I know and you know that the situation is far worse in Iraq than it ever was in Northern Ireland, and, for that matter, has the potential to be even worse than the current Israeli-Palestine situation, but I don’t see why you keep on drawing our attention to the fact.

If the pro-war side had any concern for the welfare of the people of Iraq, their key concern now would not be about what George Galloway did or didn’t say at some obscure meeting somewhere, but about the fact that Iraq faces civil war, and that if it ‘blows up’ it is likely to collapse outwards rather than inwards. Moreover, they would be interested in coming up with serious plans to stop this happening. Instead, however, they are much happier patting themselves on the back, calling each other the ‘best and brightest’ (in the world? In the cosmos?), and denouncing anyone who refuses to live in their fantasy world as being part of the ‘reality based community’: reality apparently also having been overthrown by the US when they invaded Iraq.

Not that it really matters. If (and when) Baghdad is wiped off the face of the map (perhaps by a nuclear strike, who knows?), safe to say the pro-invasion tribe will still be sitting around, telling each other how brilliant and moral they are, still ignoring reality, and still without one single coherent idea as to how Iraq is to pull itself out of the nightmare we have plunged it into.

And if you do have such an idea, please don’t waste your time telling me about it. Join the armed forces, go to Iraq, do it for yourself. As one of the best and brightest it really is the least you can do.

If >50% of Iraqis suddenly start self-identifying as american, organising big parades with cheerleaders, marching bands and the Stars and Stripes, and a very clever propaganda campaign convinces everyone that Iraq has been part of the US for the last 400 years, then Northern Ireland might be a fair reference point.

If Iraq was moved to the Mexican/US border, then Palestine would be. Neither of these is particularly likely.

soru

Permanent occupation is simply not a politically possible option, you’d have to be talking about a military coup or something to make it plausible.
’

OK now we are talking. This at least is something I can get my head around. So (and just to GUARANTEE that I am not misinterpreting you here, because goodness as we have discovered, seemingly transparent statements seem to have become mysteriously opague at times in this site), you are stating:

If the US are still in Iraq in some numbers in four years time then the next president will withdraw. In other words, the Americans will be out in 8-10 years, 12 maximum, yes?

Just to make clear;

‘Permanent occupation is simply not a politically possible option’.

I completely agree with this statement. Presumably even in Northern Ireland eventually the British will leave (though it may take another hundred years or so). However, my point remains. I think this situation might last a LOT longer than either pro or anti war are currently thinking. To repeat the point in the last post: i don’t think an American presence (and like Soru, i mean serious presence, with guns, shooting at people) in 2038 is at all unlikely.

And here’s why.

However, at least one of pro-war side has had the balls to come up with an actual prediction…..we can but wait………

And also that, if it’s still a situation best described as military occupation by then, the next president will be elected on a withdrawl ticket.

Permanent occupation is simply not a politically possible option, you’d have to be talking about a military coup or something to make it plausible.

That doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a few thousand troops stuck on a base somewhere, or a lot of security advisors, that various wingnuts will describe as an occupation and noone but the Chomskyite fringe will care about.

soru

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

What situation in the real world does that refer to, “the deposition of Saddam?” What, did we ask him to leave and he did? Because if that were the case the discussion would be different than what it actually is. Let’s keep things real: we invaded a country we didn’t understand, letting loose a war we can’t control. That’s what “the deposition of Saddam” refers to.

Iraq under Saddam was at least a civil society. Pro-invasion democracy nutters might not understand why that were but they should at least now have the self-respect and wisdom to acknowledge social forces more complex than Evil Man in History were and remain at work, because something has turned their cartoon narrative to shit and it can’t be Saddam he’s is in jail.

Actually I don’t know it. It seems to me that the Iraqi government is shaping up into something rather Shiite fundamentalists in the pricess of building closer ties to Iran (which has stood by these people) than to us.

Democracy is a wild card. The Bush administration did believe that since they had the truth and the correct approach the Iraqi people would follow it. Thus a dearth of planning for after the invsion, the willingness to hand much of the admistration of the new nation to twenty somethings who put in resumes at the Heritage foundation and thus had politically correct attitudes… the ignoring of previous military plans and all other plans etc.

Now there is an actual vote. It strengthens the hand of fundamentalist Shiites who use it to help set up theocracies all over southern Iraq, who make deals with a charter member of the “axis of evil.”

This is not new. It is expected. Decades ago someone asked the N. Vietanmese how they could call the RVN government puppets when they seemed to do everything opposite to what the US wanted, the reply being that they were poorly made puppets.

The assumption that the US can pull the strings and get the dance it wants is quite untrue. Even our good friends the Kurds are blowing up things in Turkey. And Chalabi! let’s not talk about Chalaibi. Even good old Allawi said a few weeks ago that the place was in civil war or getting there fast and it was due to the incompetence of us! Can you imagine?!

If the people in the middle east are given the vote they will probably not elect the people we want. Not everyone knew that. Certainly George Bush didn’t know that. But he has to call it democracy and praise it to the stars. And in return they no longer publicly anounce their Iranian/Iraqi military cooperation, they keep it private.

The simple fact of the matter is that we are never that much in control of things, never have been, though we have considerable influence and power. Another simple fact of the matter is that while our influence can be used in bad ways, compare n. Korea with S Korea, China with Formosa, Vietnam with Thailand and the perfectly correct claim that: “The United States has frequently supported regimes which are corrupt and dictatorial” is also (at least sometimes) paired with “against regimes which are more corrupt and dictatorial and which have a much smaller chance of evolving into something better.”

The problem of course is that the Bush administration never looked at the actual history or all the qualifications and he and his followers successfuly shifted the debate to “us good, them bad” and then with a lot of help managed to convince many that the opposing view was “them good, us bad.”

The right is successful because they manage to this over and over. They equate social security investment in stocks with private accounts, they equate simplified taxes with flat taxes, they equate reform of infuriating or failed bureaucracies to themselves while Democrats are portrayed as defending them and enough of the opposition position themselves in the context the Republicans define.

Fair point. I suppose if you just predict what is inevitable, and weight the scales by predicting the rule of Saddam and his descendants ‘forever’ then you can never be proved wrong.

I don’t think he was that popular.

Here’s a little known clause in an Irish Republican Army manifesto – ca 1978.

“We declare our hatred of the vile British, primarily for their bad teeth and their fish and chips.”

At last! A testable prediction from the pro-invasion side!

It will be interesting (assuming that Crooked Timber is still running then) to come back to this statement in 4 years time and see how it holds up.

Remember: ‘maximum’ 4 years. So the prediction is that the Americans will be in Iraq for no more than 4 years, and probably less . Presumably a corollary of this will be that the ‘insurgency’ will be defeated by this time, Iraq will have a constitution (and for that matter will still exist as a sovereign state) and will be regularly holding free and fair democratic elections, there will be a free press, independent judiciary, and so forth.

Well! I’ve set my calendar. Watch this space.

Or do things have to actually get better to be good? In which case do you think the deposition of Saddam was a good thing?