Posted on 11/29/2005 5:01:35 AM PST by billorites
WE aren't losing in Iraq — thanks to the quality and commitment of our troops. But we haven't made the progress we could have achieved had we accepted that a life-or-death struggle in the Middle East can't be handled like a zoning dispute upstate. A tragic flaw in American strategy is that we always seek to be honest brokers, embracing the "rights" of our enemies at the expense of our allies. In Iraq, that meant pandering to the Sunni Arabs, slighting the Kurds and handing Shia demagogues a propaganda tool to use on those who had suffered under Saddam.
We refuse to face the fact that today's deepest and deadliest global divide isn't between the Islamic world and the West, but between the various factions within Islam. Sunni Arab rejectionists and Shia extremists both may want to see the last of our forces, but they're saving their sharpest blades for use on each other.
To have any hope of reaching a positive outcome in the Middle East, you must chose a side and stick to it. Wishy-washy attempts at mediation alienate everyone.
As a result of our every-child-deserves-a-prize approach to Iraq's redesign, the Sunni Arabs continue to view us as their oppressors, the Shia see us as protectors of the Sunnis — and our Kurdish allies are scrambling to make deals with Iraq's neighbors (including Iran and Syria, as well as Turkey) to ensure their survival should the country explode when our troops depart.
Our reluctance to kill Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shia gangster, turned him into a hero and a true power broker (he's not afraid to take sides). The fecklessness of our policies left the Kurds determined to become the Middle East's new Sparta — their peshmerga militias remain the most potent force in Iraq after our own.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
OUR IRAQ MISTAKE: We didnt have a 100% media blackout. We let the media (enemy of President Bush) have all they need to use as a weapon against him.
Yeah Right!
As If Every person involved with Operation Iraqi Freedom was even thinking like realtor at Any time!
NATCH!!!
You are exactly right and allowing the muslims terrorists (time-outs) in order to re-supply, re-organize and re-arm to attack our military resources was a huge mistake.
Nukem,
NSNR-FA&TD
This is a very fair criticism. The Iraqis found our actions after overthrowing Saddam to be weak and incomprehensible. This gave rise to the rumor that the Iraqi senior leadership was bribed and threw the game. That lead to the belief that we weren't nearly as tough as we looked. That gave rise to the insurgency.
In mid 2003, the vast majority of Iraqis though we were an invincible invading army. By mid 2004, they knew that we lacked the will to do more than drop the occasional retaliatory JDAM. As of mid 2005, they're more afraid of their novice Ministry of Interior than our battle hardened military
The bottom line is that we went in hard, and had we stayed that way, the war would have stayed over in 2003. Instead, we tried to make nice with everyone right away. We let a lot of things go in order to 'get along', when we should have struck back. That opened the flood gates, and sent Iraq into chaos. By the time we mustered the will to smash Fallujah, it had already become a legend, and remains an insurgent rallying cry to this day.
Barbra Streisand. The intecepted letter from Zawahiri to Zarquawi discussing an Islamic Caliphate puts the lie to that statement.
Don't bother reading the rest of this drivel.
The problem was too many in the American leadership thought it would all end with Saddam toppled.
There were not enough troops to carry out the real important tasks after the conventional phase was over and that was stabilisation and pacification.
Too many and that includes a fair number on FR were only interested in the high tech whiz bang side. A fast high tech war and we would all be of home
It took over a year to put a stabilisation and pacification programme into place.
No its not a lie serve out there and you will find out what the ground opinion is between the various factions and they are the ones gearing up to fight the upcoming civil war if they get the chance.
That letter to put it in its context is between two who want to be leaders but have no real power.
Islam is no different to Communism full of differing factions with there own view on how things should be done and prepared to back it up with forces.
Just because a wannerbe Godfather says all the families should unite under him doesn't mean its going to happen
Did you read the letter?
Zawahiri and Zarqawi are clearly thinking in terms of Islam struggling against the West. Zarqawi also has declared war on Shia to try and start a civil war in service of the larger jihadi goal.
If you have served in theater, then thank you for your service. 'Pod.
