The problems with reconstructing Iraq are beginning already

[Paul Victorey]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/...ion/index.html

The Kurds are upset that they're not being allowed to take an active role in fighting Saddam. Of course, they shouldn't be allowed to take any part, because once they sieze land, good luck getting them to give it up again, and if they declared themselves independant, it would seriously destabilize the entire region.

It also shows how frustrated these groups will be when (not if) the US occupies Iraq and rules it for some time. I've heard 2 years, but it seems to me that to get Iraq to the point where it can be self-ruled in only 2 years would be nothing short of an act of God.

Further, this just lends strength to my belief that no matter what happens, we won't make any friends of anyone in Iraq, because no matter how much power any one group gets, they will always be upset that we kept them from taking more.

Getting Saddam out of power will be a cakewalk; replacing Saddam will be a nightmare.

[Xayd]

Agreed, that's my basis for being against the entire thing to begin with.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Ditto.

[TimPoet]

Originally posted by Paul Victorey [url]Getting Saddam out of power will be a cakewalk; replacing Saddam will be a nightmare.

At the risk of sounding like an opposer, getting him out will not be a cakewalk and replacing him with a democratic government will be a huge gift for the mideast.

[doctorgonzo]

Originally posted by TimPoet At the risk of sounding like an opposer, getting him out will not be a cakewalk and replacing him with a democratic government will be a huge gift for the mideast.

Yes, IF Iraq becomes a true democracy, it will help in the Mideast. That is one very, very big if. Afghanistan hasn't turned out to be a democratic country; it's government is wholely ineffective outside of Kabul. The last thing we need is for Iraq to become like that: a functioning government in and around Baghdad, but a bit more anarchy in the rest of the country. If that happens, that will only serve to increase the ability for terrorists to hang around there.

[Statica]

The reason why such powers come to be in areas like these is because they have the ability to amalgamate the entire country under one banner. A lot of these areas are disillusioned by the western nations also because they have been subject to geographical demarcations that they never wanted in the first place, or havent been done so with too much forethought, or havent been done so with proper input from the indigenous population (possibly because there was no forum of polling public sentiment). It isnt necessarily about them believing in a different God, or looking upon the rest of the world as the unbelievers; it also has a lot to do within this century itself. Countries that have been ruled as a colony (for obvious benefit of the ruling country), rarely if ever look too kindly to the colonizers - especially if they cut the country up on the way out (it is a moot point to a lot of these people in these areas that it wasnt much of a country to begin with). If you look at the entire region, establishing a democracy might be a bit of a pipe dream. Most countries in this region have remained relatively stable under one strong power, regardless of the ascension to power. This ascension to power, has been as a result of weak monarchies as well, and in some cases weak democracies. This is also not a region that wants to be governed by secular laws either; there are a number of countries that wish to be governed by religious tenets as well, and it is also their prerogative to choose that. Democracies, military regimes and even monarchies have willingly accepted conversions to religious law as a means to stop tensions both internally and w/ neighbors (the only nation that is experimenting with democracy in the recent past is Bahrain - too inconsequential to be considered as a norm, especially since Bahrain is one of those Mid-east countries that does not produce oil) .. and in a lot of ways is the "Raiza" (From star trek) for that region .. both for US soldiers, as well as people from other nations.

If the re-building effort by the US has to succeed, then whoever it is that is going to spearhead it must be able to either be willing to stick it out, and face inevitable opposition to the change they will want to bring; or must be able to adapt a working model of what acceptable change for that reason is, forget the notions of creating a democracy that will be as far reaching as perhaps nations in N.America are; or hope like heck that the next regime change will bring out someone in power that is either afraid of the US or finds it in their best interest to take orders from the US (the latter will have stiff opposition from the people there).

[Hot Rod]

What bothers me is the fact that Bush wants to put an American in charge for a minimum of 2 years and then awards the Iraqi oil contract to Halliburton...who's former CEO is Dick Cheney.

Something seems terribly wrong about their plans and I am concerned about this.

[doctorgonzo]

The fact that Iraq is a geographical mishmash is very important. It exists as a country not because it makes sense, but because the British drew the lines that way.

One question that few people ask is why is Saddam the way he is? It is far too easy to say, "Well, he is evil, simple as that" and be done with it. Things are not that easy. Much more likely is that Saddam is the way he is because he has to be to control a country that has several groups of people that hate each other.

