Is the Iraq debate coming to an end?

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Well, it's all swinging round in a new direction really (or rather, an old one). The Russian Bear has woken up again, seeing that the US and Nato are bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan (which must be a sweet irony as they spent the 80s in a similar situation). We've got a nice "Cuban Missile Crisis" de nos jours brewing with Poland's hosting of the missile defence shield. China has increasing economic clout, recession is biting in the US and Europe.

I think the military commanders are going to have a shed load of other pressures, which have been more or less absent for the past 18 years.

"The Death of History" my arse.

That would be the End of History.

But China and Russia aren't promoting a new ideological replacement to democracy and the market-economy, and that was Fukuyama's point.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by johnnyrod

Hmm let me get this right, it's election time and the main candidates are essentially saying the same thing in different words, capitulating to public opinion that they shouldn't be there any more (leaving aside arguements over the source and the start), but couching it in sufficient terms that they can re-interpret them later, thereby "proving" themselves as the best thing to replace the current decision-makers. Am I a cynic? Or is it just the usual political spin? Let me guess, they both have something to say on spiralling food prices. Or does that not affect enough voters.

I thought that Sen. McCain didn't want to commit to any timelines, but Sen. Obama wanted to develop a structured withdraw (and I must assume, commit to a timeline)?

Correct me if I'm wrong here.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I thought that Sen. McCain didn't want to commit to any timelines, but Sen. Obama wanted to develop a structured withdraw (and I must assume, commit to a timeline)?

Correct me if I'm wrong here.

I don't know what McCain has said on the latest events, but he has said that he supports fully the Bush Administration's current strategy, and that then would include the new USA-out-of-Iraq-by-2010/11-scenario. It's been signed and stamped by both the administration and the Iraqis now. Seems like a timetable to me.

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

That would be the End of History.

But China and Russia aren't promoting a new ideological replacement to democracy and the market-economy, and that was Fukuyama's point.

It's been a while!

Hmm, though they're not exactly paragons of democracy.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

It's been a while!

Hmm, though they're not exactly paragons of democracy.

Yeah that's true. As a Norwegian I'm not exactly comfortable with the Russian invasion of Georgia. But Norway has a history since 1945 of trying to stay on good terms with the Russians even though we have our not too small disagreements. So I'm sending out my love to all NATO-countries, please assist us if we are invaded

[The Gaffer]

Lucky for you, Russia has plenty of gas. Hey, if Scotland gets independence, maybe with our share of the UK nukes we can come to some sort of arrangement. A Norse-Scots energy-rich fjordtastic alliance would sweep all before it.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Lucky for you, Russia has plenty of gas. Hey, if Scotland gets independence, maybe with our share of the UK nukes we can come to some sort of arrangement. A Norse-Scots energy-rich fjordtastic alliance would sweep all before it.

What an alliance that would be! Half of the North Sea would belong to us, implicit in that; oil and gas and fish; windpower, wavepower. Yup yup I see where you're going with this Gaffer and it sounds Aight

[The Gaffer]

Don't forget the North Pole! Our 0.4 of a Trident sub could plant the flag. Should we let the Swedes and Danes in?

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Don't forget the North Pole! Our 0.4 of a Trident sub could plant the flag. Should we let the Swedes and Danes in?

Swedes? Danes?! Never! Jk Yeah let the Swedes in on it, but no Danes! I don't trust peoples who drink whiskey for breakfast!
Hey what does '0.4 of a Trident sub' mean?

Btw so we don't seem way off topic..

Iraq.

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

I don't trust peoples who drink whiskey for breakfast!

Oops. Looks like our Grand Alliance is sunk before it got out the harbour.

I think the UK has 4 Trident submarines, Scotland has about 10% of the UK population, therefore we'd get 4/10ths of a sub. A bit like in a divorce where your wife cuts all your clothes in half.

Yeah, Iraq. Instead of thinking about it in terms of polling points in the US presidential election, I'd like to think about what would be best for the Iraqi people. Then we should do that.

[GrayMouser]

Iraq and the United States have agreed that all U.S. troops will leave by the end of 2011, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday, but Washington said no final deal had been reached.

"There is an agreement actually reached, reached between the two parties on a fixed date, which is the end of 2011, to end any foreign presence on Iraqi soil," Maliki said in a speech to tribal leaders in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

"An open time limit is not acceptable in any security deal that governs the presence of the international forces," he said.

Maliki's remarks were the most explicit statement yet that the increasingly assertive Iraqi government expects the U.S. presence to end in three years as part of a deal between Washington and Baghdad to allow them to stay beyond this year.

Obama agrees, Bush, McCain say no timetable.

