October 05, 2003
SURPRISINGLY UPBEAT FOR THE TIMES:
Staying the Course May Be the Hardest Battle (PATRICK E. TYLER, 10/05/03, NY Times)
[O]n the ground here, despite the staccato of gunfire in the night, optimism has never been stronger that Iraqis will pull through, if America can find a formula for letting them take control of their destiny as the allied armies and occupation administrators recede.The streets of Baghdad, Basra and Mosul bustle with commerce. Restaurants are filled late into the night as the heat of summer abates along with the fear of crime. Schools, many refurbished with the help of Americans, reopened last week. New textbooks, cleansed of Saddam Hussein's image, are being printed. The curfew has been extended an hour, until midnight.
Iraqis are voting with their feet, figuring that it is time to reopen their shops because the violence here is not directed at them, but at the American military and, less, at Iraq's new police and politicians.
Still, consensus in postwar Iraq is as elusive as Mr. Hussein, who remains in hiding. And the war over Iraq policy has moved into a complex phase.
There are three wars, really: the guerrilla campaign inside Iraq, the diplomatic war between the United States and the international community over nation-building and peacekeeping, and the partisan war in Washington, where Mr. Bush's critics are challenging almost everything about the course he charted here.
The war inside Iraq is now about occupation, a word that conjures the worst memories in a region that has been a battleground for empires and still seethes over the plight of Palestinians under the Israelis.
This whole bit about insisting that the Iraqis pay us back for our rebuilding costs, particularly out of oil revenue, really seems whorish. How about they have to pay us back right after the Europeans repay all the money they owe us from last century? Posted by Orrin Judd at October 5, 2003 06:19 AM
Not sure it seems whorish, but should we not at least have a corner on their oil supply over the next twenty years, or so. Presumably that's why we went into this venture in the first place, to disallow a demented dictator from continuing to further move in a direction away from our interests, both in terrorism and oil. T
And of course we saved millions from his reign of terror.
So correct me, but aren't we not just trying to get a foothold in past having one true ally in the middle east, by getting a true business partner for years to come, hence the 87b investment?
Posted by: Neil at October 5, 2003 09:52 AMWhat else would Iraq do with oil but sell it to us? That's why Gulf War I was pointless.
Posted by: oj at October 5, 2003 10:20 AMI've said it before but what we need to focus on is the security interests of the USA. The point of a prosperous, self ordered Iraq is that it will no longer be a danger to the US (even Germany, despite its anti-Americanism, isn't a threat to the USA). The money isn't ultimately to help Iraq, it's to help the USA. Reconstructing Iraq is a means to that end. If we really wanted to help Iraq, we'd nuke the oil fields.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at October 5, 2003 12:36 PMIt wasn't pointless if Saddam didn't view oil in economic terms.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at October 5, 2003 08:56 PMBut he did.
Posted by: oj at October 5, 2003 11:04 PM