Based on Japan/Germany a year and a bit didn't seem so long. Of course one of the main criticisms about Vietnam was that we didn't force/let the Vietnamese take responsibiility for themselves until too late. It's not that we don't learn, it's that we learn very slowly. Hopefully we'll let the Syrians take control of their own country on a much shorter timescale.

I see the error now, in that we assumed Shia had a brain, but you live and learn. Like Brian said we won't make that mistake again.

h:

No, we underestimated their brains. They don't us occupying them--they can govern themselves. Unlike the Krauts and Japs they're natural democrats.

To me the main missed opportunity has been federalism. We should have started running elections and turning over control at the local level as soon as possible, but only in localities that are secure. Once there are enough areas self-governing, national elections should be less of a problem. Our error seems to be the "national elections first" attitude. You'd think Republicans would know the advantages of federalism, wouldn't you?

You're suggesting that the Shia thought it was our desire to install a Sunni leadership? Perhaps that we wanted to steal their Oil (oil the shia's never controlled)?

If not that, then share with me their logic, in their hostile stance while we tried to get the oil industry running again and actively tried to remove Baathist from power.

So now Perle begins his unedifying, CYA manuevers. Yet another rat deserting the ship. It's going to be a long, hot summer for these boys.

Let us not forget that Perle would have turned over sovereignty to that thief and Iranian agent Chalabi. In short, if Perle had his way, we would conducted an invasion to turn Iraq over to Iran, thus reversing 20 years of foreign policy designed to prevent that very outcome. Prince of Darkness, indeed. What an insult to Satan's intelligence that sobriquet turned out to be.

Yes, we should have set up Chalabi immediately as a transitional step leading towards an elected government. We've been wrong about Iran for years--we should have helped them defeat Saddam.

OJ -

I thought we did provide help to Iran.

But really, neither side was worthy of winning that war. It was a slaughter waiting to happen.

jim:

No, we helped Iraq. One of Reagan's few big mistakes. Our reflexive hatred of the Iranians for the hostage crisis, though understandable, did neither nation any favors.

Actually, we helped both sides.

The error is that Iraqis should not have been treated uniformly. The Kurds were active allies. The Shi'as were the liberated people. And the Sunnis were the occupied because they were the oppressors. The post-war occupation should have been treated that way with different policies to each group.

The big thing that people seem to forget is that once we ousted Saddam, we had no dog in this hunt. It was his refusal to comply to the 1991 ceasefire terms that forced us to respond. After 9/11 we could not have walked away with him in defiance. He had to either capitulate (and lost face, but probably stay in power) or we invade and depose.

Same thing as in Afghanistan. Once the Taliban was rotued, we achieved our objective. Some leftists now whine that we haven't taken care of the warlords, but that's irrelevant to us. A strong, central liberal Afghan govt would be nice, but it won't advance US interests enough to cover the costs (a real Soviet style grinding war.)

As long as we leave Iraq in relatively stable condition, that's enough.

First, there have been bottoms up local elections already in Iraq.
Second, we have handled the Shia [and Kurd] areas differently (Poles/Danes/Spaniards/Brits vs. US forces).
Third, the Shia areas have in fact been mostly quiet. Were they not, we certainly did not have enough troops to truly 'occupy' the Shia areas.

The troubles we're now having with Sadr are a manifistation of how we stayed too long. The Shia could have handled him themselves.

I never understood why we let the perfect be the enemy of the good in conducting national elections, but it's a matter of ~8 months we're talking about.

I worry not that the Shia have 'brains' but that they have the guts to handle the internal and external threats they'll face when they begin to run the country. The performance of the ICDC and Iraqi Army was not encouraging in Fallujah. If I were a formerly oppressed Shiite, I'd have volunteered to go with the Marines to take on my former oppressors. The Kurd unit did much better from what I read.

Your last paragraph is exactly my point. True we will leave earlier than we had planned, but in fact the reason is ultimately the lack of active support from the Shia.

It was in their interest that we stay and subdue the former Baathist, and Sunni ruling class while they consolidated power. Therefore I think their future is not bright because apparently all they are capable of is winning an election. But then what, because obviously Baathist and Sunni's have no interest or benefit to themselves in abiding by the election. (Please don't suggest that the US will protect them)

H:

If you win the elections you rule the country.

Agreed. My point was that in that neighborhood, one must be tough in order to rule. So far, it is not clear that they can handle the ex-Baathists in their midst but it's not clear they cannot either.