Speaking in Texas, where Bush is vacationing, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Washington was optimistic it could agree with Baghdad on "flexible goals" for U.S. troops to return "based on conditions on the ground."

A commitment to withdraw all troops would resemble the plan offered by U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who proposes withdrawing combat troops by mid-2010.

"Success in Iraq depends on an Iraqi government that is reconciling its differences and taking responsibility for its future and a timetable is the best way to press the Iraqis to do just that," Obama said. "I welcome the growing convergence around this pragmatic and responsible position."

Republican contender John McCain said he also believes withdrawals are likely in coming years but that it would be dangerous to commit in advance to a firm timetable.

"Whenever you win wars, your troops come home. And our troops will be coming home but it will be dictated by the conditions on the ground and the success or the lack of success," McCain said at a fundraising lunch in California.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...le/2008/08/25/

The only way Maliki can get this through the Iraqi Parliament is with a definite timetable, so US withdrawal is going to happen whether McCain likes it or not.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

Obama agrees, Bush, McCain say no timetable.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...le/2008/08/25/

The only way Maliki can get this through the Iraqi Parliament is with a definite timetable, so US withdrawal is going to happen whether McCain likes it or not.

I agree. If the Iraqis are able to build on the past year's swelling of US troops and treasury, then yes it might seem likely that the Americans can pull out without a total collapse into tribal warfare. There are those who say it's all but guaranteed that Iraq won't return to 2004-2006 violence, but I'm not too sure about that.. It seems so easy to forget just how important US troop presense is for stability, quite the irony after 5 years (20% of the time S. Hussein's reign lasted)
In any case, I will make this prediction: That if by 2011 at the latest, the US have pulled out next to all troops from Iraqi ground, that the security arrangements then put in place in Iraq will not be some blue-eyed, everyone-around-the-table, agreed upon strategy (dreamt by G. W. Bush), but one imposed by one faction in the Iraqi political rainbow, not through democratic means, but through authoritarian means. Happily for Bush & Cheney this new authoritarian regime will be very interested in supplying oil extraction contracts to the best (read money under the table to Iraqi politicians, businessmen) bidder

[Curufin]

The main problem in Iraq is that it was, from the very beginning, an artificial border imposed by the west. That's just the way it is. Saddam was able to hold it together through dictatorship and tyranny - and that is the only way that it is ever going to be able to be held together.

You see the same thing happening in the Baltic and in the former Soviet States - when the tyrannic dictatorship that was holding the plural society together is removed, then it collapses into sectarian warfare. Bush should have known this, if he had any education in the working of plural societies.

Nothing the US can do is going to help this. As soon as we leave, no matter what we leave behind (good or bad), there is going to be sectarian warfare, which, in my opinion, is eventually going to result in the formation of three separate Iraqi states, one of which will be an independent Kurdistan (which could cause all sorts of problems with Turkey, of course).

If such ethnic conflicts could be solved with a few hastily trained armed police, the Northern Ireland conflict, the Palestinian conflict, the Rwandan genocide, and countless others never would have happened.

The US has no idea what it's getting itself into.

Just my two cents. For further reading, see Arend Lijphart, "Democracy in Plural Societies" or Donald Horowitz "Ethnic Groups in Conflict". [And yes, ethnic conflict was my concentration in my political science degree. ]

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Curufin

The main problem in Iraq is that it was, from the very beginning, an artificial border imposed by the west. That's just the way it is. Saddam was able to hold it together through dictatorship and tyranny - and that is the only way that it is ever going to be able to be held together.

You see the same thing happening in the Baltic and in the former Soviet States - when the tyrannic dictatorship that was holding the plural society together is removed, then it collapses into sectarian warfare. Bush should have known this, if he had any education in the working of plural societies.

Nothing the US can do is going to help this. As soon as we leave, no matter what we leave behind (good or bad), there is going to be sectarian warfare, which, in my opinion, is eventually going to result in the formation of three separate Iraqi states, one of which will be an independent Kurdistan (which could cause all sorts of problems with Turkey, of course).

If such ethnic conflicts could be solved with a few hastily trained armed police, the Northern Ireland conflict, the Palestinian conflict, the Rwandan genocide, and countless others never would have happened.

The US has no idea what it's getting itself into.

