Resistance, Please

NY Sun ^ | 11/25/05 | Eli Lake

[dervish]

Hand it to Secretary of State Rice. She knows how to make lemonade out of lemons. When asked on CNN this week her reaction to a communique signed by Iraqi leaders on Monday that recognized a "legitimate right to resistance," she said, "I think what they were trying to do was to get a sense of political inclusion while recognizing that violence and terrorism should not be a part of resistance."

'snip'

The State Department, according to Iraqi officials I've spoken with, put tremendous pressure on elected leaders to attend this parley in Cairo. And the see-no-evil reaction to the results of these deliberations suggests something potentially more ominous. The Arab newspaper Al-Hayat, for example, reports that American diplomats on the sidelines quietly pushed for the statement calling for an eventual timetable for withdrawal of American troops. And there are now new reports that Foggy Bottom in particular would like to build on the progress of the Arab League's renewed interest in Iraq and urge the armies of its member states to build a force to stabilize the country.

If this latest diplomatic foray is not checked by some common sense it could become the exit strategy so many of the Bush administration's more feckless critics are demanding. Here's a former aide to President Clinton's U.N ambassador, Richard Holbrooke, Suzanne Nossel, writing for the Democracy's Arsenal Web site this week: "Why not approach League President Amr Moussa and key Arab States to propose that that if the Arab League steps up, pulls together a group of Iraq's neighbors willing to help prevent the slide to mayhem, and engages in a committed effort to broker a political compromise, that in return the US will plan its getaway and offer all manner of support for the Arab effort?"

[dervish]

"This is the same foreign policy of Senator Kerry when he ran for president in 2004. He promised in effect to replace American soldiers with those of Iraq's Arab neighbors in order extricate our country from the grand project it started in 2003."

Backdoor to withdrawal. Backstabbing State Department.

[SE Mom]

I hope those who keep saying "Condi in 08" will read this carefully.

I swear- the State Dept has something in the water that turns otherwise rational people into liberal dolts.

[an italian]

talking of "resistance" in iraq now is an insult for people like my grand parents who risked their lives trying to fight fascism during the WWII... that's all.

[tet68]

a former aide to President Clinton's U.N ambassador, Richard Holbrooke, Suzanne Nossel,

Yes, Susan, lets turn the hen house over to the Fox.

[satchmodog9]

Resistance is futile.

[marron]

Any premature withdrawal will doom the war in Iraq.

An Arab-League-run occupation will not lead to any outcome we will consider a success. It will only guarantee that the arab status-quo continues to be status quo. The arab status quo is precisely what we went in to overturn.

Syria is arab status quo. Saudi Arabia is arab status quo. Iran is, not arab, but middle eastern status quo. This is the natural culture that will resume its course the moment we pull out, if we pull out before new institutions have been put in place. This thing has to be done right, or it would be better never to have done anything at all.

A premature pull-out in Southeast Asia brought us genocide and thirty years of totalitarian rule. And millions of refugees. Premature withdrawal from Iraq will bring disaster.

I realize that Bush is up against it politically, elections are a year away, and he needs to be able to declare victory in time for the midterms. Thats fine. But electioneering is one thing, reality is another. While building a virtual victory for electoral purposes, we must not lose sight of "real" reality. Real reality is not as malleable as its virtual PR-shaped cousin, and it is real reality that will haunt us if we fail to respect it.

[SaxxonWoods]

1. Completing the split of Zarqawi from the local insurgents is the key to victory at this point, and the only way to avoid or contain a civil war. It's OK to negotiate with Iraqis, not with Terrorists, and Rice is marking the difference here. The Iraqis are doing the same. The only other solution is the wholesale slaughter and/or oppression of 20% of Iraq's population.

2. Heavy-handed US rejection of statements by the fledgling Iraqi government will not assure said government and Arabs in general that we see Iraq as sovereign, and not a protectorate of the US.

3. All wars end with reconciliation. Germany and Japan are allies today, go back and read how they were vilified in 1944-50. We lost several thousand troops to the German insurgency in the late 1940s.

I respectfully disagree with the knee-jerk reactions I read above. But I am a total hawk on winning this peace. I say peace because the war is over, it was won long ago. We keep letting the antis frame the argument. The war is over, we toppled Saddam, and made sure Iraq will not be a Terrorist haven, and a State sponsor of Al-Qaeda. Instead it is and will be a Terrorist kill zone, until Al-Qaeda retreats to its' next protector. What we are engaged in now is a temporary security operation.

[mojito]

Why on earth is the State Department attempting to undermine the elected government of Iraq, which the U.S has helped to establish with the blood of our soldiers, using the likes of the Arab League, as craven a collection of backstabbers, liars and hypocrites as one is likely to find? That Rice and ostensibly, the President would acquiesce in this disgusting scheme is beyond me, although it is certainly not beyond the treacherous defeatists and appeasers of the State Department to hatch such a nauseating plot against the interests of a future Iraq and of the United States.

[dervish]

"2. Heavy-handed US rejection of statements by the fledgling Iraqi government will not assure said government and Arabs in general that we see Iraq as sovereign, and not a protectorate of the US."

The article and facts contradict your statement above. From the article:

"It is especially problematic, as Ahmad Chalabi said in an interview with me this week, that questions of reconciliation would be discussed outside of Iraq's national assembly. If the elected parliament in Baghdad supports a withdrawal of coalition forces or agrees to the distinction between "resistance" and "terrorism," that's one thing. But for a collection of some elected leaders and others who have spurned elections to reach this consensus in Cairo sends the message that the national assembly in Baghdad is not legitimate."

The State Department pushed an end run around the elected government of Iraq. That is not my definition of respecting sovereignty.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

"The only other solution is the wholesale slaughter and/or oppression of 20% of Iraq's population."

No, the only solution as in all wars is completion of the job. The defeated must understand utterly and completely that they are not coming back. You do not accomplish that goal by announcing that "insurgents" are just dandy and that it is open season on the US, Coalition and Iraqi forces that are putting down the "insurgents." Hezbolla and Hamas do not become part of the government. It is only by separating themselves from the "insurgents" that Sunnis may participate.

Further you risk alienating the Shias and Kurds who hate the Arab League with every breath, and you encourage the distrust of the 80% of Iraqis by lining up with the Arab League.

So no this isn't going to help win the war. This is just one more piece of Arabist realist garbage from State.

[indcons]

Condi Rice has become of the the sheeple at the State Department. Her support of the Palestinians is TROUBLING and is proof that people at the State Dept. live in a parallel universe filled with liberal rats.

[SaxxonWoods]

Well, at least we agree about finishing the job. As for Rice's statement, I think it will be overtaken by events soon, and be of little matter. I'm more interested in actions on the ground than State's words.

Thanks for elaborating on your views.

[theFIRMbss]

>I hope those who keep saying "Condi in 08" will read this carefully

Well, the thing is, if
we look around the scene now
everybody sucks . . .

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