Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

According to Ricks’ Fiasco, the best military strategists say that to secure Iraq and stamp out the insurgency/civil war, would require 450,000 troops. We currently have 130,000 or so troops there, and over the last few years recruiting has gotten harder.

If we must win the war, as Bush says, if it is vital to our national interests, if this really is the incredibly serious issue Germany was in 1938, then we have no choice but to institute a draft and put half a million soldiers over there.

I am soooo tired of right wing apologists of the war mangling history to make 3 foot midgets look 100 feet tall. One day it is 1938 and we are in an existential fight with the forces of Isamlofacism for the future of the world. The next it is 1952 and Saddam Hussein is the new Nasser. Well, let’s just put this bunk in the garbage now.

The primary American concern via Nasser was his close relation with the Soviet Union and his proximity to the Suez Canal (which is a major transit point for oil) coupled with our support for Israel. Secondary to this was his Pan-Arab socialist vision which has been manfested in various flavors by several other Arab regimes such as Ghaddafi’s. To this date, not one single Arab leader has come even CLOSE to achieving this.

So clearly, we did have concerns with Nasser. His being a client state for the Soviets was not in our best interest. But even so, we did manage the relation with him well enough and no serious conflict occurred between the two countries. In short, as bad as Nasser was, he was not all that bad. Certainly nothing for the US to hyperventilate about like the current bedwetters would have us believe.

So besides the fact that Nasser just was not that big a deal, what exactly is the historical analogy to Nasser? Is there a serious Soviet type threat that Saddam could be a client state of. Is the Baathist Pan-Arab vision even close to a possibility? Is there some regional axis that he could either ally with or lead?

The answer in all cases is NO!! The Arabs are too fractious to ever join together as a serious single global entity. Hussein has a natural enemy to his east, Turkey to his north and the Muslim holy land to his south (wanna piss of the jihadists - invade Saudi Arabia) and a large Shia population to control. Furthermore, a report done by JCOA clearly shows that he was in survival mode in 2003. His most pressing concerns, right up until the American invasion, were, Iran and an internal coup. In fact, we was so worried about the coup that his Army was not allowed to intereact. This is why his command and control system was so pathetic that he had no idea that we were within 10 miles of Baghdad.

And THIS IS THE NEXT Nasser????? Please!!!

No, the problem with the president is not just incompetence. It is being a dreamer. A dream that everyone in Iraq are craving for American style democracy and should just love the US for bringing it to them. A dream that our wives will exchange brownie recipes and our children will play with each other’s puppies. And he is more than willing to lie to see his dream come true.

To some extent, I share his dream. Who would not want to get along with one another. But I have the good sense to know that it is just that, a dream. A dream void of any sense of history and one that just won’t happen in my lifetime. It is an ugly truth, but relations among countries is a blood sport. And opportunites to radically change the culture of this bloodsport (such as the end of WW II) are few and far between. I guess 9/11 left many people feeling that another opportunity had come, but closer examination of the cultural and historical picture of Iraq should have shaken some sense into us.

But Saddam was a toothless tiger who had little or no ability to project his power beyond his borders.  He did not even have enough power to control all of his own country—the Kurds. 

He was no threat to the US.

Show me a single way he could harm the US save by creating some nonexistent nuclear capacity and giving it to some terrorists he could not control.  Yeah, and I have some shares in a bridge accross the East River I would like to talk to you about.

I’m with Don B. “The new Nasser” is not a scary thing for someone to be. Certainly not worth spending anyone’s life to overthrow.

Except that Shelley doesn’t want success in Iraq - she doesn’t support anything that she thinks will lead to success in Iraq.  Instead, she’s looking for any lever to get the US out of Iraq.

You can’t complain about someone else doing too little if you want to do less.

If we fail to solve the problems now, we’ll pay a lot more to solve them later.  Folks who want to do nothing now will be more responsible for that outcome than folks who tried to do what they could within the constraints mostly created by the “do nothing” folks.

You have no idea what I want. What I used to want, before the war, was not to go into Iraq in the first place. I thought--and many other people thought--the Shiites would take revenge on the Sunnis who’d oppressed them.

And yes, I can complain about someone doing to little to achieve their objective, while having a different objective in mind.

What I think now is what Ricks thinks. The US created an enormous catastrophe in Iraq, and it should try to fix it. That is not an infinite obligation, however. Our current force structure can’t stop this low-grade civil war, but it can get our troops killed indefinitely. That’s unacceptable. At least to me it is, some people don’t seem to mind. So fish or cut bait. Put enough troops over there to do the job, or get out of dodge.

Note that Shelley didn’t say that I was wrong about what she wanted.

Maybe I am - does she want to drastically increase US force and the amount of violence that they commit?  Or, as I wrote, does she want to leave.

Shelley is correct to note that she’s entitled to make any complaint that she chooses.  It would have been more accurate for me to say that it’s unreasonable to damn someone for doing too little when you’d rather that they did less.

> I thought--and many other people thought--the Shiites would take revenge on the Sunnis who’d oppressed them.

Fair enough - but how do you stop the Shiites from being oppressed by the Sunnis?

One answer is “partition Iraq”.  Another is “leave the Sunnis in charge”.  Bush is trying a third way - does Shelley really believe that anyone else could have done better?  (If so, why, and what would they have done that Bush hasn’t, and no, you don’t get to say “it would have worked if my guy had done it”.)