It would make sense to compare Iraq to Yugoslavia, another invented country that threw several distinct ethnic and religious groups together. When Tito ruled with an iron fist, there wasn't much internal strife because it was put down ruthlessly when it occurred. Groups got along because they were forced to. However, after the fall of Communism and the advent of democracy, the fear that kept these groups from fighting each other disappeared, and what do you know? They started fighting each other, viciously, to make up for years of resentment.

The same thing could easily happen in Iraq. There are simply too many groups, and too much resentment, to think that we can hold a few elections, call it a "democracy," and get out.

[Mac Medic]

Such a hatred for the US. Or is it just a fear of a republican government fighting yet another sucessful war?. We're there to liberate the Iraqi people, it doesn't matter if we make friends and inevitable that we won't. We are there because it's the right thing to do, to defend innocent people who have no way of defending themselves. To punish a regime for years of non-compliance. If we had leaders in the 1930's with the same resolve we do today, how many Jew's would have been spared torture and death?. But leave it to USA haters and these monsters would rule indefinately.

[Statica]

"Hatred to the US?" whom are these comments directed to? I see nothing in this thread about any USA bashing.

On the other hand, if you refer to the Mid-east people's hatred towards the US, then it might be worthwhile to check on their geopolitical and social history and try to have an understanding of what it is that makes them so mistrustful of the west. Only when that is done, and am sure it has been done by the powers that want to affect change, will there be any lasting peace in that region.

[doctorgonzo]

It is not hatred of the U.S. to think. It is not hatred of the U.S. to engage in a debate about possible outcomes to this war. Just because I don't believe the flowers-on-the-tanks, we-only-need-30-days optimism of the administration does not mean I "hate the U.S."

It is all well and good to say that we are "liberating" Iraqis, that we are "punishing" Saddam for non-compliance, and so forth. But this is not a video game that gets turned off once we kill the Big Boss. This is real life, and things are not that simple. Iraq will not default to a free, peace-loving democratic state once Saddam is gone. The world will not default to a safer place once Saddam is gone. There are a lot of questions about what will happen next, and asking them does not mean anybody hates the U.S.

[drisley]

I agree with that. Problem is those who are against the war for legit reasons get their credibility dashed by the more extremist folks who organize a lot of protests who certainly are anti-American. Here I'm talking about the communist and socialist parties, worker's world party, anti-capitalist groups, etc.

[Paul Victorey]

And it does the Iraqi people little good if they are "liberated" only to face decades of civil war or genocide.

I think occupying Iraq for only 2 years would be incredibly short -- it's all well and good to talk about democracy in Iraq, but democracy really falls apart when you have several groups (in this case, three) who are diametrically opposed on all issues. In such a case, whichever group has the majority gets 100% of the power, because they can vote anything into existence, and the minorities are stripped of all power, because their votes will always be overruled by the majority.

Rwanda was a democracy too, didn't stop them from having one of the worst cases of genocide in the past 20 years.

And compared to the sheer difficulty of rebuilding Iraq, getting Saddam out is by far the easy part.

And oem_guy, when the Republicans have a successful war, I'll think higher of them (and I'm a Republican, so no fair saying I'm just being partisan). The Gulf War was a failure, as if Bush Sr. had gotten Saddam, we wouldn't need to have bothered with the last 12 years of back and forth with Iraq. The war in Afghanistan was a failure -- the government we installed is useless beyond the borders of the capital, and we completely failed to get Bin Laden when we knew where he was. Bush was trying so hard to keep American soldiers from dying that he decided to leave the task of getting Bin Laden out of Tora Bora to the Northern Alliance, a half-trained army commanded by a smattering of local warlords who fight amongst themselves nonstop. Bin Laden could probably easily bribe his way past those guys; he might have found it harder to bribe US soldiers.

Now, I agree, we shouldn't waste soldiers unnecessarily, but when it comes down to it, sometimes we have to lose soldiers to gain our objective.

[Mac Medic]

The 1st war was a full success, every objective was met. It was never an objective to overthrow the regime. How you figure it was is beyond me. This time the objective is regime change, do you think that won't happen?.

[Paul Victorey]

Oh, I know *A* regime change will happen, but I think the objective is (or at least should be) more than just regime change -- it should be to install a GOOD regime, one that is democratic while at the same time preventing the nation from breaking into civil war or genocide. And, given the groups involved, it's practically certain that that is an impossible task.

So yes and no -- I think a regime change will happen, but I think it will only make a bad situation worse.

[Mac Medic]

Fair Enough, good answer and you're probably right, but we still have a responsibility to try to liberate the opressed, and to stand idly by and let this regime continue it's actions is in my opinion unforgivable and inhumane.

