The problem is very different in Iraq, thankfully. The Ba'athists almost certainly have no popular support, very much unlike the IRA.
The problem is, neither do we. In invading Iraq in the manner we did, without the support of the UN or even all of our NATO allies, and with little evidence that Hussain was involved in terrorist attacks against the West (and of course the complete lack of WMDs in Iraq), we have invited skepticism with respect to our motives.
Now we've created a place wherein every anti-American in the world can participate in an attack against Americans, Moslem or no, and experience some degree of success that encourages others to join them. To countries like China, who may be anti Moslem, but are certainly anti Democracy and Anti American as well, our difficulties in Iraq are a bonanza. What's keeping them from jumping on the bandwagon
You said in an earlier post that the outcome of the war is inevitable. I think you're wrong about that. In the upcoming election year you can bet that our enemies will take full advantage of our political process - as they have on other occasions such as the Tet offensive that was largely responsible for the withdrawal of LBJ from the election in 1968. As long as our resolve in Iraq in question, the success of the âwar on terrorismâ is in question as well, and it wonât take much more of the kind of news weâve been getting from Iraq lately to compromise that resolve.
We're hearing rumors about the resumption of the draft recently, but that would be political suicide for the feckless Bush administration, so I suspect that those will remain rumors at least until after the election. None the less, I expect that once we find that rapidly training tens of thousands of Iraqis to man a security force has invited the kind of enemy infiltration that will doom it to failure as an effective tool against insurgency, we will have to either resume the draft and send thousands more of our young people over there, or compromise our goals.
In the meanwhile, the situation in Iraq has all the trappings of a military quagmire and a political disaster, and the âwar on terrorismâ founders.
-- Doug _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
