Now I've Heard It All

W

Warbler

At the Start
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Jun 6, 2005
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No it's not April 1st. Apparently its carried in the Los Angeles Times that the bi-partisan Baker Commission (former Sec of State - James) set up to examine the scope for policy changes with regards to Iraq by the White House, is considering recommending 2 options

The first centres on a phased withdrawl. (This one presumedly doesn't involve helicopters landing on Embassy roofs?). Personally I can see the embarrasment for Blair if this is adopted on the same day he said he's in for the long haul come what ever. Well if the Americans start pulling out Tony - me thinkz a re-think on your part, unless you're seriously suggesting....... we go it alone

The second involves asking Syria and Iran to take over the running of the country, presumedly something along the sunni shi'ite partition.

Would those Bush apologists who assured us that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD and was an incubator for terrorism (Iraq was nothing of the sort before the Americans made them one). Care to remind us who was on the so called axis of evil. It would appear that an increasingly desperate Whitehouse is now thinking along those lines. It frankly beggars believe (and I for one couldn't see how they could hope to get away with it) but the very fact its even on the agenda, tells me all I need to know about what a monumental foreign policy cock up this whole thing has been.

Wrong target, wrong enemy, wrong war, wrong reason, wrong time.

Result: hundreds of thousands dead, Billions of pounds wasted, Radical Islam enhanced. Mind you Bush and his backers got their oil, whilst gullible swallowed it all in.
 
:lol: :lol: :lol:

I haven't seen the LA Times, but if that's what they say then they've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The Baker Commission isn't due to report fro a few months yet but it has een quite leaky. It seems that Baker says that Bush's Bush's "staying for the long term" isn't an option but the reference to Syria and Iran comes about with a suggestion that dialogue with these two nations migt be desirable as increased contact could help stop the fighting in Iraq.

Mind you, another leak tells us that there will be the suggestion of - though they wouuldn't dream of calling it this - partition. The Baker commission has grown increasingly interested in the idea of splitting Iraq into three - the Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish regions.

Mr Tony should talk to his mate Dubya and tell him that we invented the concept, we've tried it all over the world and guess what? It doesn't work.
 
Originally posted by BrianH@Oct 17 2006, 07:52 PM
:lol: :lol: :lol:

I haven't seen the LA Times, but if that's what they say then they've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The Baker Commission isn't due to report fro a few months yet but it has een quite leaky. It seems that Baker says that Bush's Bush's "staying for the long term" isn't an option but the reference to Syria and Iran comes about with a suggestion that dialogue with these two nations migt be desirable as increased contact could help stop the fighting in Iraq.

Mind you, another leak tells us that there will be the suggestion of - though they wouuldn't dream of calling it this - partition. The Baker commission has grown increasingly interested in the idea of splitting Iraq into three - the Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish regions.

Mr Tony should talk to his mate Dubya and tell him that we invented the concept, we've tried it all over the world and guess what? It doesn't work.
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Why wouldn't it work Brian? Had they split Northern Ireland AGAIN 30 years ago (compensating people for moving into the correct sector) AND then told the unionists they were on their own (i.e. no longer part of Britain) the people of NI and England might have been spared a whole heap of shite.
 
The partion of Iraq absorbed by a Greater Syria/ Iran and Turkey presumedly. <_< The rewards for being in the axis of evil hey? Territorial gain, Natural resources and a Nuclear weapon. Bloody Libya must be kicking themselves

So we can't foresse the difficulties of Shi'ite Iran pushing its border onto Sunni Syria, somewhere across middle Iraq, and that's before we take on those Iraqis living in the wrong side, unless they're forceibly displaced or ethnically cleansed. Shades of Sudetenland me fear, as one side will eventually cross the border in support of their own etc So faced with a nuclear aspiring Iran, Syria will also proliferate in kind, whilst Israel sits back impassively? Me thinkz not, and in fairness I couldn't really blame them in this instance. Turkey? well they're a member of NATO, what ever that means these days, but the constituion allows them to invoke "a one for all and all for one" agreement. Which means that the US and UN will be back within a few years as peacekeepers.

Or could it be part of a cunning US master plan to propogate one big country called Muslimland, and so once all the various component countries have been neatly assembled, they can invade in one fell swoop and avoid fighting wars on 6 different fronts. :ph34r:

Or is it an increasingly desperate Bush tacitly recognising the folly of his misjudgement and seeking to compound it by trying to extricate himself with a really unworkable and ill conceived idea?
 
Warbler, it's pretty obvious that the USA has no stomach for taking on Syria and Iran in a succession of faraway dogfights. How much more clever (it thinks, playing with its pretty coloured crayons and toys in its nursery) to apparently credit these two most avid members of its Axis of Evil with the ability to help out with Iraq, thus, presumably, forging bonds of diplomatic friendship with the USA in the process.