Assuming that happens, another gamble is that the new Shia government resists Iranian influence long enough to in turn influence Iran. I doubt Sadr is the best threat the Mullahs have to offer. If so, we're in good shape.

OJ

Thanks for clarifying that for me. I perhaps felt that those people who previously ran the country for the last 35 years, and who controlled the cash flow from the oil fields, and who received government jobs and constituted the bulk of the Army might have different ideas.

For the last year they have been fighting us (the Baathist I'm talking about), and you say they were fighting in order that the majority Shia could control the government. If not then would you not imagine that they will continue the fight despite an election.

My understanding is as JAB's, that there have been local elections.

Whoop-te-do. Where is the Provisional Government, where was the Government in Exile?

The Shia have no concept of self-government, they've been waiting impatiently for us to give them the reins. Muqtadr, loopy as he is, is the only Shia to have shown any concept of self-government.

Winning the election in Iraq does NOT mean you get to govern the country. It'll be last man standing.

Sure, just like the yellow people couldn't govern themselves.

JAB

"If I were a formerly oppressed Shiite, I'd have volunteered to go with the Marines to take on my former oppressors. The Kurd unit did much better from what I read."

That is the nexus of the issue. How did the Kurds handle it? How did the Shia handle it?

Which people (kurd or shia) will likely have the support of the US if the going gets tough. Maybe OJ is correct and those challenges to their authority will be met by the Shia, but on present evidence it's doubtful.

h:

They may. so what? They'll lose.

h:

The Kurds have what they want, Kurdistan. They won't fight the Shi'a.

OJ
My original statement was that the Shia are not acting in their long term interest (hence reference to brains). You suggested that yes they are.

Terrorism is the issue, the theory was that democracy in the Middle East would lessen terrorism. Failure of democracy will not lessen terrorism by any senario.

Democracy won't fail. Terrorism won't disappear. The Shi'a will be fine. We'll be proud to tell our grandkids about what America did in the Middle East.

The pre 1958 regime, did allow some Shia re
presentation namely Muqtada's sensible grandpa and the less reliable Sali Jabr.The rest of the time, there was a italian turnstile, consisting of the Sunni lawrence retainer, Said Pasha; two of Adnan Pachachi's ancestors, and the first
prime minister, Rashid Ali Kailani, who twenty
years later; was the local Mesopotamian Vichy
puppet, much like his Palestinian counterpart
Arafat's uncle Haj Husseini

Harry:

Sadr's shouting and fiery "sermons" hardly qualify as self-government. And aside from them, he appears to hide everytime a US soldier gets within shooting range. Not very leaderful, as Bush might say.

Harry:
It'll be last man standing.
When has it ever been different?

--Where is the Provisional Government, where was the Government in Exile? --

London, Paris, couldn't even come up w/a flag after meeting for 20 years.

Remember them whining that what, W is going to dictate our flag?

I thought you AH, you've been meeting for 20 years, it's show time and your still not ready.

jim, I didn't say Muqtadr is an effective self-governor, I said he is the only Shia who understands that self-government means "I take the reins."

Many nations occupied by foreign armies have formed governments in exile. Orrin's favorites the Poles had several.

The Iraqis do not need to ask permission of Bremer, still less of Brahhimi, to form their own government.

Just do it.

Then you face the problem --- not solved by Muqtadr -- of making it effective.

But it you don't start, you don't have to face that problem, do you?

It is a myth that everybody wants self-government.

Nothing in history suggests that Arabs do.

The repressiveness of their governments does.

To me, the repressiveness suggests nothing more than what Acton said about power.

Nobody is likely to mistake Arabs for Irish.

Harry:

You do. A hundred years ago the Harrys of the world said the Micks weren't capable of democracy, the whole Catholic thing don't you know...

I agree OJ. As you so perceptively pointed out, the Irish probably weren't the most likely group to discover how much superior secularism is to the dead hand of theocracy.

People like freedom - but most of the people in the world don't even know what it is. Certainly not in Africa, much of Asia, and the Arab world.

Is it because they don't want to fight for it? Is it because they aren't enlightened enough? Is it because they are weak? We don't really know (exactly). But we know repression when we see it. That has been around for a long, long time.

Jeff:

They discovered what we did--you don't need British overlords to have a British system.

jim:

People prefer security.

And they discovered that secularism is more fit than anything else going.

The anbsence of serious belief does bring quietude--it's killing Europe.

I meant the Irish were rebellious. They preferred to misgovern themselves.

Arabs are noisy by quiescent.