Yep. My crystal ball shows Bush asking Congress for a declaration of war against Saddam three weeks before the November election. Let’s see how many Democrats have the cojones to vote against it. 
Oh come on Sam, just a little boardroom talk. I had my proposal described to me in just those terms on Friday. Besides the little voices say I don’t need meds.
No, no, no.
Exit strategy, as I read the phrase suggests one thinks that toppling the government is the answer. It ain’t. Addressing the stability of the region is the answer, otherwise you end up with Saddam II, or worse than Saddam II, ibn Bin Laden in power 5-7 years down the road and you’re in a world of shit.
Short term thinking.
Saddam is a mean son of a bitch. But he’s weak now, and there’s no reason to rush it. Barton I believe captured my thinking precisely.
No, Iraqis are more sophisticated. The problem is Iraq is not Afghanistan.
Our history there is different, the regional dynamics are utterly different, the history of colonial rule is there unlike Afghanistan. The whole mess is different.
In order to successfully take down Saddam --and here I mean success as defined as a going proposition, not some self-indulgent present moment focused military victory-- we need (i) international support to give it cred, (ii) international support to help us work out a durable solution, not something that blows up in our face a few years down the line (iii) Arab regional support, because however much they may not like Saddam --and few do-- people like the idea of US going in and fucking with governments at its sole whim a whole lot less. Arab league made it clear – Saddam is their family, a black sheep to be sure, the hated member of the family, but family. That means a lot in the Arab world, a whole lot. Now, you may allow someone to whack a family member if you got it in for him, but only on terms that work for you. You don’t bend over to fucked by a stranger.
That’s what the Neocons don’t fucking get.
Time. Time. Time. Iraqi promises are not the driver for that problem, even if they may enable it.
Time. Time. Time. The folks who live in the hood are going to look for the 5 years down the road vision and ask themselves if the US is going to be bothered, and if the government is pisspoor, if its Shah II then they’re going to understand that they’re likely to be looking at a worse time bomb.
History, the ME is all about history.
What?
Time. There is no immediate reason to push ahead without laying a proper basis.
Bullshit. It hardly inspires our allies: Excepting Poodle-Blair eveyone thinks this is a stunningly badly timed idea. It rather has caused our allies to think we’re playing cowboy and settling old scores rather than keeping the eye on the as of yet unfinished business in re al-Qaeda.
Deadly serious about war on terror by ass.
Deadly serious about playing to the obsessions of the neocons at the expense of a rational approach to the issue. Same bloody fools who beat the Iraq drum over Anthrax, bloody stinking obsessive myopic idiots.
BTW if Sam is talking about Saddam as a long term project then I don’t have a disagreement. But the policy that was being pushed by the Admin until their ME policy sank into its self-made quagmire was not a long-term one by any reasonable reading. They beat the Iraq drum too soon and too often rather than laying some good homework, showing that they had Afghanistan under control **in a political - economic ** framework and generally helping dispel the solidifying world-wide impression that the Admin has the attention span of a sparrow (Hell you find this even in such conservative pubs as the Financial Times and the Economist).
Exactly. There is no reason ( no good enough reason, anyway ) to remove him this month or even this year. I have the feeling that the administration is going on inertia - i.e. they are already keyed up from the Afghanistan campaign, so they’ll just keep right on moving. But Iraq is a far trickier proposition than Afghanistan and this ( perceived ) haste is counterproductive. I don’t even think it is necessary from the standpoint of American public opinion, because I seriously doubt that any President, when it comes down to it, is going to have any difficulty drumming up support, at any time, or over any period of time, for dealing with Iraq.
By the way Collounsbury, what did you think of those “neocon rag” articles I cited ? I thought the background stuff was reasonable enough. The last couple seemed a wee bit more wishfull thinking ( or “wet dreams” if you prefer 
).
- Tamerlane
Around the middle of article 3 we go from reasonable analysis to ideologically driven wet dreams.
“democratic Iraq” indeed. Right, in our dreams. About as bloody likely as a democratic Afghanistan. A stable, reasonably well-run semi-democracy is the best to be hoped for, and even then it’s not good odds.
I point out the difference between conservative and neocon rags: Economist and Financial Times know how to examine critically and not let their ideology in the way of their thinking (thinking with big head instead of little head)
BTW, the fellow did do a very good job, even on the parts where I think his ideology takes over. Unlike many cited in the past, it’s easy to tell he knows his stuff.
Just got around to reading the National Review series. It’s pretty good, although as Collounsbury says, it’s better in the first 3 parts which are rooted in facts, than in the last two, more speculative ones. But that’s just the nature of speculation.
I must admit that the author is much more skeptical of the INC than my last message about them suggested.
