You forgot the sun rising today...

The Iranian regime was in crisis before our invasion. If anything, we've given it an extension. Syria was liberalizing before our invasion. The Palestinian issue has gotten worse, despite the lip service, and what reforms we wanted hardly required an invasion. If anything, our clumsiness undercut our goals in both Palestine and Syria. Turkey wasn't anti-Western before the invasion, so it being brought back is hardly a plus (and it's probably still a minus, as I doubt the people are as pro-Western as you like to delude yourself into believing.). As for the Kurds, they already had autonomy in their own section of Iraq and the Shiites hardly seem inclined to be much better than Saddam in strategic terms since their parties are all variations of religious groups, differing in degree but not kind.

Derek:

So you agree that a rapid liberalization is well underway.

"Rapid"? No, not really, at least not on your terms. As I pointed out, what liberalization was happening has been hampered, indeed set back, significantly by our intervention.

That the systems in the Middle East were failures I never disputed. Their failure stems from Islam's basic inability to deal with modernity. My point has always been that time is on our side and we could wait them out. Indeed, military intervention has proven, as I and others predicted, to be counterproductive as it gave the religious a focus to rally against.

Derek

You are completely missing the ramificatuions of one of the Middle East's iron foundations of autocracy continuing on as it was, gradually gaining "moral" strength daily by virtue of being out in front in confronting American power, and living to do the same the next day, and the next day, and the next week, and the next month, and the next year, and the next decade........

Shoveling money to Palestinian suicide bombers, undercutting ANY libralization in the region, offering Arabs that "strong horse" to back, etc, etc. Want to see the results of that? We all have... for the past 30 years. The status quo was radically unacceptable.

"Syria was libralizing". Sure. They all were... for the past 30 years. The North American continent is also moving. Give us all another 500 years and we can point to both.

"The Palestinian issue has gotten worse." Go back to fall of 2000 (that when that Mohammed Duras? kid was killed on the front page of the NYT. All the suicide bombings, all the terror, all the incursions. The Palistinian issue always SEEMS worse. It sure as hell wasn't any better.

The Kurds autonomy was such that it entailed US forces there.... forever, essentially, until Uday and Qusay were grandfathers.

"Waiting them out" becomes less of an option when terror-supporting states are dabbling in WMD.

If the ostensible pro-Westernism in the Arab world is a delusion, I won't argue, I will merely counter....

The idea that ANYTHING of significance would change in the region with Saddam on his throne of skulls in Bagdhad is an absurd delusion. It wouldn't. Don't kid yourself.

Derek:

I'm a conservative--by rapid I mean that fifty years from now the Middle East will resemble Eastern Europe, SouthEast Asia, Latin America.

OJ,

I hope you're right. At any rate, we didn't need an invasion to bring it about.

Andrew,

The money Hussein gave to the Palestinians was not the problem. It was Israel's refusal to extricate itself from the Territories. The only reason the number of bombings have gone down is because Israel is conducting a economically ruinous crackdown, as expands settlements, more deeply linking itself to the territories and threatening its own demographic future. Removing Saddam has NOT made things better there.

As for the Kurds, the situation we had was certainly better than the ruinous solution we've adopted so far, which is killing hundreds of our men and thousands of civilians, and is running into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Waiting the Islamics out is the most rational course as we don't have the men or the will to take over the entire Middle East. The half-option of invading Iraq only produces the worst of both worlds, we're committed to combat enough to get our people killed, but not enough to eliminate the Islamists.

"The idea that ANYTHING of significance would change in the region with Saddam on his throne of skulls in Bagdhad is an absurd delusion."

LOL. Saddam's enemies were always his greatest admirers. My how all-powerful you make him out to be, Andrew. In fact, he was contained and caged dictator, more a threat to himself than anyone else. Considering that what loose "WMD's" there floating in Iraq are now available to terrorists, we can say the country is now potentially more dangerous to us than it was before.

Derek:

No, that I agree with. Similarly Nazism and Communism would have fallen of their own accord and WWII and the Cold War were unnecessary. We have wars because we like them.

Similarly Nazism and Communism would have fallen of their own accord...

You wish. There is no, repeat, no evidence to support that assertion.

We're ignoring the strategic benefits of moving our military center of gravity to an area that borders on Iran, Syria and Arabia -- the center of gravity of our enemies.

Wait until a true Iraqi government takes over mid next year. The Kurds will continue to prosper with considerable autonomy in the north and while the Shia will dominate the government running the rest of the country.

We will gladly withdraw to a few, well-chosen bases away from major population centers. We'll still be involved in reconstruction and occasionally provide decisive force for security emergencies as we do in Afghanistan, but mostly we'll be a dagger that can be thrust east, west or south should the need arise.

50 years is about right, OJ. We had our center of gravity near the Fulda Gap for about that long. The good news is we will not need as large a troop presence as we had in Europe. The bad news is that there is no beer.

Brandon:

What fascist or communist society when left to its own devices has lasted fifty years?

JAB:

That's the neocons imperial dream but it's bogus. They want us gone ASAP and we will be.

My point is that we can be keep a sufficiently low profile but still have the ability to project power from Iraq without being in their face.

We won't be 'gone' as I agree they want but we will only be in their face when helping. We should not be patrolling cities, for instance.

Obtaining this strategic benefit is not an 'imperial' dream. It's necessary so that we can get at people who want to kill us.

JAB:

Predators, cruise missiles, the Navy, the Air Force, etc.. We don't need infantry stationed there. They're just inviting targets for nutbags.

Clinton loved cruise missiles, predators and standoff weapons. Our enemies inferred from their use that we lacked the courage to put soldiers on the ground. Unfortunately bugging out of Iraq would send the same message unless we maintain a credible threat to destroy the Saudi, Syrian and Iranian regimes should the need arise. I believe this capability may be achieved by prepositioning equipment in order to minimize our footprint there, but I'm no military expert.

JAB:

They don't care what we do. We're incidental to their fantasies.

We need to shatter their fantasies soon or we're going to have to kill them all. Nukes will eventually be in their grasp and, given their fantasies, they will not be deterrable. I'm not necessarily that optimistic of success, but consider our efforts to be a form of moral due diligence.

Orrin, your faith in Predators is touching, but the experience of Israelis with helicopters and tanks ought to teach you that it isn't that easy.

No, it isn't that easy if you're trying to reduce collateral deaths as much as possible.

>What fascist or communist society when left to
>its own devices has lasted fifty years?

The USSR was able to hang on for 70 years, but during that time was able to spread its political cult over much of the world; some of it still hangs on here and there (China, North Korea, American Academia) and we're going to be picking up the pieces it left (Africa, South America, Asia) for a long time.

And a short lifespan doesn't mean it won't do a lot of damage before it goes down. The Thousand Year Reich lasted only 13 years.

The trick in OJ's questions was "when left to its own devices". As far as he's concerned, the USSR survived as long as it did only because it was propped up by the USA.

We need infantry stationed somewhere in the Middle East, or close by...
Turkey or Afghanistan would do.

Or Syria.

The actual trick to OJ's question was the implication that there are instances of those societies that have been left to their own devices to use as a comparison.

Fine for the Debate Team, but it hardly stands up to even superficial examination.

The actual trick to OJ's question was the implication that there are instances of those societies that have been left to their own devices to use as a comparison.

Fine for the Debate Team, but it hardly stands up to even superficial examination.

Jeff -- You say what I meant to say.