In the first debate Kerry said his plan would have American troops pulling out of Iraq within 6 months.
Quite honestly, that worries me. Iraq is already on the verge of a civil war. A hasty retreat from Iraq might create another Iran or split Iraq into three states.
I’d rather face a draft and serve in Iraq than see the country collapse.
From the first debate:
KERRY: The time line that I’ve set out – and again, I want to correct the president, because he’s misled again this evening on what I’ve said. I didn’t say I would bring troops out in six months. I said, if we do the things that I’ve set out and we are successful, we could begin to draw the troops down in six months.
KERRY: And I think a critical component of success in Iraq is being able to convince the Iraqis and the Arab world that the United States doesn’t have long-term designs on it.
As I understand it, we’re building some 14 military bases there now, and some people say they’ve got a rather permanent concept to them.
When you guard the oil ministry, but you don’t guard the nuclear facilities, the message to a lot of people is maybe, “Wow, maybe they’re interested in our oil.”
Now, the problem is that they didn’t think these things through properly. And these are the things you have to think through.
What I want to do is change the dynamics on the ground. And you have to do that by beginning to not back off of the Fallujahs and other places, and send the wrong message to the terrorists. You have to close the borders.
You’ve got to show you’re serious in that regard. But you’ve also got to show that you are prepared to bring the rest of the world in and share the stakes.
I will make a flat statement: The United States of America has no long-term designs on staying in Iraq.
Note quite:
http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2004a.html
A bit farther on in, in response:
On a different point - what makes you think we can win Iraq at all? I’m pretty close to giving up entirely.
Fuck that. Go volunteer if you’re gung ho, but don’t advocate forcibly killing more Americans for Iraq. Isn’t it bad enough already?
Also whats wrong with Iraq being split up into 3 seperate states?
To me it seems like that would be a good solution.
Uh… let’s see.
The Kurdish state would almost certainly engage in hostilities with Turkey.
The Shiite state would fall under Iranian influence. The Shiite areas are also the ones with the oil.
The Sunni rump around Baghdad would probably become part of Syria, assuming Iran didn’t borg it.
How’s that for starters?
Short-run, sure, it’d be a total political mess. But for countries that aren’t the US (doesn’t apply for some reason) or Yugoslavia (ethnic grousp scattered everywhere), dividing up on cultural/ethnic lines seems to be the only way to create stables states.
Yeah, you can’t make people get along if they want to hate each other to the point of killing each other as often as possible. That’s why this whole thing is a mess now. The people in charge of our nation don’t understand the culture there as far as I can tell. It’s one of the main reasons we need a change in leadership in THIS country. Our leaders are completely clueless about the motivations of the people in Iraq that drive its culture. They just want to jam democracy down their throats and think you can make a mini-US over there.
It ain’t happening.
–Dave
Uh… let’s see.
The Kurdish state would almost certainly engage in hostilities with Turkey.
The Shiite state would fall under Iranian influence. The Shiite areas are also the ones with the oil.
The Sunni rump around Baghdad would probably become part of Syria, assuming Iran didn’t borg it.
How’s that for starters?[/quote]
Um, big deal?
Blackmail the Turks into signing a deal with the Kurds over the formation of Kurdistan. Have the Kurds guarantee the current borders, maybe involve the UN along the line for a few years to keep both sides honest. Do it right now, while EU membership still hangs in the balance.
Huge swaths of Iraq are already heavily influenced by Iran. So work out a deal whereby areas are annexed to Iran. Perhaps this could be tied into negotiations involving Iran’s nuclear weapons development and democratic reform. Give Iran added oil-producing territory along with control of the Shia shrines in Iraqin exchange for full monitoring of the nuclear program with an inspector presence and greater interaction with the West that would see democratic reforms pushed along.
If that goes too far, let the Shiites establish their own country. Make it perfectly clear, though, that the world knows that there is a Syria-Lebanon thing going on. And that Iran will be held responsible for any terrorist actions, training, etc., coming out of the new country. This isn’t perfect, either, but at least it sets borders and rules. Right now, Iran is free to sponsor all the militias and terror acts in Iraq that it wants, and deny involvement.
I really think that partition is the only way out of this mess. You divide things up diplomatically, which would dramatically alter the focus of what’s currently taking place on the ground. Militias currently united by the common goal of killing Americans would be split, as factions would be working towards different goals.
The above could be accomplished, by combining the US troop presence with serious diplomacy. Iraq was never really a nation; it was a tossed-together stew. I’ll never, ever understand why the Bushies didn’t get this going in. All this talk about freeing the Iraqi people was just crazy. There is no such thing as the “Iraqi people,” George!
Uh… let’s see.
The Kurdish state would almost certainly engage in hostilities with Turkey.
The Shiite state would fall under Iranian influence. The Shiite areas are also the ones with the oil.
The Sunni rump around Baghdad would probably become part of Syria, assuming Iran didn’t borg it.
How’s that for starters?[/quote]
Um, big deal?
[/quote]
No fucking way that Turkey goes along with that. No fucking way.
While I believe you can bribe countries into most things, bribing Turkey into accepting a Kurdistan on its border isn’t one of them.
Fuck that. Go volunteer if you’re gung ho, but don’t advocate forcibly killing more Americans for Iraq. Isn’t it bad enough already?
Creating a stable Iraq is the most important issue in the world today, for the long term development of democracy in the Middle East and for the respect of the US and the whole of the western world around the world. Not to mention the moral obligation to leave Iraq in a better shape than it was invaded in. The invasion was reckless and stupid to the extreme, I am holding out hope that the aftermath will not be.
What does stable mean to you?
Now lower your expectations…
Democratic?
Lower…
Free?
Lower…
I’d take 10 years of totalitarian American rule in Iraq over quite a lot of things.
Could someone give Brett a state department post?
Anders, usually I don’t think you’re too far off base, but this time, you’re way out there.
Every attempt I can think of to foist democratic institutions on underdeveloped nations has failed, at least until there was significant cultural and economic development. The first world nations are not where we should be looking for examples as to how democracy in Iraq is likely to develop. Instead, we should be looking to the places where democratic institutions have been foisted upon underdeveloped countries – namely, post-colonial Africa and Asia, and Latin America in the second half of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The only way we’ll see a stable Iraq is under an authoritarian state. Once, under the aforementioned authoritarian state, economic development and sociopolitical development take place, the state will naturally move towards a democracy. If the US tried to impose it unilaterally, it’ll be as reckless and stupid as the invasion. The current Iraqi government doesn’t have any credibility, nor will the newly elected government next year, because they’re beholden to the United States and democracy, in general, doesn’t convey credibility in a society that hasn’t valued representative governmenti n the past.
Iraq is going to be ugly for a long time to come. The best thing the US can do is nudge things in the right direction, multilateralize the occupying forces, and begin to withdraw from Iraq to show that the US doesn’t have long term colonial ambitions.
I only wrote “stable” for a reason. I don’t expect Iraq to turn into a democracy any time soon. I don’t think any thing the US does can convince people they don’t have colonial ambitions.
The Syrians Kurds have become quite restive in the past year, presumbly under support of the Iraqi tribes. I’m not sure if Damascus would take continued efforts with great humour, nor would the Turks or the Persians accept it within their own borders. Kurdistan would be a genuine problem and worse if Israel is training the Peshmerga.
The Iraqis Shiites spent ten years fighting the Iranians at the behest of a loathed dictator, religious affiliation is obviously not the trump here. Anyway Tehran wants influence not territory here, a weak but intact Iraqi state that they can push appropriately.