Just my two cents. For further reading, see Arend Lijphart, "Democracy in Plural Societies" or Donald Horowitz "Ethnic Groups in Conflict". [And yes, ethnic conflict was my concentration in my political science degree. ]

Agreed, all those three conflicts represents to some extent artificial borders, or areas where when the border was drawn, too little land was given to peoples who absolutely should not live in such small spaces with one another: a.k.a. Catholics and Protestants in N.I., Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem, Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda. I also believe that there is as much a probability of Iraq fractioning up into three autonomous states (read Biden's plan for Iraq: the only politician in the West who's actually got it.)
But there is also the possiblity that Iraqis could make it work (albeit without the Kurds, whom I think are a lost cause, but you never know!)
The scenario where Iraq does not split up (meaning Sunnis and Shia dividing it up), means either Sunnis and Shias getting along, or Sunnis and Shias fighting it out until one emerges victorious (where most certainly the Shias would win, but never trust the Sunnis in Iraq to skip that fight); or the moderate Sunnis get together with the moderate Shias: creating an Islamic Republic of sorts (a bit of democracy, a bit of theocracy, a bit of federalism)
In which case Al Qaeda in Iraq would become dead in the water (or sand).

But you're right, the Bush Administration should have read T. E. Lawrence's 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' before the invasion.

[Curufin]

But there is also the possiblity that Iraqis could make it work (albeit without the Kurds, whom I think are a lost cause, but you never know!)
The scenario where Iraq does not split up (meaning Sunnis and Shia dividing it up), means either Sunnis and Shias getting along, or Sunnis and Shias fighting it out until one emerges victorious (where most certainly the Shias would win, but never trust the Sunnis in Iraq to skip that fight); or the moderate Sunnis get together with the moderate Shias: creating an Islamic Republic of sorts (a bit of democracy, a bit of theocracy, a bit of federalism)

It could work, theoretically, if the Sunnis and Shias were willing to work together enough to set up a consociational arrangement, where each ethnic group had their autonomy and identity, but were willing to work together in order to make the country viable. It's theoretically possible, but I'm not sure if it is likely. Your idea that possibly one could destroy the other (or at least make them weak enough that they could be dominated) is more likely, in my opinion.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Curufin

It could work, theoretically, if the Sunnis and Shias were willing to work together enough to set up a consociational arrangement, where each ethnic group had their autonomy and identity, but were willing to work together in order to make the country viable. It's theoretically possible, but I'm not sure if it is likely. Your idea that possibly one could destroy the other (or at least make them weak enough that they could be dominated) is more likely, in my opinion.

Yes, and it would appear that with the Awakening Movement (The Sunni's new anti-Al Qaeda armed force) and the Al-Maliki gov't that there is, perhaps, an agreement on the horizon. Personally I think the Shias (or Shiites I guess, but it sounds odd) are amassing power for the day the Americans leave: and then it's payback time. Maybe not very violently, but economically and restrictively so that Sunnis never, ever again can challenge Shia power!
As for the Sunnis, I think their preparing for that day too, and who knows.. maybe Al Qaeda in Iraq would then become not the mover, but a useful pawn in their war against the Shia. But pure speculation! Iraqis may, for all we know, want to stay Iraqis when it comes to the possibility of another round of bloodshed!

[Curufin]

Iraqis may, for all we know, want to stay Iraqis when it comes to the possibility of another round of bloodshed!

Here's the question, though - in terms of identity, do they consider themselves more (a) 'Sunni' or 'Shia' or more (b) 'Iraqi'? I don't actually know the answer to this question, but if Iraq follows the paradigm of the other ethnic conflicts I've studied, my guess would be that there is very little "Iraqi" identity, and much more "Sunni" or "Shia" identity. And if this is true, that they identify more with (a) than with (b), then chances for a peaceful settlement drop dramatically.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Curufin

Here's the question, though - in terms of identity, do they consider themselves more (a) 'Sunni' or 'Shia' or more (b) 'Iraqi'? I don't actually know the answer to this question, but if Iraq follows the paradigm of the other ethnic conflicts I've studied, my guess would be that there is very little "Iraqi" identity, and much more "Sunni" or "Shia" identity. And if this is true, that they identify more with (a) than with (b), then chances for a peaceful settlement drop dramatically.

Yeah, I think that's the right question to ask. And I'd for for (a) too, especially seeing that Sunnis in Iraq are deeply sceptical and often graphically opposed to Iranian influence on the Shia community, on the Al-Maliki gov't and on the arms crossing the border. And they should rightfully be so knowing what the Iranians are capable of doing.

If the answer is (a) then potentially, doesn't have to happen, Iraq will not only be engulfed in yet another war, but one that could be far bloodier, and one that could entrap not only the Iranians, but the Saudis, the Jordanians, the Syrians, and even the Turks: Suddenly we have the regional nightmare that a few wise people warned off before the 2003 invasion. And sure enough the U.S. will stand somewhere in the middle of it, having so many assets (read oil) at stake.