Dead Ends
What do we want to accomplish in Iraq? The cretin in chief keeps referring to Victory as our goal now, it used to be democracy, way back in the stone ages it was routing out WMD's.
Victory for the U.S. of course would have to involve a functioning Iraqi government that would give the U.S. what it wants, an alliance with a friendly nation. The existing government headed by al-Maliki appears increasingly unlikely to provide that goal.
Recent studies show that in post World War conflicts, the greater power most often is defeated.
Although the United States , the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China were militarily superior to their opponents in every one of the 122 conflicts that Sullivan studied, these powerful countries failed to win an astonishing 39 percent of their wars against weaker opponents.
Other research backs up Sullivan: New York University professor of politics Bruce Bueno De Mesquita has shown that, in conflicts between unequal powers over the past 200 years, the weaker country has outdone its stronger foe 41 percent of the time.
This makes perfect sense, of course. A military end is simple domination. To achieve a real government in another country, a 'victory' requires that that country's leaders accept domination in good spirits. What are the chances that a defeated country would have leaders of the Vichy sort, that serve another country rather than their own countrymen? The Iraqi people are particularly resistant to this sort of humiliation, we have learned from experience. When their people regularly exhibit rejection of our presence and our official stupidity, it would be unwise indeed for their leaders to accept U.S. authority over their own people. And they have shown quite the opposite.
The prolongation which seems to be the White House's current aim in this war will not achieve any more 'victory' than would dealing with the immediate need to withdraw our troops. When al-Maliki has already expressed the wish that our troops would stay out of Baghdad, sending them in anyway is inexpressibly dumb.
An intelligent hand at the helm is the greatest victory the U.S. can wish for. Two years to wait for that is our tragedy, and a personal tragedy occuring in homes across the nation many times daily.
Victory for the U.S. of course would have to involve a functioning Iraqi government that would give the U.S. what it wants, an alliance with a friendly nation. The existing government headed by al-Maliki appears increasingly unlikely to provide that goal.
Recent studies show that in post World War conflicts, the greater power most often is defeated.
Although the United States , the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China were militarily superior to their opponents in every one of the 122 conflicts that Sullivan studied, these powerful countries failed to win an astonishing 39 percent of their wars against weaker opponents.
Other research backs up Sullivan: New York University professor of politics Bruce Bueno De Mesquita has shown that, in conflicts between unequal powers over the past 200 years, the weaker country has outdone its stronger foe 41 percent of the time.
This makes perfect sense, of course. A military end is simple domination. To achieve a real government in another country, a 'victory' requires that that country's leaders accept domination in good spirits. What are the chances that a defeated country would have leaders of the Vichy sort, that serve another country rather than their own countrymen? The Iraqi people are particularly resistant to this sort of humiliation, we have learned from experience. When their people regularly exhibit rejection of our presence and our official stupidity, it would be unwise indeed for their leaders to accept U.S. authority over their own people. And they have shown quite the opposite.
The prolongation which seems to be the White House's current aim in this war will not achieve any more 'victory' than would dealing with the immediate need to withdraw our troops. When al-Maliki has already expressed the wish that our troops would stay out of Baghdad, sending them in anyway is inexpressibly dumb.
An intelligent hand at the helm is the greatest victory the U.S. can wish for. Two years to wait for that is our tragedy, and a personal tragedy occuring in homes across the nation many times daily.
Labels: Cut and Run, Iraq War, Middle East
posted by Ruth at 2:41 AM
1 Comments:
Well, a 60% chance of starting the domino theory of USian allies doesn't sound bad. If that's the error rate, it would have been acceptable - frankly. It's just all the ignored intelligence indicating this culture would never accept what we offerred. Religious zealots and democracy have predictable results.
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