I think this is the current official policy.

:nope:

leadership a year ago... as well as the current leadership were / are far too anxious to brush their hands off and say "see America... that wasn't so bad now was it? arn't you glad we are done with that!?"

unfortunately, i view the current Iraqi government as being a fawn taking its first awkward steps on trembling legs. (understandably so)

i think when you have a well organized terrorist element in the country - you might as well have that fawn squarely in a hunter's rifle scope.

i hope my views are mistaken.

but im doubtful of that

Yes. ;) There are some statements in it that I could not disagree more with, for example dismantling the Iraqi army. You said it was not enough to do so. In fact it was one of the most terrible mistakes during all the Iraq adventure. You said one should have collected their weapons. I think it is easier to bring gun control to the US. You philosophised about bringing the Sunni to the new army, and called it brilliant to arm them. I point at the bitter hostility between them and the heavily Iran-influenced Shia, the widespread torture on ethnic grounds commited by secret police, and that the weapons you have given to the Sunni militia sooner or later will be directed against your own troops again, and the Shia cojmplaining and turning hostile for you having armed their enemies. You asked for the future of Iraq, and that problems have been solved that could be solved. I say the Iraq war only acchieved one thing: to bring it closer to the Iranian theocracy and under it's influence - all they had to do in the past 12-18 months was to keep a low profile and wait, they even did not had to fight. Maliki very closely cooperates with Teheran already. And if he wants to avoid open civil war fueled by Teheran, he probably has no other choice.

From a geostrategic point, Iraq with Saddam was much better than what it is now. Saddam's teeth had been pulled, he was not in a position to pose a military threat in the region anymore. But Iranian Iraq is a bigger problem than Saddam ever was. The more stable and peaceful Iraq becomes, the stronger and more influential in Iraq Iran becomes as well.

The 2003 war is just a giant boomerang. The more the influence of Western troops in Iraq fades, the more obvious it will become. It already does. The winner of it all is Iran. It is playing an extremely strong hand anyway. and if you hold democratic elections there, Shia will democratically for a policy inviting Iran even more. super! Just what we need, everything that we want - the only thing missing is that we pay Iran money for all this. However, activities of secret polices and militias and the level of torturing is said to even exceed that of the times of Saddam, so all this talking about having liberated Iraq and bringing democracy to them so that they have the freedom to vote for Iran, leaves a foul taste in the mouth.

You COMPLETELY mis-read my post.

I said that disbanding but not disarming the Iraqi army was a mistake. I never said that disarming them was the better option. As you say, it probably would have been wiser to keep the old army.

I mentioned bringing the Sunni militias into the new army just to point out that it was a bad idea. I was running through the options we had with the militias and pointing out how none of them were very desirable. I didn't come out in support of one of the options because I honestly don't know what we should do with the militias. Every option has more negatives than positives.

I said that arming the Sunnis was a brilliant SHORT TERM strategy. It was. It was a major reason why The Surge successfully defeated the foreign terrorists in Iraq. But I also pointed out that arming the Sunnis could be a disaster in the long-run, as you said.

I said that the US has solved all the problems in Iraq that we can solve. That doesn't mean that there aren't still problems - far from it. The American ability to solve Iraq's problems is very limited. We've done all that we can do, but that's not much. My point was that there isn't really much good the US can do in Iraq anymore. Any further American presence is only going to cause trouble.

You really need to do a better job of reading posts. You somehow got it in your head that I thought the whole Iraq escapade was a good idea, when the exact opposite is true. I thought the invasion was a bad idea in 2003, and I still think that the invasion was a bad idea. Everything that has happened since then was very predictable - even a lowly high school student in Wisconsin (me) saw it all coming back in 2003, although I still wish I had been wrong. Why our country's leaders didn't see it coming is a very frustrating question that I don't know the answer to. The situation would be a lot better over there if we hadn't invaded in the first place.

But this isn't an argument about whether the invasion was a good idea. That's water over the dam. What we're discussing now is what the best course of action given the situation we have now. As far as I'm concerned, the best way forward is to pull back and let the Iraqis try to solve their own problems.

Ah, okay, I found that comment about dismantling the Iraqi army to be unlucky in wording then (and I still think it could be misunderstood the way I did), and that set the context in which I red later comments as well. If you indeed meant it the way you now specified, then it is so. I book the misunderstanding as "lost in forum communications".

No hard feelings,
Sky

In all honesty, what are the options?

Root out the terrorists? Good luck in that, you'll be in iraq & afghanistan still in 2050. It is just impossible task to do.

Keep presence there? It helps, but it wont stop the terrorists entirely. One could even think that the recent decrease in violence is because the terrorists know US is pulling out and that they "have pushed the invaders out". Nobody knows how it would be, if there wouldnt be a set date for US to get out of Iraq. :hmmm:

:up:

It would make a nice parking lot.....

Lots of parking for the oil workers who won't have jobs since the world economy must go "green"

Seriously - I am so suprised no onoe is connecting the dots here. If the petroleum market tanks - and it will at some point - then your going to have a slew of arab countries with NO chance to sustain any form of an economy.

Ok - now you have a bunch of religious, dirt poor zealots with arms, who now have no hope of ever getting any more of your money.... what do ya think they will do? Any one hear that jihad call going off - Europe here they come.....

You were warned.

Believe it or not, but we are beyond peak oil, so...

Why do you think Arab investors are buying themselves so heavily into Western corporations and want joint ventures...? Several of the world's fattest and richest investement fond companies - are sitting at the Gulf. When they have run out of oil, they still must not work, probably. We will work for them, at least very many of us.

I thought the leader of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid surrendered a couple of years back. Yes i'm sure they did.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said twice Sunday that Iraq “is a failure,” adding that President Bush’s troop surge has “not produced the desired effect.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8422.html

Didn't Mr. Obama order a troop surge in Afghanistan? Another failure by Ms. Pelosi's standards.

Harry Reid in his own words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyDOAmJYFFA

Have you seen Dubai? Abu Dhabi? Those cities are swimming in money these days. And the UAE doesn't have oil.