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| Iraq-Jordan |
| A Planned Withdrawal from Iraq Would Adjust Many Attitudes |
| 2004-08-18 |
| From The New York Times, an opinion article by Edward Luttwak, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the author of Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace. Many Americans now believe that the United States is depleting its military strength, diplomatic leverage and Treasury to pursue unrealistic aims in Iraq. They are right. Democracy seems to interest few Iraqis, given the widespread Shiite proclivity to follow unelected clerics, the Sunni rejection of the principle of majority rule, and the preference of many Kurds for tribe and clan over elected governments. Reconstruction was supposed to advance rapidly with surging oil export revenues, but is hardly gaining on the continuing destruction inflicted by sabotage and thievery. And in any case, it is unlikely that the new Iraqi interim government will be able to oversee meaningful elections in a country where its authority is more widely denied than recognized. Yet few Americans are prepared to simply abandon Iraq. .... The likely result would be the defection of the government's army, police and national guard members, followed by a swift collapse and then civil war. Worse might follow in the Middle East - it usually does - even to the point of invasions by Iran, Turkey and possibly others, initiating new cycles of repression and violence. Thus the likely consequences of an American abandonment are so bleak that few Americans are even willing to contemplate it. This is a mistake: it is precisely because unpredictable mayhem is so predictable that the United States might be able to disengage from Iraq at little cost, or even perhaps advantageously. Here's why: In Iraq America faces several different enemies, as well as some remarkably unhelpful nominal allies. As things stand, their intense mutual hostility now brings no advantage to the United States. But all could be unbalanced by a well-devised policy of disengagement, and forced to stop harming American interests and possibly even serve them in some degree. .... If the Shiites were persuaded that America might truly abandon them to face Saddam Hussein's loyalists alone, it seems certain that they would quickly revert to the attitude of collaboration with the occupation forces they showed in the aftermath of invasion. |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #22 So long as the United States is tied down in Iraq by over-ambitious policies of the past, it can only persist in wasteful futile aid projects and tragically futile combat. I have a problem with what he has built off of this foundation. We are currently helping guard the establishment of a civil society in a sovereign Iraq. The shape of the government in the form of a government will be of Iraqi choosing. It is up to them to choose a form and staff it with people that are worthy of our critical support. Our military might is not being sapped in an activity that is not central to the WOT. We are currently expending ammunition into the bodies of the opposing force in quite lethal fashion (Sadr is a surrogate for the terrorists. His force currently resembles Picket's division after the last bullet was shot at Gettysburg.) Right now our priority should be to continue to pressure Iran and Syria with the assistance of free Iraqi forces. Only McClellan or Joe Hooker would disengage under these circumstances. We have surrounded Pertersburg, let's not kite off to parts unknown when we have the jihadis in the figure-four leg lock. The only force that I would split off would be a Spec Ops force capable of closing the Jingaweit camps in Sudan. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-08-19 12:59:50 AM |
| #21 He may go about it wrong, but he has some valid points: We need to be able to do to the Saudis and Turks exactly what we have done to the Koreans: Tell them if they don't play nice, we will leave them with a huge mess to deal with, without the deep pockets and heroic soldiers of the US to lean on as they have for decades. The only drawback is that instability in that region can dump the world economy due to oil problems. Somehow Mr Luttwak misses that one. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-08-18 11:10:30 PM |
| #20 Frank, believe it or not, I LIVE for HA Pete's responses! The man is a lucid-thinking, eloquent genius! |
| Posted by: GreatestJeneration 2004-08-18 9:28:21 PM |
| #19 Geebus BullDawg! Were you ever a teacher? Or did you come with a build in PG-Detector? :) Heh, shipman. Never a teacher (though it is in the family blood). I just thought HP's post a little, how shall we say, out of character. Googling the excerpt "kept it. We have reverted to a kind of democracy feared by the Founders" produced a number of matches which linked back to the original article. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-08-18 6:19:34 PM |
| #18 I, for one, welcome HA Pete's lucid, polite, accurate response. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-08-18 6:06:04 PM |
| #17 Planned Withdrawal= Kerry plans to cut and run. |
| Posted by: Flamebait93268 2004-08-18 5:57:37 PM |
| #16 Geebus BullDawg! Were you ever a teacher? Or did you come with a build in PG-Detector? :) |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-08-18 5:35:30 PM |
| #15 Hi HAP! We are rooting for ya! |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-08-18 4:17:48 PM |
| #14 HP - it's common decency to credit the source when using someone else's words. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-08-18 2:12:57 PM |
| #13 Why was it a no-brainer that this was a Mike Sylwester post from the NYSlimes? Give him a little credit. At least there are some named sources. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-08-18 2:09:06 PM |
| #12 The United States of America is NOT a democracy!! The United States of America IS a representative republic. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, said, "Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention, have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property, and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death." No doubt he was thinking of ancient Athens. Edmund Randolph of Virginia understood the dangers of democracy when he said the object of the Constitutional Convention "was to produce a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origins, every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy." Our government was founded as a decentralized representative republic whose power was limited to the protection of liberty and private property. The words "democracy" and "democratic" appear nowhere in the Constitution. A republic differs from a democracy like the rule of law differs from the rule of the masses. Benjamin Franklin had it right when he said after the Constitutional Convention in 1787 that the delegates to the convention gave the people "a republic, if you can keep it." Unfortunately, we haven't kept it. We have reverted to a kind of democracy feared by the Founders, a centralized power controlled by majority opinion that can be arbitrary, impulsive and frivolous. |
