<p>Right. You’d rather vote for party that refused to plan for an extended occupation (threatened to fire any administration staffers that even suggested it). Because that’s “having a clue” on Opposite Day.</p>
<p>You’d rather vote for the party that wrote a memo planning out how they could politicize the Terry Schiavo situation–then when they got caught with it, lied and said the Democrats planted it on them. </p>
<p>You’d rather vote for the party that has borrowed so much money that the Government’s own Accounting Office says that economic disaster is looming. </p>
<p>Because those things are called being responsible on Opposite Day.</p>
That’s because Afghanistan does not have nearly the strategic importance as Iraq. It would be ridiculous at this juncture to divert troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. The long term negative impact of losing in Iraq is much more than can be gained by increasing troop strength in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>But what if instead of creating a new theatre for terrorism in Iraq, we’d kept fighting Al Queda in Afghanistan…maybe even rounded up Bin Ladin one of those times we were close? </p>
<p>Iraq is strategically more important only because we made it that way. And I agree that it’s too late to undo that now. But it concerns me very much that we’re losing ground against the Taliban. And it seems to concern our troops too, or I don’t think so many of them would want more in Afghanistan when they know what the problems are in Iraq.</p>
<p>I am too. The little snippets I heard from the State of the Union he sounded like a caraciture of himself. His speech patterns have definitely gotten weirder.</p>
<p>I don’t usually go in for psychoanalyzing our leaders too much, 'cause there’s so much we don’t know, but I read a pretty interesting, very evidence-based analysis of Bush and how his public statements starting from the time when he was governor have indicated to psychologists that he is preoccupied with a) upholding his family honor b) getting out of the shadow of his father. In this context, Bush may be psychologically incapable of admitting failure because he will have to admit he has failed at these preoccupations. It is quite possible we are witnessing a family tragedy visited on a nation.</p>
<p>Ha. The Iranian ambassador in Iraq announced today that the Iranian National Bank is opening a branch in downtown Bahgdad. He also said that Iran will be providing reconstruction assistance and that contractors from all countries will be welcome. He invited US companies to bid on some of the projects…</p>
<p>Malaki has apparently engineered a deal for much of Al Sadr’s militias to move to Iran for the duration of the “surge”. Iraqi Interior Ministry will be holding their weapons until the coast is clear for their return.</p>
<p>Very moving story in the NYTIMES today about a US soldier killed by sniper fire during a house to house sweep on Haifa Street in Baghdad.</p>
<p>What is extraordinary to me is that most folks here seem to assume that what the U.S. does mostly determines the outcome. </p>
<p>If 65 years of involvement with Iran provides anything in the way of lessons, the answer is “hardly”. I mean we had our client state use chemical weapons, for heaven’s sake, and it still didn’t matter. (In Iraq, who would the U.S. use chemical weapons against?) </p>
<p>Afghanistan is pretty much the same. 2,500 years of history are littered with foreign occupying powers attempting to control what goes on there. Almost never succeed, or not for very long. The Afghans have learned a neat trick - how to live on virtually nothing. When you can live on virtually nothing, it is difficult to be cowed or threatened. </p>
<p>It may be that politicians of various stripes and at various times say “we have to win” or “the stakes are too high to lose”. Might be true, or might be false. But it doesn’t determine the outcome.</p>
<p>Remember how win is defined: now that the U.S. has executed Saddam Hussein (making sure in the process that he would never be tried for the use of chemical weapons), and found and destroyed the thousands of tons of WMD), there are only two things left:</p>
<ul>
<li>Control of the oil pipelines</li>
<li>Permanent military bases</li>
</ul>
<p>The rest is mostly just a bunch of deadly noise.</p>
<p>I’d feel a lot better if those were the objectives clearly articulated by the President. Agree or disagree, at least those are rational, and probably attainable, political objectives viz-a-viz US self-interest.</p>
<p>What scares me is the possibility that Bush actually believes all that hooey about democracy in Iraq and Iran as the embodiment of Evil, and all that fantasy world nonsense. To think that our foreign policy may actually be driven by that kind of thinking scares the heck out of me.</p>
<p>I figured that permanent military bases were a key objective in invading Iraq, actually quite a sensible objective. But, now I have my doubts. I mean, we really haven’t made any particular efforts to build the bases, unless we count Baghdad International Airport – which is in a horrible location for a permanent US base.</p>
<p>The only people the Shias and Sunnis hate more than each other are the occupying American forces–yes, members of the US military. And despite killing over 100 militants (who were eager to kill Americans) yesterday, there are hundreds, thousands, perhaps many more than that, eager to take their place. Bascially, most everyone in Iraq would like to kill American soldiers more than anything else. It is all they can agree on at this point.</p>
<p>And there is any possibility in “victory” in THIS? </p>
<p>The opportunities for “victory” were strongest in the early days after Sadaam was toppled. From that moment, it was a race against time. Could stability, infrastructure rebuilding, and a functioning economy with jobs take hold before the forces of chaos could outrun the situation?</p>
<p>The US wasted too much time with no real plan for reconstruction and putting a government in place. They continued to waste too much time with long drawn out elections and constitutional debates. The end result is a government that exists in name only.</p>
<p>Basically, by the end of 2005, the US had lost the race against time.</p>
<p>Wow, was this is a joke? Even the Administration refuses to use that slogan anymore. We veered far, far off course a long time ago – or were pushed off, perhaps more accurately. We were supposed to secure this country for a grand democratic nation-building effort according to the Administration. Now, we’re at hoping for it to not fall apart, as a stated goal.</p>
<p>I agree with conservative commentator David Brooks, that now is a time for a partition plan for Iraq.</p>
<p>“or were pushed off, perhaps more accurately.”</p>
<p>No one pushed us to torture prisoners, rendition folks to other countries, terrorize civilians in the middle of the night, shoot into crowds, serve pork three meals a day in the Green Zone, allocate positions in the provisional government by ethnicity, provide weapons to the insurgents (by “training” the Iraqi military), disrespect the sovereignty of the Kurdish government, or support an Iraqi government whose prime support comes from the largest militia in the country. </p>
<p>Those were all choices. They didn’t always hate us. When the U.S. got there in 2003, less than 20% of the population thought it was a good idea to kill Americans. Now it is an overwhelming majority - Kurds, Shia, Sunni - doesn’t matter. Mothers with babies. Old grandmothers. Teenage girls. Religious folks. Secular folks. We have actually united the country.</p>
<p>Mini: Agreed, about the choices we made. I was saying we were pushed off course in terms of our projected military and civil successes by the insurgencies.</p>
<p>There are quite a number of people in Iraq among the Kurds and Shi’ites who are grateful that we got rid of Saddam. The problem is that doesn’t mean they want us to stay anymore to help them build a united Iraq. They want us out of the way so they can assert independent fiefdoms. And many of them will kill us to get this.</p>