This is the former Iraqi official I was talking about, who said that he has a plan in place to oust Saddam. The information I got about the INC came in part from a long interview with this man (which, of course, I can’t find again). However, I have to now agree with Collounsbury, given his statement that ‘95% of the population opposes Saddam’. This is certainly high, and probably reflects an exaggeration on Khazraji’s part, probably aimed at trying to get more support. I would have to expect that his comments about the INC that I was relying on are similarly inflated.
However, the basic hypothesis is still sound. Saddam’s hold on the military is based on fear rather than loyalty, which suggests that we can expect mass defections once they are certain that Saddam will not survive to punish them.
Anyway, after seeing the last few rounds of messages, it would appear that we’re not all that far apart in our opinions. We all recognize that Saddam is a threat, and will have to be dealt with. We have small differences in the tactics and timing of what constitutes ‘dealing’ with him. But even the most hawkish (and I’m definitely in the ‘hawk’ camp, but not as far to the extreme as you might thing) agree that we can’t launch an invasion against Iraq for months or maybe even a year or so, even if we wanted to do it tomorrow. Given that timeframe, the difference between the hawks and the ‘doves’ in this regard probably just boils down to whether we launch an outright invasion a year from now, or put Iraq on the sidelines for now and then deal with him when we have more of our ducks in row, perhaps two or three years from now.
I happen to think that that entails too much risk of Saddam managing to divert big money and chemical or biological weapons to various terrorist groups. Plus, I think Saddam is a powerful destabilizing force in the Middle East right at this moment, with his $25,000 payouts to bombers, the way he’s trying to draw other regimes into the fight, etc.
I’ve said before that we’ll never get rid of terrorists, but what we have to do is break the linkages between terrorists groups and rogue states that fund them. Iraq is not at the top of the list in that regard, but it’s close. And it’s getting worse. Having a state out there that can divert hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorists and provide them with intelligence and weapons is extremely dangerous. Having Saddam in power is like discovering a poisonous snake coiled in the corner of your room - you’re going to have to deal with it sooner or later, and in the meantime you’re not going to get much sleep.
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Even if Saddam did try to bump off Bush senior, I don’t really see the problem with this. Bush attacked Saddams country, they are enemies, it’s no big secret. So of course Saddam would try to get revenge if he thought he would be able to. On it’s own, in isolation, this is not reasonable justification for invading Iraq.
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Collounsbury thinks al Qaeda are the main threat not Iraq. I find it hard to believe that al-Q are entirely unlinked to Iraqi Intelligence. I know there’s not much evidence - there’s Ramzi Yousef and the fact that the 911 hijackers met Iraqi operatives in Prague. If I were the head of Iraqi Intelligence, I would try to form illicit links with al-Q since the two organisations are basically fighting the same battle, they are allies in the war against America. They have different objectives maybe, but they have the same common enemy.
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IIRC a million jobs are dependent on the Saddam regime. So thats a million top-ranking people who have a vested interest in keeping Saddam in power.
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There’s no point in just waiting for Saddam to die because then his son will take over who’s even worse. You need to get rid of the entire regime. Likewise there’s no point in just assassinating Saddam and leaving it at that.
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It’s extremely unlikely that Saddam will use WMD against Israel or anyone else, even when he gets his long range Korean missiles in 5 years time, because then he would be immediately wiped out by NATO. He just wants them as a bargaining tool, which is basically the same reason everyone else has them including Russia, US, Britain, Israel, Pakistan, India, China.
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When Saddam set fire to those Kuwaiti oil wells causing untold damage to marine life in the Gulf, I decided he really wasn’t a nice guy but I don’t understand the urgency which Bush seems to have. Iraqis aren’t oppressed on a day to day basis like the Afghans were. Most Iraqis just get on with their lives and don’t have much contact with the government. The only reason they are impoverished is because of the US-imposed sanctions.
also:
what did people have against removing the Communists from power in Vietnam in the 1960’s?
Jojo: Let me see if I understand… Invaded Kuwait? Tsk. Trying to kill the president? That’s okay. Gassing several hundred thousand Kurds? Check. Using chemical weapons again Iran? S’alright.
But wait… HE HURT THE MARINE LIFE!
THAT is what it took for you to decide he ‘wasn’t a nice guy’?
I know this pales against the plight of the crustacean, but did you know that he used a chemical on the Kurds that specifically attacks the livers of children? It’s the ultimate terror weapon. If he dusts your village with the stuff, you know your children will die. But it takes months or years, while you get to watch them die slowly. Wonderful guy, that Saddam.
No same, we’re not that far apart on ultimate goals, but execution is everything. You might have noticed that I was quite happy with Afghanistan policy as executed from Oct to December: I have no problems with many objectives, what I do have problems with are modes of pursuit of the same which I know are going to create blowback – unnecessarily.
(a) Ramzi Yousef is a dodgey claim
(b) The Prague claim is also dodgey as I recall that Czech claims have not been verified, and even if true proves nothing more than an incidental meeting.
In that context, I am sure there may have been ex-Region contacts. Iraqi agents are likely to have circulated in the same immigrant circles as al-Qaeda people and may have had common goals from time to time.
However, the two organizations are certainly not fighting the same battle.
The Iraqi government is a Baathist secular government. Saddam drinks, everyone knows he’s not a good Muslim by any standards. Saddam is a “Malik” – an unrighteous secular king-- in the Islamist ideology, a Kaafir, a heathen. He and his people would be among the first to swing from the lampposts if al-Qaeda people took over. And Iraq has an internal Islamist opposition with al-Qaeda links, that is al-Qaeda is a potential direct threat.
Yes, then they do have a common enemy, however in al-Qaeda ideology people like Saddam represent a direct corruption of Islam and the dreamed of Caliphale State.
That does not exclude tactical cooperation, esp. perhaps in European slums where MENA region immigrants congregate. However you can bet that Iraqi intelligence understands that al-Qaeda is also a direct threat to them. And vice-versa.
Now returning to Sam, actually I think you can bank the 95% but what does that mean?
Does that mean 95% are willing to side with foreigners against their own? I doubt it.
A potential majority? Maybe, given the right circumstances but those circumstances are not when Palestinians are fighting in the streets with Israelis and we’ve yet to demonstrate that we’ve a real commitment to Afghanistan, besides killing people.
That’s why I think the whole Axis of Evil and Beat the Iraq drum after November was a collasal mistake. It made us look eager to go after Muslims, but not having a care about the aftermath.
These perceptions are important. Demonstrate commitment, demonstrate fairness and demonstrate that we’re not in it for the quick sucker punch and get out quick (exit strategy, spit), and yes, I think it can be done. But that requires investment, not impatience and not premature war-talk.
[hijack]
Actually, Mussolini was captured and shot by Italian partisans a few days before Hitler killed himself. This has absolutely nothing to do with Iraq, but I just thought I’d clarify the point.
[/hijack]
Fix, or at least quiet, the Israeli/Palestinian situation before trying to gain support for flogging Saddam & Co. Nobody seems to give much of a damn around here about the Afghans but the I/P issues have the average Joe up in arms.
Without local support the US would have to depend on bombing to get rid of the government and would probably fail at that without on-the-ground intelligence. A bombing campaign would simply enrage everyone within a thousand mile radius and gain Saddam a lot of support he would not otherwise have had.
The Washington weenies seem to have very little clue about how the average guy feels in the Arabic/Islamic world. The US ambassador to Bahrain, a Mr. Neumann, recently asked a gathering to stand and express their sympathy for Israeli victims. The results were about the same as you would get from a New York crowd if asked to express their sympathy for the hijackers on 9/11.
One death, several embassy cars burnt, a riot involving 10,000 people, and yours truly doing a lot of ducking and weaving trying to get out of Manama and back to Saudi. Shit! I just wanted a beer.:mad:
For the first time, I had to lie about where I was from at an unofficial checkpopint. I feel like the Washington people just about got me hurt last weekend.
Regards.
A sober and unhappy Testy.
In a way, the Palestinian/Israeli situation is irrelevant, because the U.S. couldn’t attack Saddam for months in any case, and by then the situation in Israel will be very different, for better or worse.
Having read some more about what Saddam’s up to, I’m less sanguine about how easy it will be to get rid of him.
For a long time, I’ve been wondering how long it would take one of these countries to figure out the U.S.'s weakness - it’s a democracy. Public opinion at home is the key to beating a democratic superpower. The Vietnamese knew that. And it’s looking like Saddam has figured it out too. Anyone expecting a repeat of the Gulf war is probably wrong - it looks to me like Saddam’s strategy is to sacrifice some of his army to slow down the U.S. (he doesn’t particularly care about them anyway, and he knows they are pretty useless in a war against a modern force). But he’s been building a highly trained urban warfare military, and converting many of the cities into hardened battle centers. He’s been reinforcing strategic buildings, separating cities into multiple redundant zones with their own power, water, and ammunition, etc.
When the U.S. attacks, I think you’ll see token resistance on the battlefield, followed by a rapid withdrawal into population centers. The U.S. is going to be looking at urban warfare against 75,000 trained urban warfare guerillas. They’ll have machine gun nests set up with overlapping fields of fire and all the rest, and if my guess is right Saddam will set it all up so that a ‘surgical’ strike is impossible. In other words, he’ll mix the soldiers with the civilians, possibly out of uniform, and ensure that there is a high civilian body count whenever the U.S. attacks. He’ll then splatter images of all those dead civilians all over the media.
The U.S. could be looking at siege warfare in Iraq, which would also create a massive civilian death toll. Not a pretty sight. our main hope is that the government will collapse when the shooting starts.
