WISING UP IN IRAQ

New York Post ^ | 11/05/03 | RALPH PETERS

[kattracks]

November 5, 2003 -- WHILE our occupation of Iraq is going vastly better than the media suggests, there is certainly room for improvement. But doing a better job requires taking unpopular measures and weathering the inevitable criticism from those who, never having done anything themselves, always know better what everyone else should do.

[XHogPilot]

The threat of separate Kurdish and Shi'a oil states should be enough to get the entire region on board!

Great thoughts, here's the supportable ones:

• Iraq's Sunni Arabs need to master a simple equation: If you support those who kill Americans, there are penalties. If you cooperate to build a better Iraq, there are rewards. We need contrasts in Iraq between how we treat the deserving and the murderous.
• Recognize Kurdish rights to the oil fields of northern Iraq now. They should be guarded by Kurds, worked by Kurds and managed by Kurds.
• The Sunni's must understand their terrorism has consequences - including the division of Iraq into three separate states:
  - an oil rich Kurdish Republic;
  - a Shi'a oil state in the south;
  - and a disarmed, resource-poor Sunni state

[zarf]

Hurrah!! Great article touching on painful truths and wise alternative strategies.

[Leisler]

Anybody seen Fallujah? It's on the map, but there is nothing here but a hole, glass and bits of rebar.

[Jim Noble]

But doing a better job requires taking unpopular measures and weathering the inevitable criticism from those who, never having done anything themselves, always know better what everyone else should do.

Well, that is the Administration's job.

[Jim Noble]

Iraq's Sunni Arabs need to master a simple equation: If you support those who kill Americans, there are penalties. If you cooperate to build a better Iraq, there are rewards

But we are at war with them.

The notion that war is a game, or an exercise, in which risks and rewards can be doled out by us to change the enemy, so that we can avoid the hard choice to surrender or destroy them, is a fantasy.

Once they surrender, then the peacetime tools of risk and reward become relevant.

Right now, we need to give them "surrender or die", not "penalties".

[Quix]

Strongly agree.

I also think we need to consider breaking Iraq up into 3 states.

Anything else increasingly seems like lala land nonsense.

[Quix]

You make a good point.

Nevertheless, to pretend that those tribal hostilities are going to make a happy country together still seems like a stretch to me.

[thoughtomator]

Want to scare the crap out of the fundies in the ME?

Two words:

"Nuclear Kurdistan"

[Gritty]

Where you cannot be loved, be feared.

A nice sentiment, but unlikely to be followed in our PC environment.

[Coop]

The international community always protests. The more just and far-sighted our actions, the louder the protests.

Ain't dat da truth!

[dts32041]

Give Baghdad to the Pali's.

[dts32041]

Whose joking!!!!