Good piece by Fareed Zakaria on Iraq in current issue of Newsweek
Tuesday, October 31, 2006 at 11:21AM Solid reasoning throughout. I especially like the comparison to the kissing-your-sister ending that was Korea in 1953. I've always thought Iraq would feel like that in the near term, only being treated with more kindness by history many years from now, when its place as the initial great battlefield in the Long War can be placed in some significant context.SPECIAL REPORT: "Rethinking Iraq: The Way Forward," by Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, 6 November 2006, p. 26.
Sad to say, but we were always slated--by temperament and by tradition--to suffer some sub-optimal outcome in Iraq. Our first time out of any new box seems predetermined in that way.
The system just wasn't ready for it and didn't want to be ready for it, nor was the public. Bush & Co. compounded all those errors of bias by being consistently incompetent in operational execution, even as the military has adapted itself reasonably well and still suffers from fighting under the worst strategic circumstances.
Fareed's option is well presented here: reduce and redeploy our troops and force the Iraqis toward some deal.
What is missing most here is more discussion on Iran. Fareed says, talk to them but nothing more. He wants Kurdistan secured but mentions nothing in the way of deals with Iran on that or to gain its useful role in mentoring the Shiia population in Iraq. He also makes no argument on Iran's WMD pursuit.
So the argument is Iraq-centric to a fault, in my mind. Still, accepting that bias, which BTW kills virtually every peace plan we ever dream up for the region, Fareed's overall presentation here is more solid than most, so worth a good read.
Still, I long for the great article on making some effort toward a regional security agenda and accompanying forum that brings together all the region's players and concerned outside great powers. I honestly believe that's the cover we need to forge an acceptable outcome in Iraq.
But absent a stinging Democrat win next week, I feel such an overarching approach is highly unlikely from this administration. It won't really talk and it won't really deal. So we won't really succeed.
Wrote my column for the weekend today. It's titled, "United we stood, but divided we'll stand taller."
Reader Comments (2)
It’s hard to see much analogy between Korea and Iraq. Which State would the US negotiate with to resolve the Iraq war? If the State was known it would probably be bombed rather than sat down with. Internal elements within Iraq don’t yield people to sit across the table with. Likewise, if the local parties were known, they would probably receive a cruise missile rather than an invitation.
Yet, Fareed Zakaria is essentially correct in that some compromise is necessary to get the US out of Iraq. To affect this the US needs to bring the local spectators, Iran, Jordan, Syria, Kuwait and Turkey and work something out. .
The one real oddity here, compared to Korea or Viet Nam or the Soviets in Afghanistan, is that the insurgents logistical sponsor may well be the United States itself. What an embarrassing mess!
The only thing I could guess is that this is a for profit war and those so enriched don’t want to stop it.
The administration needs to sit back and question all of its premises. First what do the American people want? From the holy rollers to the pot smoking no accounts, and all those in between, the people want peace. If true, the US government should seek peace. It has no other choice, as its soft under belly, the inability to put more than 150,000 boots-on-the-ground in any one place, drastically limits US power. Why does the US adopt polices which put it at odds with its suppliers? It needs the favor of Iran, the new Iraq, Venezuela, and even Cuba for its sugar. China, Japan, India, and the Saudi hold the US debt so they need to be favored also. The path is to seek peace.
The other path, force or the threat of force, is bad for business and serves only to weaken the US and its institutions.
In point take a look at the chart of the stock of Coca Cola http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#chart2:symbol=ko;range=my;indicator=sma+volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;logscale=on;source=
From the strongest brand in the world in 1980, the company muddles along, not because it’s mismanaged but because its government lacks vision.
A report in today's New York Times, confirmed one of my points that Iraq is a for profit war to some. It seems that the one office that has the responsiblity for audit in Iraq has been disbaned.
How can the crooks be stopped? See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/world/middleeast/03reconstruct.html?hp&ex=1162616400&en=590b5ef31979d828&ei=5094&partner=homepage