Reply #92: First... [View All]

Iraq is not a rat hole, and even if it were, we are the ones responsible for making it that way. How much it costs to fix it should be the least of our concerns, because there is not enough money in all the world to actually pay back the Iraqi's for all that we have done to them.

Second, we still have bases in peaceful nations like Germany and Japan. The goal of what I propose is to first stabilize the nation, by separating the peaceful Iraqi's from the insurgents and eliminating the insurgents. This is similar to how the Romans enacted their Imperial rule - they turned "Barbarians" into "Romans" and simply eliminated any opposition. However, to ensure that the Imperialists don't get their ultimate dream of controlling every grain of Iraqi sand, after the nation is stabilized and on the road to recovery, we begin a democratic transition. I would imagine that this could begin in 2015 - with a five-year transition ending in 2020. This is if the insurgency is largely crushed. Once there is a stabilized and democratic Iraq if they wish for us to leave, we should then begin withdrawing, but there cannot be a government of any type until we eliminate the opposition groups and the radicals who want to seize control of the nation.

One of the biggest mistakes made in the invasion was to believe that Iraq was like a post WWII Germany, where we could just hand things over to a "democratic" government. Now their so-called sham of a democracy is beholden to radical factions within their own country, trying to hold together, and those radical elements themselves want to seize control of the nation and bring it under THEIR rule. I don't support the tyranny that they wish to impose, because I actively believe that democracy, while far from perfect, is better than the other alternatives.