Irvine511 said:
it's been well over 3 years since Saddam was overthrown, and Condi Rice STILL has to wear a bulletproof vest at the freaking airport. there's been a collapse of civil order in iraq. there are no reliable Iraqi troops to impose order. and the Iraqis themselves grow more pessimistic with each passing day and wish for the US to withdraw.
no one is asking for Iraq to be France. but for Iraq to resemble anything other than a failed, insanely violent society ensconsced in a Civil War (that, yes, Colin Powell and NBC News and pretty much everyone else agrees with), a whole bunch of things are going to have to happen, and there don't seem to be any of these signs. for your grand 10 year project to work, there needs to be at least some sort of framework and successes to build upon after 3.5 years, but there isn't. we need the following:
1. Maliki to be a sort of unifying national leader
2. American troops to calm the civil war
3. American-trained Iraqi troops to fight for a united democratic government rather than for tribal/religious vengeance
and these are just the basics! this isn't even approaching oil exportation, Iranian influence, or the electricity in baghdad. this isn't even beginning the long, slow process of democratic nation building. it's not even the beginning of the beginning of that process. it's something totally different -- show me the sectarian strife in post-WW2 German or Japan.
and STING, you're going to have to face the reality that whatever threats you present as being posed by Saddam to the rest of the world (and where's your urging for oil independence and movement away from a petroleum based economy?), they pale in comparison to the real threats: AIDS, Palestine, NoKo, and the metastisizing threat from Islamist terrorism aided by genuine weapons of mass destruction.
iraq addresses NONE of these issues. NONE.
perhaps this should have been done in 1998 (and we'd at least have a competent executive in office). but considering the threats faced by the US in a post-9/11 world where 3,000 people can be murdered on the streets of NYC on sunny Tuesday morning in September, your geostrategic worries about oil in the Gulf pale in comparison to the real and the immediate.
[q]I've already demonstrated how the removal of Saddam has been an improvement for the region and key US security interest in the region. You have yet to explain how some rag tag Shia militia's are more of a threat to Kuwait than Saddam's military was. [/q]
it would be the IRAQI army, controlled by the Shiite majority and funded by the Shiites in Iran. or the "Shiiteistan" military.
again, why are the Saudis so nervous?
Most Iraqi's do not wish for the USA to withdraw and there are thousands of Iraqi troops who are well equipped and reliable enough to impose order in the area's in which they operate. No, there are not nearly enough of them yet, but say that none exist is simply false.
After 3.5 years you have the following:
1. two successful democratic elections in which the majority of the population participated.
2. the passing of a constitution
3. Iraq's first elected government coming into office.
4. Over 300,000 military and police forces trained.
5. compromises between the various ethnic groups of Iraq including Sunni acceptence of Maliki as the new leader of the government when Jafferi was seen as unacceptable.
6. Iraqi military units that have performed very well in combat in various operations in Anbar province with little or no support from the US military.
7. The continued professionalism of the Iraqi military and non-sectarianism compared with police forces which have sometimes been caught in engaging in sectarian violence. The problems in the police forces are not seen anywhere near to that degree in the military.
8. Substantial GDP growth across the country.
9. Relative calm and peace in 13 of the 18 provinces of Iraq.
10. Polls in those provinces showing that "security" is not a top concern for the people that live there.
11. The distribution of humanitarian aid, electricity, and other services to many parts of Iraq that had often been denied such items for decades.
12. The standard of living of the average Iraqi is higher than that of the average person in Afghanistan, yet Iraqi's are perceived to be worse off than people in Afghanistan.
There are plenty of things to build on in Iraq, plenty of accomplishments made by coalition troops, plenty of accomplishments made by Iraqi's, but for various reasons, some people do not want to acknowledge that these things have happened.
The following threats:AIDS, Palestine, NoKo, and the metastisizing threat from Islamist terrorism aided by genuine weapons of mass destruction would NOT impact the planet to the degree that the immediate siezure and sabotage of Persian Gulf Oil Supply would. We live in an industrialized society that is dependent on the Persian Gulf, primarily Saudi Arabia, in order to survive. Aids, Palestine, North Korea, Islamist terrorism, will NOT immediately cause a global economic depression, but the seizure or sabotage of the oil fields in Saudi Arabia would! A Global economic depression from which the world might not recover from would end all aid efforts for solving the AIDS crises, worsen the plight of Palestinians as all aid dries up for them, do nothing for the Korean security situation, but perhaps make it worse as supplies to feed starving North Koreans stops coming in, in the quantities needed and would certainly create more opportunities for Islamic terrorism which takes advantaged of impoverished destablized situations which would be rampent across the globe in such a situation. A global economic depression would kill millions of people for a variety of reasons.
Thankfully, the major threat to energy supplies in the Persian Gulf has been removed and the immediate security situation for Kuwait and Saudi Arabia is the best it has been in years. But if the United States withdraws prematurely from Iraq, its unknown how many years it will take before a new threat would to the Persian Gulf would come from Iraq.
"it would be the IRAQI army, controlled by the Shiite majority and funded by the Shiites in Iran. or the "Shiiteistan" military."
What Iraqi army? The Shia militia's in Iraq are any thing but professional military organizations. The Iraqi army that is being created by the coalition, is currently not equipped for an operation such as large armored manuevers hundreds of miles through the deserts of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia with all the logistical requirments that would entail. Most Iraqi units are still training as infantry battalions for counter insurgency warfare and basic security duties. Most do not have armored vehicles, tanks, artillery, helicopters etc. at this time. The United States has the capacity to supply and train and equip the Iraqi military in the size required, the Iranians do not as their own military is actually underequipped for large scale conventional military operations such as the ones Saddam launched that overran Kuwait in 12 hours. Most of Irans major weapon systems have been supplied by OTHER countries over the years, and much of it is old and inoperable especially equipment from the Shah era. Its one thing to supply militia's with training and equipment, its another to build a professional military force of the size needed for Iraq. Iran may be 10 years away from getting a nuclear weapon, but that does not change the poor quality and neglect of their conventional military forces, or a standard of living roughly the same as that for Palestinians in the occupied territories.
