Iraq morass will take years to fix

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1101643,00.html

Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defence, is getting around. Last week it was Kabul to meet with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai. Yesterday he was in Kirkuk and Baghdad to meet US military and Iraqi civic leaders.

Rumsfeld's 'appraisal' visits follow a pattern. He pops in for a day, then, based on what he sees and hears from inside his protective bubble, declares everything to be just hunky-dory.

Yesterday Rumsfeld remained true to form. 'I am convinced,' he told reporters in Baghdad, 'that the direction that we set from the outset is the right one and that is being executed exceedingly well.' He said security arrangements would 'be passed over time to Iraqi security forces of various types'.

Last week it was Afghanistan where everything was proceeding 'exceedingly well' towards planned presidential elections in June. This despite the continuing violence and instability, which was dramatically underlined by yesterday's bomb in the southern city of Kandahar, which injured 18 people.

...more...

just go and ask those 9 children's parents how well it's going :cry:

Whenever Americans, the world, or whatever collective force decides what "we" have done is deemed yet another failure, whatever happens in Iraq (or its remnants) will be ultimately decided by the Iraqis (that of course will be a shakeout of how the Sunni, the Shia, the Kurds and any remains of Hussein resolve it.) Or not.

As bad as Saddam apparently was, he managed to keep control of a population that wasn't sufficiently pissed off enough to knock him off or down. A despot can not survive a popular uprising. Never has, never will. There is a point beyond which a populace simply will not tolerate a repressive regime. A dictator might have the power to kill a lot of people, but he can't kill them all...that would eliminate his own raison de etre. A king with no subjects is a ruler with no power.

edit: typo

post. That is a reason for not going into Iraq.

I guess. :eyes:

I have thoughts about our phony president that I am sorely tempted to make public, but I'm not really in the mood for an extended visit to south Cuba.

...patronage and social order supported by the most effective system of enforcement will be able to organize anything resembling a state of Iraq. In other words only the best led violent organization will come to the fore. Violence comes first, order later. Who ends up holding the monopoly of force in the end will rule. This will be the effective execution of force in spite of, rather than in collaboration with, American presence.

This will either be a government similar to what Iran has now; or something antithetical and resembling what Saddam produced; or the Lebanon/Afghani model in which anarchy is tolerated as the outcome most favorable to American/Israeli interests because the other two outcomes will not support American corporate and military colonization. The latter outcome, by default may be the most cost effective for the Americans in strategic and economic terms.

There is no shah or monarch to resurrect and put on the throne with a secret police to prop him up, unless it is a Saddam like character. America is looking for a Samoza solution from the Chalabi types but won't get it. This particular model for "self rule" is doomed because it is tainted with national illegitimacy.

The American position, in fact, is that Iraq will become an American satellite and corporate military base or you will remain as Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan. Dialogues concerning democracy are a mere pretense, a PR ploy of only temporary utility. Democracy or true sovereignty would invariably end in ejection of Americans and the corporate looters and repatriation of national assets. That is what our regime will not allow to happen. At least not until after they reinstall themselves in 2004.