupation.
Is it just going to be the US from next year, or will they go too.
If the British truly announce they’re on their way out I’d expect most of the others to do so as well. And that puts the administration, which has been making pull out noises, in a bind. Do they pull out and risk seeing Iraq fall into the Iranian sphere or descend into anarchy or what?
If we pull out prior to the midterms it’ll be an election issue and if we’re NOT out by election day it’ll be an issue.
I honestly don’t know which way would be less politically painful.
What’s the appropriate forum for the good new item of the day?
I’m extremely happy Berlusconi lost (and didn’t know until I looked at the board). I now hope they’ll find something in the future to prosecute this moronic arrogant crook, now that he can’t anymore pass Berlusconi amnesty laws, Berlusconi’s companies must make more money laws, and Berlusconi’s control all the medias laws.
And if I had posted it in GQ, would you have suggested it was contentious enough to go to GD.
The essence of the question is:
if the US is left as the only meaningful member of the Coalition of the Willing, where does that leave US policy on the matter?
What do you mean “where does that leave US policy”? The war is widely unpopular in the US already, but you almost never read anything in the news about non-US forces in Iraq. If the Brits pulled out, you’d read about it in the paper one day, and then you’d never hear about it again. (I think there are only about 8,000 UK troops there now.)
Bush is going to stay in Iraq as long as he thinks he has to, and it won’t make one bit of difference to him if even the Brits pull out. Since Bush will be setting US policy until 2009, that’s the end of the story. I don’t know how many threads we’ve had that basically boil down to: Will this finally make Bush pull out of Iraq? And none of them has been correct.
I suspect we’ll start drawing down some troops this summer, and may even be at less than 100k by the end of the year. But even in the sunniest scenario, I expect to have ~30k still there when the next president is sworn in.
It’s still just exit-polls. Notoriously inaccurate in Italy.
Well I don’t know if you consider it meaningful, but Denmark just voted to stay till at least 2007, and the Danish PM, recently reelected, again vowed to stay in Iraq for as long as it took. The Danish people are behind the decision btw.
So Berlusconi loses in Italy, but it’s all really about how detestable America is?
Why is it that every post you make, no matter what the ostensible subject matter, is really about the US? What are you, obsessed with us? You SAY you hate us, but no one could sustain that level of interest unless…well, I’ve said to much.
Oh, the Netherlands is definitely still part of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and other activities of the “war on terror”, but I think that “coalition of the willing” was a term specifically coined for the multinational force assembled for Operation Iraqi Freedom in particular.
Japan is still in it, and committed its troops for another year last December. Koizumi is planning to hand over the reigns later this year, though, so things could change depending on who is successor is (and how much control Koizumi has behind the scenes.)
It is? I thought 