Today’s actions in the occupied areas by Israel are probably a pretty good depiction of what the battle will look like in Iraq. And look at how world support for that is going…
You could be right there Sam, another comparison could be Mogadishu.
In other words, if it’s going to be that hard, and if that many innocent people are going to die, we’d better have a pretty good reason for bothering to do it in the first place.
Not just a reason that is good enough for the hawks in Washington and London but a reason that is good enough for the rest of the west (and at least acceptable to the other Arab states).
Based on the evidence that they (The Powers That Be) have shown us so far, I’m not sure we have a good enough excuse to launch an attack.
ok America could do it anyway. But if they are going to do it based on what they’ve told us so far, they are going to face a worldwide storm of protest. The other Arab states will not actually join in on Saddam’s behalf (they’d be massacred) but the ordinary people will be fuming and this could have repercussions in terms of an increase in support for al Qaeda and (possibly) the overthrow of the Saudi Royal family and it’s replacement by an Islamic Fundamentalist regime.
Then what do we do? Go to war against Saudi?
It’s definitely a tough nut - but it has to be done. I don’t see any way around it. I am, however, willing to be convinced that the timing is bad. But then again, when will we ever get more world support than we’re getting now?
One thing I do know is, something has to change. If the middle east is allowed to continue festering the way it is, then 10 years from now we’ll have a new Al-Qaida to worry about somewhere, Iran will have nuclear weapons and missiles capable of hitting Europe, Iraq will have nuclear weapons, and THEN what do you do? How do you bring down nuclear regimes without killing millions of people? What do you do if you decide to attack Saddam and Iran says, “If you invade that country, we will launch a nuclear weapon at Israel”? Call their bluff? Do we really want to be in a situation where world peace depends on us continually playing brinksmanship with radical regimes armed with nuclear weapons?
I’m open for suggestions as to how we avoid this.
I believe the only solid objection being thought of by most people isn’t with the goal, but with the methods and chances of success. Just look what it took to get Noriega, and that was when we knew what building he was in and had it surrounded. Now, compare that to an entire city in an unfriendly country and try to think up how to kill one man, in an unknown location, without destroying half of the place in the process and killing unknown numbers of our own people in the process (certainly all Americans and a few Brits, but certainly Canada won’t do anything about it except talk about what Americans should risk their lives to do in Canada’s defense, eh what, Sam? Now go fuck off).
Yes, it would be more morally satisfying to have him gone, provided he’s not replaced with someone just as bad. Or worse, several factional leaders who would be at each others’ throats and would be willing to let that conflict spread elsewhere.
I don’t think Saddam or Iran will ever get nuclear weapons, invasion or not. Even without inspections, we’re watching them too closely. I recall Israel destroyed a nuclear facility in Iraq in '86 with a few gutsy F-16 pilots. I doubt they or the U.S. will have any qualms about a repeat performance.
That aside, my father once suggested to me that the way to deal with the Middle East was to cut all aid to Israel and then let 'em fight it out. It’s difficult to tell when he’s joking sometimes, but it did drive home a certain point - that the U.S.'s very presence is provocative. Sort of like the big bruhaha over Sharon visiting the Mount, which I don’t understand, but I can respect the effects. It shouldn’t be the business of the Arab world that America funds Israel, but it is.
The U.S. is so ingrained into the region’s politics that we’re expected to solve everyone’s problems. Granted, some of those problems are ones we had a hand in the creation of, like Saddam, but I still find it strange that the U.S. is constantly expected to pull peace out of its pocket.
One factor I haven’t seen mentioned yet are the sanctions. The political value is zilch these days for the humanitarian situation in Iraq. Saddam has plenty of dying kids and people living on the edge of starving than he could ever use for PR. I’ve thought about lifting the sanctions before an invasion as a show of good will to the Iraqi people, that might aid in convincing them we’re serious about their long-term welfare.
Elvis, you are WAY out of line. And you’re lucky we’re on a chat board, or I’d be asking you to step outside about now.
In case you haven’t noticed, Canada is fighting right alongside with America in this fight. In fact, Canadians have the highest kill ratio in the Afghanistan theater right now. Three Canadian snipers along with three U.S. snipers just saved an entire company of the 101st Airborne who was pinned down by an Al-Qaida pocket.
No matter what a couple of our blowhard MP’s in the government say, Canada has ALWAYS fought and died right alongside the United States. I have a couple of good friends who are risking their lives in Afghanistan as we speak. I fully expect that if and when the United States goes to war in Afghanistan, Canada will be there as well. So you can take your comments and go straight to hell.
So the self-styled Iraqi National Congress represents a plausible alternative to Saddam, huh? Even the Administration Middle East “experts” snort at that.
For instance, here’s Gen. Anthony Zinni, now the US envoy to the region: