broader middle east war [Archive] - RonFez.net Messageboard

jetdog

12-05-2006, 06:47 PM

<a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/16171482.htm">http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/16171482.htm</a>WASHINGTON - President Bush's choice as new Pentagon chief told a Senate committee on Tuesday that the United States isn't winning in Iraq and that neighboring countries could be sucked into a regional war if the violence isn't contained within two years. No shit? Who'd have thought? Maybe the Army War College? Nah...it's not like they told us so.

This message was edited by jetdog on 12-5-06 @ 11:12 PM

Fez4PrezN2008

12-05-2006, 07:02 PM

Jetdog... would have expected more from a "Dot Commando" !

johnniewalker

12-05-2006, 07:04 PM

*--StartFragment -*  .*--StartFragment -*

jetdog

12-05-2006, 07:08 PM

Fez4PrezN2008 wrote: Jetdog... would have expected more from a "Dot Commando" ! Ouch...Just when I was riding high on my new status... *--start fragment--* Fuck!

Fez4PrezN2008

12-05-2006, 07:13 PM

We still love you sugar-plum !

torker

12-05-2006, 07:16 PM

broader middleI keep misreading the title.<img src="http://www.thehairstyler.com/images/celebrity/Celebrity_344.jpg" border="0" width="200" height="240" />

Yerdaddy

12-06-2006, 01:23 PM

I put my thoughts on this in the <a href="http://www.ronfez.net/messageboard/viewmessages.cfm/Forum/87/Topic/53512/currentpage/3/page/Rumsfeld_Resigning.htm#bottom" target="_blank">Rummy-be-gone thread.</a>The <a href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/international/20061206_btext.pdf" target="_blank">Iraq Study Group Report</a> [PDF] has four short pages specifically "Consequences of Continued Decline in Iraq", which should be read to understand the consequences of failure in Iraq.I expect Cordesman to come out with a critical assessment of the report - and he's always right. It's freaky how much better at this he is than anyone else on the planet. [Scratch that: he's already got a preliminary assessment out: "<a href="http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_progj/task,view/id,863/" target="_blank">The Baker-Hamilton Study Group Report: The Elephant Gives Birth to a Mouse</a>"[QUOTE]By <a href="http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_experts/task,view/type,34/id,3/" target="_blank">Anthony Cordesman</a>, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy December 6, 2006 It is going to take time to make a full appraisal of all the annexes and content of the full report, but the principle recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Commission are very unlikely to produce success. The report does recognize that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and that the current strategy is unworkable – but then so does virtually everyone else.   The key problem is that events may be spiraling out of control, and the key to success is not outside action but Iraqi action. As a result, the most important single sentence in the Study Group's executive summary is it introductory caveat, “if the Iraqi government moves forward with national reconciliation.”   The problem with this caveat is that almost any reasonable mix of recommendations would work if Iraqi society as a whole moved forward with reconciliation. The problem is that the report does not make workable suggestions for creating or incentivizing such action.   Simply calling for a weak and divided Iraqi government to act in the face of all of the forces tearing Iraq apart is almost feckless: It is a “triumph of hope over experience.” Efforts to exhort Iraqis into reconciliation are scarcely new; this has been a core political effort of the Bush Administration since before the elections, and one dates back to at least the summer of 2005. The only new twist is to call for the U.S. to use threats and disincentives to pressure the Iraqi government to act decisively. Saying that, the “United States must make it clear to the Iraqi government that the United states could carry out its plans, including planned redeployments, even if the Iraqi government did not implement their planned changes” borders on being irresponsible. It comes far too close to having the U.S. threaten to take its ball and go home if the Iraqi children do not play the game our way.   Such a policy ignores that lack of a clear Sunni leader and power structure, the diverse ambitions of the Kurds, and above all the divisions among the Shi'ites. Maliki is not weak because he personally is weak, he is weak because he is a compromise leader with two powerful parties – Sadr and SCIRI – that are seeking Shi'ite power and pursuing their own ambitions.   More importantly, it ignores the fact that the Iraqi government is weak as much because of U.S. action as Iraq's inherent problems. The U.S. destroyed the secular core of the country by disbanding the Ba'ath. The U.S. created a constitutional process long before Iraq was ready, and created an intensely divisive document with more than 50 key areas of “clarification” including federation, control of oil resources and money, control of security, t