Brian, there's no reason why a three-way go wouldn't work. The Kurds have been paddying for their own homeland for eons now, and the Turks would probably be equally as delighted as most Iraqis to see them all settled in a single, autonomous Kurdistan. Kurds just aren't tribally well integrated into Arab or other Middle Eastern countries - they're usually resented as being 'the gypsies' of those where they've settled, and they ought to have their own homeland by now. That really ought to be the priority of the UN now.

As for a Sunni/Shi'ah split - well, the country's as near as dammit sliced into two sectarian divides as it is. Why try to force Western notions of homogeneity onto a country far from ready to try it out? Two governates headed by a Sunni cabinet and a separate Shi'ah cabinet, reporting to an overall Parliament (to include minorities) might settle things down quite nicely for the foreseeable future. That way, no-one loses face with their own group, no-one has to fight the other for an overall control of the country. Sanctions and possible future military intervention to be imposed if either step out of line. It might be necessary to call the two governates 'United States of Iraq' or something like that in order to preserve an overall national cohesion, or one could just revert to Mesopotamia (not entirely demographically correct, but what country is, anyway?).
 
I like your thinking/ interpretation there Kriz. A mixture of stick and carrot, which allows the US to present it as a foreign policy success by re-introducing the 2 into the international fold in return for material gain, provided they agree to play by the rules, whilst also providing grounds for legitimately cutting and running and hence extracating themselves. And here's me still thinking that the US is hell bent on finding different ways of fighting this war, and capturing oilfields. Problem I suspect is that the radicals will see straight through it and rally even greater support by presenting it as a defeat.

Oh what a mess, and so utterly predictable. :angry:

Curiousity gets the better of me on a half related project. I'm increasingly struck by the number of people who are now claiming to have been against the war at the outset. Yet I distinctly remember us being in the minority at the time of the invasion, according to the opinion polls at least (a sizeable minority admittedly, but still a minority) Did any forumites join in the London protest march of 15th February 2003 (doesn't need to be London of course) and strictly speaking that was more of a 'shuffle' than a 'march' anyway as I recall.
 
I didn't march, but I signed petitions both online and in the street here in 'right-on Brighton', Warbs. I also mailed off a couple of 'don't do it, Tony' protests via some organisation - much good it all did.
 
Originally posted by krizon@Oct 18 2006, 12:51 AM
Brian, there's no reason why a three-way go wouldn't work.
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Well, for starters, how about the fact that the Iraqi population mainly occupies four or five cities all of which have mixed populations?

But it's OK, if the USA wants to do it then Mr Tony could volunteer to organise it. After all we have plenty of experience - India, Cyprus, Ireland...
 
They do have mixed populations, Brian, but if you remember, they were firmly kept under control by Mr Hussain's Ba'athists. Now that the lid is off that particular pot, all hell has broken loose. I'm not proposing it's an ideal situation, but until the country calms down, it might be a solution, since trying to impose Western ideals upon it RIGHT NOW isn't actually a triumph of neo-imperialism, is it?

Sometimes one has to take a few steps back in order to go forward later. If the people of Iraq would prefer to be religiously segregated - and it seems that they do - then why not work towards THAT goal, rather than trying to force them to get along together when they patently won't?

It may appear distasteful to us, with our emphasis on trying to be all things to all people (again, patently not working in reality), but I can't see the problem with separate representations and, if it is the will of the people to live thus, separate Sunni and Shi'ah cities.

Having stirred up a giant hornets' nest with no forward thinking or consultation as to how to proceed once the hornets were flying free and stinging, the West should stop trying to think in its own terms, and assist Iraq towards if not democracy as we know it, then a version of it within which its people can live without daily blowing each other up, or kidnapping and torturing each other.
 
Originally posted by krizon@Oct 18 2006, 12:55 PM
If the people of Iraq would prefer to be religiously segregated
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Now come on, you're not one of those on here who doesn't believe that we can learn from history. The people of India preferred to be separated too - India was split (by Britain) into three parts - West Pakistan, India and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The result? Massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border, there was a complete breakdown of law and order, thousands, perhaps even a million, died in riots, massacre, or just from the hardships of their flight to safety and almost sixty years later, after four Indo-Pakistani wars and a nuclear arms race between the two countries there is still continuing strife.

A year after the partition of India Britain left Palestine leaving the division of that country into Israel and Palestine to the UN. The boundaries were mapped out though the UN resolutions have remained unenforced (thanks mainly to eleven US Presidents so far). Again the result has been several Arab- Israeli wars and the conflict continues.

I have mentioned other examples in a previous posting. How many times does a policy have to fail before it is considered flawed?
 
Originally posted by krizon@Oct 18 2006, 10:22 PM
So the solution would be... ? (C'mon, there's a Nobel just waiting to gleam on your mantelpiece, Brian!)
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Easy. Restore Saddam, there was a reason why he ruled with an iron fist afterall, and now that we know he had no WMD and wasn't a state sponserer of terrorism.... Oh but we might have to give his oil wells back.... and admit we (Bush) got it completely wrong. Sure he might not have been the most pleasent regime, but there's plenty of those around the world that the Americans either blind eye, or actively support. :lol:
 
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