Yes it was, otherwise Hitler would never of got where he was, we stood up to Hitler because we had no other choice he was a real danger with a powerful Army and Air force, a powerful and modern industrial base economic power and the political will to back it up.
It was Japan and Germany that declared war on you, not the other way round.
Yes it was, otherwise Hitler would never of got where he was, we stood up to Hitler because we had no other choice he was a real danger with a powerful Army and Air force, a powerful and modern industrial base economic power and the political will to back it up.
It was Japan and Germany that declared war on you, not the other way round.
I agree with that. It's hard to maintain credibility as a governing power when we couldn't get the water and power working (even before the insurgents started cutting them). The attempts to restore critical infrastructure to the Iraqi civilians lead many of them to say 'At least under Saddam we had electricity and hospitals'.
There were not enough troops to carry out the real important tasks after the conventional phase was over and that was stabilisation and pacification.
I don't think that was the case initially. I was there in 2004, and we knew we had a problem when we didn't start nipping them in the bud. When we pulled back rather than fight, and stopped running convoys for a few weeks while the brass thought things over, it was clear that we were screwed. We abandoned the streets to them, and never really took them back.
Between the rise of the insurgency, and the rise of the Iraqi military, there were several months where I think you were right, and we didn't have enough people on the ground. We knew it, and they knew it, and our failure to smash the insurgency earlier lead to a number of propaganda victories that assisted their recruiting there and abroad.
I was back for a while in 2005, and now things are different. The Iraqi police and military are up and running, and they're the ones controlling the streets. The insurgents are still viable, but they're being driven underground fast, and are unable to hold territory against the government. We still jump in and help out, but we're definitely weaning them on our strength. As of right now, we have more troops in Iraq than we need, and can look to start drawing down.
Yes I did, my point it what real power and influence do they have, apart from in the Western mind.
Yes they want to see a global awr with the West and what real chance do they have none.
Do you think the Mullahs of Iran will give up power to them, the Kurds and the Shia, Egypt's black brotherhood, the various Palestinian factions.
A global terrorist network has never been achiavable even the much vaunted KGB with the might power money and logistics of the Soviet Union never achieved it.
They have no real power base and all there castles are on shifting sands,here today gone tomorrow.
Iraq, like the Balkans, Like North Ireland, like many countries in Africa is a conflict made up mainly of local people with very real very bloody local grievences against each other.
Yet another armchair quarterback with unique insight into how we could have done things better in Iraq. He even has a book you can buy.
What he seems to ignore is that the government of Iraq made many of the decisions he is criticizing. We can advise. We can threaten to withdraw our support. However, we cannot simply dictate how the fight in Iraq will happen.
Iraq is a soverign country. We liberated them. We did not conquer them.
We made some mistakes in not being prepared for how quickly Sadam's army fould crumble and how quickly we needed to be able to provide security over such a large area.
We were also not as well prepared as we should have been to help restore power and basic services.
In the scheme of a war, those are rather minor mistakes.
The war has been overwhelmingly successful.
Our combat opperations are continuing to be amazingly successful.
The fledgling democracy in Iraq has been amazingly successful.
Our intelligence operations are still weak, and it's allowing key players to escape us.
We are still losing brave soldiers to terrorist attacks in the country, but they are kept to small scale attacks on our people and they are going after softer targets of the Iraqi forces and civilians.
We are winning the war in Iraq. The only way we could lose is to quit.
I'm very aware of that. I think you may have took me out of context on some points.
We should have killed Sadr long ago. Other mistakes, not hiring the out of work former soldiers to fix the infrastructure and clan up the place just to keep them busy. Not securing all the ammo dumps that allowed every Haji and Mohammed to steal a few 155mm rounds and sell them to Al Queda which they then used to kill our troops.
Actually, I believe our real problem is that Iraqis found our actions after the toppling of the Hussein government to be completely in character, since it reinforced the general perception of America that Iraqis had dating back to the early 1990s -- when the first Bush administration basically urged the Shiites to rise up against the Sunni-dominated government, then stood by while Saddam Hussein put down that uprising in a violent manner.
I don't trust the U.S. government to do the right thing in any situation, and I've been a U.S. citizen all my life. So I view any foreigner who places his trust in Uncle Sam to be completely delusional.
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