[Paul Victorey]

But toppling one bad regime only to instate a worse one is like throwing them out of the frying pan and into the fire. Before we go running off half-cocked to save the world, we should make sure we're actually saving people, and not simply condeming even more people.

Look at Afghanistan -- outside of Kabul, the Taliban laws still hold almost everywhere. Our new government has no strength at all, their decrees are ignored outside the capital city. All we've done is put into power a govenment so weak it can't even truly be called a national government. And given the Afghan's history of being organized as small clans ruled by warlords, we've pretty much guaranteed that the civil wars will go on for decades. The only reason the government is still there is because the warlords fear Karzai's US support. But that selfsame support weakens Karzai's government, because the Afghan people see this as a continuation of the foreign rule they fought so hard against.

[WJWheels]

Originally posted by Paul Victorey Look at Afghanistan -- outside of Kabul, the Taliban laws still hold almost everywhere. Our new government has no strength at all, their decrees are ignored outside the capital city.

The "new" Afghani government is only days old. One could have said the same thing in 1776 about the "new" U.S. government. It was 200 years before a man could safely walk down the street in "most" of the country without a 6-gun at his side.

So a worst scenario for Iraq would have Kurd, Shia, Sunni, & whatever else fighting each other into eternity. Even here the worst threat of today's Iraq (IMHO) would still have been eliminated. Saddam's chemical, biological, & developing nuclear threat would be gone and no longer available to share with terrorists.

[jbbrown211]

I don't think there will be anything simple about any of it. I'm for and against this at the same time, but it is in the best interest of the country. The problem is that some of them don't know it. We will have problems from the "natives" as long as we try to maintain a presence there in my opinion.

[Paul Victorey]

Originally posted by WJWheels The "new" Afghani government is only days old. One could have said the same thing in 1776 about the "new" U.S. government. It was 200 years before a man could safely walk down the street in "most" of the country without a 6-gun at his side. So a worst scenario for Iraq would have Kurd, Shia, Sunni, & whatever else fighting each other into eternity. Even here the worst threat of today's Iraq (IMHO) would still have been eliminated. Saddam's chemical, biological, & developing nuclear threat would be gone and no longer available to share with terrorists.

His government is about 10 months old, and it will fall in a heartbeat once the US withdraws troops; his government loses popularity daily; 95% of the country doesn't obey the government and more than 2/3 of the people in the one city he controls hate the new government.

And realistically, if Iraq does lapse into civil war, which seems difficult to avoid, how many Sunni, Shi'ite, and Kurd deaths are an acceptable price to pay for ridding the world of Saddam? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000?

[WJWheels]

Originally posted by Paul Victorey His government is about 10 months old, and it will fall in a heartbeat once the US withdraws troops; his government loses popularity daily; 95% of the country doesn't obey the government and more than 2/3 of the people in the one city he controls hate the new government. And realistically, if Iraq does lapse into civil war, which seems difficult to avoid, how many Sunni, Shi'ite, and Kurd deaths are an acceptable price to pay for ridding the world of Saddam? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000?

Well, I admire your pessimism, but I happen to look at things in a bit of a brighter light. What if they form a wonderful 2 or 3 party government? What if no-one is killed? Remember I did say a "worst case scenario". And yes, I do think it's worth it to get rid of Saddam along with the certainty that his WMD eventually fall into the hands of international terrorists.

Umm... Saddam is the one with the track record of killing Iraqi citizens. It's much more probable that more would die leaving his regime in power than forming a new government.

[raftero]

i agree with wheels,and at least we won't have to worry about him selling wmd to some group to use on us or some other people.

[Paul Victorey]

Saddam didn't start the killings, they've gone on for centuries. He's just the current one doing them. In fact, compared to many, he's positively a moderate, in that he has waited for the groups to rebel before he attacks them. Saddam is more or less willing to not kill his people so long as they obey him unconditionally. There are far more people, though, who favor something akin to Hitler's "final solution", and simply want to eradicate every last member of the other groups. For as repressive as Saddam is, he's hands down better than those people.

Forming a stable democratic government in a country where severe ethnic hatreds exist is next to impossible. In fact, I can't think of a single good government that's formed under those circumstances.

The problems in Iraq run far deeper than Saddam, and for all his repressive behavior, he's kept the nation from tearing itself apart from civil war. Everybody is too afraid of him to rebel. Of course, their fear only makes them hate each other more, so although his cruel regime keeps the situation from exploding, it also makes the underlying problem worse.

