coalkirk wrote:I agree with you. We had a brilliant plan to win the war, but apparently nobody planned to win the peace. Paul Bremers descision to disband the Iraqi military (and yes, approved up the chain of command to GWB) was a huge blunder. Many such blunders were made. Look, waging a war in an area the size of Iraq, with it's cultural differences and conflicts going back thousands of years wasn't going to be easy even if everything had been done right. Some things are unpredictable but this insurgance, in light of suddenly 10's of thousands of Iraqi soldiers being out of a job was predictable and inevitable. Add to that Iranian ambitions and you've got a fire with fuel.
The Iraqi parliment better get their *censored* together fast. If they stop squabbling and start working together, a government where Sunni, Shia, Bathists and Kurds feel like they have a say and a stake in its sucess can be forged. That's the only way we are withdrawing from Iraq in any meaningfull way no matter which of the three poor excuses for presidential candidates wins. It doesn't matter what they are saying now, none of them are going to pull our troops out to the point where the current tenous stability in Iraq will be threatened. Politicians and lawyers have a thing that gives them away when they are lieing, their lips are moving.
Colin Powell told the Shrub this would happen. "Break it and you've bought it," I believe, was the analogy.
Remember Marshall Tito? Same thing. He died, the world got the Balkans back, with another insoluble religious mess.
Only difference is Tito just croaked; we killed Saddam. For really no goddam good reason, other than that he'd tried to knock off the President's old man, of course. Right out of Shakespeare.