| Posted by: Halfass Pete 2004-08-18 2:01:25 PM |
| #11 I pains me to have to call any "senior fellow" at a Very Prestigous Think Tank a clueless dickhead, but I really don't have much choice in the matter. If this guy actually thinks the only reason we're in Iraq is to promote democracy, then that's exactly what he is: a clueless dickhead. Among other reasons, we're in Iraq to gain a land base for our military forces in the Middle East, in an ideal location for applying pressure on Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. We in Iraq also to secure a supply of oil that won't be subject to the whims of pissed-off oil sheikhs who might cut off the spigot like they did in 1973-- and we WILL be pissing them off, make no mistake about it. Yes, the implantation of democracy and freedom and all that is one of the reasons we're there; but it's only one of many. We lost the Vietnam war because we talked ourselves into losing it; and the way we did that is by allowing ourselves to be distracted from "winning the war" to "bringing the troops home." It's a mistake John Kerry seems determined to make us repeat. And he may very well succeed. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2004-08-18 12:37:53 PM |
| #10 Why was it a no-brainer that this was a Mike Sylwester post from the NYSlimes? |
| Posted by: GreatestJeneration 2004-08-18 11:52:47 AM |
| #9 Luttwak is more hyper-realist than lefty, but hes often wrong. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-08-18 11:51:03 AM |
| #8 Bulldog & B, I think you've really touched upon the root of the disdain for democracy in places like Iraq. If they can argue that those fractious, quarrelsome little brown people can't handle it, they'll eventually get around to arguing that us fractious, quarrelsome little white/black/yellow folks can't do it either. |
| Posted by: Dreadnought 2004-08-18 11:44:21 AM |
| #7 Democracy interests few of the little brown folk? How low is the left willing to stoop? Agree, B. The eagerness of many lefties to dismiss democracy as an unrealistic or undesirable luxury for non-whites to enjoy, is quite astonisning. It's partly simple racism but also partly a disdain for democracy itself. I've had real eye-opening conversations with left-wing friends who calmly dismiss democracy as the best (or at least, to paraphrase Churchill, least worst) form of government. The left inevitably needs totalitarianism, after all, if it's to put into proper practice its goal of societal enslavement. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-08-18 11:34:48 AM |
| #6 Forgive me, I haven't read any of the other comments..but this pisses moi off. Many Americans now believe that the United States is depleting its military strength, diplomatic leverage and Treasury to pursue unrealistic aims in Iraq. They are right. Democracy seems to interest few Iraqis, given the widespread Shiite proclivity to follow unelected clerics, the Sunni rejection of the principle of majority rule, and the preference of many Kurds for tribe and clan over elected governments. 1. They are right Says who??? Just cause some writer weenie says it in print...I guess it must be true...Doh! NOT! 2. It's true that Americans don't want to pull out of Iraq and allow them to be slaughtered in the same way that the "peace-loving" people of the 60's allowed the killing fields. That's the beauty of never growing up- you dont ever have to take responsibility for the fact that your actions murdered millions. Peace luv man. 3. Democracy interests few of the little brown folk? How low is the left willing to stoop? Scuse me, I need to throw up. NYT, WaPO, alphabet soup...you guys suck. |
| Posted by: B 2004-08-18 11:23:42 AM |
| #5 BTW, let me suggest now before it becomes plainly obvious: THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IRAQ. Almost simultaneously, several "media" sources have come out to slam Bush because "He has no exit plan." (Also today, the AP release a 'poll' that "shows 6 out of 10 Americans think Bush does not have an exit plan.") In other words: THIS IS JUST A POLITICAL ATTACK. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-08-18 10:37:11 AM |
| #4 LH, I think Mr. Luttwak's own statist prejudices are on display here. Many Americans have loyalties to institutions other than the federal government, be it church, town, family, sports team, etc. In fact, one of the reasons regimes like the Soviets try to destroy other institutions is because they can't tolerate sharing power. On that basis, maybe the Iraqis have a real shot at this. Maybe. |
| Posted by: Dreadnought 2004-08-18 10:23:11 AM |
| #3 No, just a fool. |
| Posted by: Ayahtollah Khameni 2004-08-18 9:51:19 AM |
| #2 Democracy seems to interest few Iraqis, given the widespread Shiite proclivity to follow unelected clerics, the Sunni rejection of the principle of majority rule, and the preference of many Kurds for tribe and clan over elected governments. A smear on the Kurds at least, and quite debatable about the Shiites. They may "follow" unelected clerics, but they want elections. If an American votes the way a Jesse Jackson or a Pat Robertson says, is he following an "unelected cleric"? |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-08-18 9:45:09 AM |
| #1 From a similar situation in our own country's history as recorded at Filmsite.org: In the welcoming scene for the new sheriff, Howard Johnson - as chairman of the welcoming committee - practices his speech (with an awful pun) before looking up and seeing the arrival of the sheriff: "It is my privilege to extend the laurel and hearty handshake to our new... "(pause as he looks up)" nigger." The black sheriff startles the people of Rock Ridge with a sexual double-entendre as he takes out his speech to accept his position: "Excuse me while I whip this out." When the townspeople soon realize that he's a "ni-," they threaten to shoot him. To divert the mob, hold them at bay and escape, Bart holds a gun to his own neck, shouting: "Hold it. The next man makes a move, the nigger gets it...Drop it! For I swear, I'll blow this nigger's head all over this town. Oh Lordy-lord, he's desperate. Do what he say. Do what he say." When he successfully holds the lynch mob at bay and is allowed safe passage out of harm's way, he marvels at his accomplishment and congratulates himself for bluffing them: "Oh baby, you are so talented, and they are so dumb." |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-08-18 9:09:01 AM |