But removing the only thing that prevents Iraq from self-destructing is not necessarily a wise move, especially as we cannot solve the root problems. I think all we're going to do is solve one small problem while making the big problems vastly worse.

[WJWheels]

Forming a stable democratic government in a country where severe ethnic hatreds exist is next to impossible.

I think as long as we impress the Kurds as being their friends, things will work out. A good sign is that the "regular" Shia population is fighing the Al-qaeda linked Ansar al-Islam along with the Kurds and the U.S.

The Kurds have never gotten along with Saddam, and our allegiance with Turkey has turned them off to the U.S. The U.S. freeing them from Saddam's hold just might do wonders.

[Paul Victorey]

Yes, but the Sunni and Shia hate the Kurds as much as they hate each other, and the fact that we nailed Saddam will only be remembered so long, and then each group is going to try to grab as much power as they can, for fear that the other groups will do the same and succeed in repressing them. And as the US will be the ones to portion out power, each is going to despise the US for not giving them "what they deserve". The Kurds want land, independance, etc. and they aren't going to get either. The Sunni want to maintain their absolute control, which they won't get, and the Shia will expect to gain total control (being the majority), and if they get anything less, they'll feel we cheated them.

It is good that much of Iraq hates Al Quaeda, although the Kurds have too close of ties to them for my liking; especially things like this ricin factory in the Kurdish-controlled north, and some ties of several big Kurdish rebels to Al Quaeda.

In fact, the Kurds have had help from Al Quaeda in fighting Saddam, who is loathed by Al Quaeda. The Shia aren't too fond of Bin Laden, though, so ther won't be as much support from that side.

[Eaglefeather]

Paul you raise many valid points. No one ever said it would be easy. But don't you think it is at least worth a try?

These people have been fighting amongst themselves for a few hundred years. But they have always settling their differences through bloodshed which only leads to more bloodshed.

The Coalition has an opportunity here to try and bring these various warring sides together and sit them down at the discussion table. Ok none of them will get everything they want, but perhaps it will be possible to convince them that it is in their own best interests to try and come to an agreement they can all live with.

I don't see it as being impossible, just difficult. Everyone keeps refering to Afgahnistan and the shamozzle there. Well I do not want to insult their intelligence but this is not Afgahnistan, this is Iraq, an entirely different situation. Although on the surface they may look the same they are not.

Delicate diplomatic discussions will have to take place, but the US, Britain and many other countries have become quite expert in that area. The most important thing is that the outside forces must only act as advisors and keep the peace during the negotiating process. The negotiations and decisions must be, "made in Iraq".

I for one think it is worth the effort. The Iraqi people deserve a chance to try and reset their destiny. If it all collapses and goes to the devil, well at least we will have given it a good try. No one can ever fault an honest try.

[TimPoet]

Originally posted by Paul Victorey Saddam didn't start the killings, they've gone on for centuries. He's just the current one doing them. In fact, compared to many, he's positively a moderate, in that he has waited for the groups to rebel before he attacks them. Saddam is more or less willing to not kill his people so long as they obey him unconditionally.

Originally posted by Eaglefeather Paul you raise many valid points. No one ever said it would be easy.

Well, Paul does raise a lot of points, I will say that. As far as Saddam, the Butcher of Baghdad, who's killed hundreds of thousands of people and even has used WMD's against his own countrymen, I say he is far from being a moderate.

[Paul Victorey]

Saddam has killed thousands of people, but he has only killed the people who rebelled against him, and their families. As horrifying as that is, there are many Sunni who want every last Kurd and Shi'ite dead, they don't care whether they obey the government or not; they would kill over 70% of Iraq (over 15 million people).

For as bad as he is, none of the three groups has been ethnically cleansed or killed indiscriminantly. He has even done the best he can to unify Iraq under a single national identity, one of the only things that could possibly stabilize Iraq, because he doesn't want to rule over a people who are divided, and he doesn't want to have to kill 70% of his people to rule unopposed.

And Eaglefeather, it won't be like Afghanistan -- Afghanistan was a much easier situation to deal with, and it still fell apart. Iraq has far worse problems than Afghanistan ever did; I wouldn't expect it to be as easy.

I also don't think any non-Arab group can help Iraq solve its problems -- even if we are willing to help, our help would not be accepted.

[drisley]

You make a lot of assumptions, Paul. We shall see if you're right or not.

[shazam]

might not be hatred, but it sure is negative.