Leaving Iraq
 

http://www.slate.com/id/2221404/



Well, I'm not looking forward to hearing reports of increased violence. The US troop pullback was agreed on before Obama, as the article says, so leave him out of this.

It's been a long hard slog for the people of Iraq and US/British/allied troops, and a lot of progress has been made towards a sovereign, democratic state where previously there was a dictator. Let's hope the Iraqi govt. has the situation in hand.

I guess we will not know if violence will return if the troops withdraw until we actually withdraw. Perhaps it is time to cut and run. Let see how it goes. Really, this was coming and I guess tomorrow is as good a day as any. Let's hope peace remains.

Hmm... dramatic reduction violence and casualties? :hmmm:

There's still alot of suicide bombers/IEDs that kill ppl. It's not many days in a week that I dont see news of another 20 or so civilians blown to heck by them.

Oh well, let's hope for the best. :yep:

Well, it is no worse than some cities here in the USA Dowly. Just a different method of killing unfortunately.

Ya, but the difference is that anyone knows USA is doomed, Iraq might have a chance. :O:

I'm beginning to believe that:hmmm:

maby that russian guy was right about the us breaking into different unions..... and if hese correct... where i live would be part of the EU.:hmmm:

My opinion about iraq...

When Us troops/aurmor pull out, the attempts to set up a system will go to hell, and it will return to the way it was...:shifty:

If the S*** that keeps happening in the US like it is (ex were buying crap from china, not makeing it ourselfs.), The US will die out...

"Brave Sir Robin ran away..." :)

1:03 ->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZwuTo7zKM8

My heart wishes them well, my mind knows it better.

It's a good time to pull out. If we stayed much longer without a definite pull out date the Iraqis were going to turn on us.

If you look at Iraqi history since WWII, all their leaders have been deposed by people who once supported them. In 1958 the king was overthrown (and executed) by Qassem, whose coup was widely supported in the country. By 1963 many of the groups that had supported Qassem's coup were now supporting his overthrow by the Baathists. Like the king he was dead within a day. Then the military, who had worked with the Baathists to overthrow Qassem staged their own coup later that year and pushed the Baathists aside. Arif took over but died in a surprisingly non-suspicious helicopter crash. His VP took over for a couple days, but then the military pushed him aside and replaced him with Arif's brother, who was subsequently pushed aside by the Baathists, led by al-Bakr. Al-Bakr was t hen pushed aside by his right hand man, Saddam Hussein.

We saw the same thing in 2003. The Iraqis, who had turned out in massive crowds to cheer Saddam, turned out in force to welcome our invasion. Within a few weeks they had turned against us, and were supporting the foreign Al Qaeda types who had stremed into the country. Then a combination of excessive violence from the foreign terrorists and very smart strategies from Patreus swung the population back on our side and against the Al Qaeda types.

That's where we stand now, but how much longer are the Iraqis going to stay on our side? Given their previous history, not much longer. Thankfully, it looks like we won't reach that point.

There are still lots of unresolved questions. Can a functional, national, and stable Iraqi government be formed? Can Iraq overcome its dire case of No Such Country Syndrome? Are the Iraqi police and the Iraqi army really up to the job of securing their country? What will the role of the US be in the country after our troops leave?

But the biggest question by far is what will happen to the Sunni Awakening militias. They were an integral part of The Surge, and with American weapons and American support, they played a big role in defeating the Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq. Arming them was a brilliant short-term strategy, but it could have dire long-term unitnended consequences.

If the government tries to disarm them, they will fight back, possibly resulting in a civil war. If the government simply disbands them but lets them keep their guns, they'll have a ton of armed men roving the country with nothing else to do. One of the biggest mistakes the US made in 2003 was disbanding but not disarming the old Iraqi army - lots of the former soldiers kept their weapons and turned them against the Americans. Finally, if the government incoorporates the militias into the national army, then they'll have a Sunni-dominated army, which will alienate the Shias and the Kurds.

Could the US presence help solve these problems? Probably not, which is why it's a good time to leave. The problems we can solve are solved. Now it's up to the Iraqis to solve the problems that only they can solve.

Talk from a parrallel universe made of anti-matter, it seems to me.

You're talking about my post?

well, in my opinion as I stated before, when the us pulls out, the people who were in control will come back if full force and thousands of lifes would have been just a waste.... it wont take much to set that country ablaze again.

Who exactly are you talking about? The Al Qaeda types are dead, and the Baathists are powerless. Some bad folks might indeed seize power in Iraq, but it won't be the same ones who were in control before.

As far as the lives being wasted, sticking around would just waste more lives. The problems that we're talking about aren't problems that the US can solve - the Iraqis have to solve them on their own.

yes, but in an unstable country, anything could happen... Bad folks getting in control of the country could be worse than the old people... and actualy kill more civilian lifes, do similar things to Al Qaeda, attack america because of how america in there eyes invaded there country. anything is possiable.

To make a long story short, anything is possiable in a country that is undergoing changes loke Iraq. The thing is you never know.

The us needs to keep some kind of force over there that will keep control if the government goes crazy.

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: