Bridging the Divide

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Bridging the Divide

Postby Dragon Star » Wed Nov 15, 2006 11:41 pm

I think it's going to be very interesting to see how we are going to work the delicate balance between stabilizing Iraq, while at the same time trying to reestablish the Status Que by shifting power between the U.S and the Iraqi government/military.

Any thoughts on this?
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Postby Enzo » Thu Nov 16, 2006 3:53 am

I am not sure how we can "stabilize" Iraq in any meaningful, long term way. We can Pax Romana them to death. We can stomp on them so hard that they cannot move, but as soon as we lift our boot off their collective neck, the'll be right back at each other. The problem there is them, and I don't see how we can make them hate each other less, any more than I can "make" you like Bill Thompson.

Iraq was more or less stable under Saddam because he ruled with the iron hand, not because they all got along. The Kurds were certainly never happy. We'll see of they get their whey in the future.

Once we stepped in and stirred it all up, we cannot just step away and all will be well. You can't unscramble an egg.
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Postby Мастер » Thu Nov 16, 2006 3:56 am

Enzo wrote:The Kurds were certainly never happy. We'll see of they get their whey in the future.


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Postby Enzo » Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:15 am

Thank you, thank you. (Can't sneak nothing past these guys.)
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Postby Мастер » Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:16 am

Try the veal.
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Postby pmcolt » Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:21 am

Enzo wrote:I am not sure how we can "stabilize" Iraq in any meaningful, long term way. We can Pax Romana them to death.



I know how it could be done, but it's a solution and a commitment that we're not prepared to undertake. We'd do some actual nationbuilding, following the European model for the rise of the early nation-states.

Set up a strong central government, controlled in large part by us. Build state-run schools, train teachers in an approved curriculum, mandate attendance for all children, and indoctrinate the core values of our "new Iraq".

Rebuild infrastructure and services; police, fire, hospitals, prisons, etc. Promote all of these new and rebuilt services on local and national media as part of a "new Iraq" advertising campaign.

Expect to be heavily involved in the country, with troop levels much higher than presently, for at least fifteen years or twenty years, probably longer. Expect also to take a lot of criticism for jailing clerics who advocate violence or attempt to undercut the government.

The long timescale is politically untenable, but also unavoidable. We have to allow enough time to make it clear that the new government is serious, and permanent. We have to allow enough time for the insurgency to either die down or die of attrition. Most of all, we have to allow enough time for the Iraqi children, indoctrinated with the new, stable democratic values, to grow up. When enough of them are old enough to take positions of power, we can hand the government back over to them.

Of course, we'd have horrible combat losses, public outcry over heavy-handedness, backlash from the Middle East over the plan, huge monetary investments with little or no short-term payback, and inevitable political shifts over that timescale, so that plan is pretty much unworkable.
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Postby Heid the Ba » Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:15 am

Interesting idea pmcolt, you'll force them to have the type of free democracy you want them to have.

train teachers in an approved curriculum, mandate attendance for all children, and indoctrinate the core values of our "new Iraq".
My bold.

I'm curious what you want those core values to be.

We have to allow enough time to make it clear that the new government is serious, and permanent.


Would this be an elected permanent government? There have been elections in Iraq, the fact that you don't like those elected does not negate the elections.

Any plan which gives self determination to the Iraqis will probably lead to a de jure rather than de facto Kurdish state in the north, a Sunni state and a Shia state which may or may not link up with Iran.

Any plan which does not include self determination simply replaces one tyrant with another.
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Postby Enzo » Thu Nov 16, 2006 1:52 pm

Which pushes us to wonder just what it means when President Bush claims we will stay there until we have achieved "victory." Whatever that is.

In our western democracies, we have elections and we go along with the results, even if we don't agree with them. As a nation, we tolerate the results. I am not so sure that is the mind set in Iraq. That is a part of the world where "kill the infidel" and related ideas hold sway. Lose the election? Keep shooting.

Here, the system is what is dear to us. Other than a few ranting morons, if your boy loses the election, no one seriously thinks shooting him to install your own is a good idea. As is evidenced by the eternal Sunni/Shia violence and myriad other examples, in the middle east, it is the point of view itself that is dear to them, not the system. That alone is a major impediment to installing a western style democracy.
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Postby Heid the Ba » Thu Nov 16, 2006 3:36 pm

My points exactly Enzo.

Why should we be installing anything the people don't want?

If we do want to install something, why are we installing a western style democracy in a non-western country? Would they want to live in country where a marine who admits killing a disabled grandfather doesn't even get a dishonorable discharge?
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Postby pmcolt » Thu Nov 16, 2006 3:46 pm

Heid the Ba' wrote:Interesting idea pmcolt, you'll force them to have the type of free democracy you want them to have.


Exactly. It's in our best interest that Iraq become a stable, democratic nation. The problem is that the nation-state is a European idea, and the borders in this region, as well as in Africa, were largely drawn arbitrarily according to European ideas and colonial ambitions.

As a result, we end up with an "Iraqi" nation composed of ethnic Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis, each of whom (as a whole) think of themselves as belonging more to their ethnic group than to the "Iraqi" nation.

By handing government over to them so early, and allowing them to set up a system where each group is explicitly represented in a certain quantity, we reinforce that idea. It would be like creating a new US Constitution that explicitly stated that each major ethnic group in the US must be allocated a specified percentage of seats in Congress. Such an arrangement would only highlight divisions between ethnicities. To build a stable nation, we need the people to identify themselves as Iraqis.

I'm curious what you want those core values to be.


The same core secular values taught in other stable governments: principles of civics, rights, freedom, government power, and due process, for example. The major goal is to create the idea of a monolithic, progressive Iraq with a real future in the minds of the children.


Would this be an elected permanent government? There have been elections in Iraq, the fact that you don't like those elected does not negate the elections.


There would undoubtedly be elections in the future whose outcomes are undesirable from our standpoint. That's the same situation we face with every democratic ally. (And I'd wager it's the same situation y'all face if you watch our elections.)

Once the people are committed to a stable, democratic Iraqi government that protects the rights of its citizens, though, any election outcome shouldn't be much worse than living under 8 years of Clinton, or 8 years of Bush, depending on your political views.


Any plan which gives self determination to the Iraqis will probably lead to a de jure rather than de facto Kurdish state in the north, a Sunni state and a Shia state which may or may not link up with Iran.


Exactly why old allegiances to ethnic or religious factions need to be superseded by a commitment to a stable Iraq as a whole.

At present, it looks like the three-state mess is exactly where things are headed. If the US withdraws, I have serious doubts about the current Iraqi government's ability to hold the nation together.


Any plan which does not include self determination simply replaces one tyrant with another.


Self-determination is a fiction in this case. The US never would've stood by and allowed the Iraqis to choose, say, a theocracy, or another dictatorship, as their form of government. With our direction, they created a constitutional government, based on successful Western models.

The problem is, nearly every citizen of those stable Western model nations was reared with certain concepts of limited government, democracy, civics, rights, duties, and responsibilities of a citizen, etc. Even if certain Europeans were unfortunate enough to grow up under a tyranny, at least they came from a nation that once held such values in some form.

The people of Iraq, though, have lived under one autocracy after another for most of their modern history. Building up these concepts in a population that never held them to begin with will be a slow process, and a bloody one until attrition takes care of the insurgents who seek a return to autocratic rule.
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Postby Heid the Ba » Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:22 pm

Would it not be simpler to let Iraq split along ethinc/religious lines and form three stable, internally monolithic (is this the correct word?) states. This would remove much of the tension from what you admit is a man made country.

(Sorry if I sound cranky, late night, early start etc.)
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Postby Мастер » Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:28 pm

Enzo wrote:Here, the system is what is dear to us. Other than a few ranting morons, if your boy loses the election, no one seriously thinks shooting him to install your own is a good idea.


I'm afraid my views on the US are not so positive, and I'm not convinced those ranting morons are few in number (and mortality rates for presidents do seem awfully high while they are in office). In the November 2000 election, it sure seemed to me love of the system was in short supply, whereas love of winning was quite abundant. It was rather a watershed moment for me (and I do not mean that in a good way), when I saw large numbers of people on both sides promptly declare, with no evidence at all, that their preferred candidate had "really" won, and the other guy was trying to steal it, and then begin chanting neo-Nazi slogans. . .
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Postby Мастер » Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:33 pm

Heid the Ba' wrote:Would it not be simpler to let Iraq split along ethinc/religious lines and form three stable, internally monolithic (is this the correct word?) states. This would remove much of the tension from what you admit is a man made country.

(Sorry if I sound cranky, late night, early start etc.)


It might remove some, but I suspect it will fall very substantially short of relieving all of it. The oil revenues have to be split up; if they are split based on where the oil is located, that will leave the Sunnis in a rather bad way, something they may not accept with good grace. The boundaries would have to be set, and many Kurds are anxious to reclaim areas that were once primarily Kurdish, but which now, due to various Arabisation campaigns under Saddam, are primarily Sunni. I rather suspect things are going to be a little hot there whether it breaks up or not. . .
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Postby Heid the Ba » Thu Nov 16, 2006 5:07 pm

KOS: all very good points, I was more playing Devil's Advocate than suggesting a solution.
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Postby Dragon Star » Thu Nov 16, 2006 6:17 pm

pmcolt wrote:
Enzo wrote:I am not sure how we can "stabilize" Iraq in any meaningful, long term way. We can Pax Romana them to death.



I know how it could be done, but it's a solution and a commitment that we're not prepared to undertake. We'd do some actual nationbuilding, following the European model for the rise of the early nation-states.

Set up a strong central government, controlled in large part by us. Build state-run schools, train teachers in an approved curriculum, mandate attendance for all children, and indoctrinate the core values of our "new Iraq".

Rebuild infrastructure and services; police, fire, hospitals, prisons, etc. Promote all of these new and rebuilt services on local and national media as part of a "new Iraq" advertising campaign.

Expect to be heavily involved in the country, with troop levels much higher than presently, for at least fifteen years or twenty years, probably longer. Expect also to take a lot of criticism for jailing clerics who advocate violence or attempt to undercut the government.

The long timescale is politically untenable, but also unavoidable. We have to allow enough time to make it clear that the new government is serious, and permanent. We have to allow enough time for the insurgency to either die down or die of attrition. Most of all, we have to allow enough time for the Iraqi children, indoctrinated with the new, stable democratic values, to grow up. When enough of them are old enough to take positions of power, we can hand the government back over to them.

Of course, we'd have horrible combat losses, public outcry over heavy-handedness, backlash from the Middle East over the plan, huge monetary investments with little or no short-term payback, and inevitable political shifts over that timescale, so that plan is pretty much unworkable.


Not to even mention the five and a half TRILLION dollar debt we are already in...or our problems with Iran and with N. Korea...which either one or both could both turn into wars within the next few decades if the pieces fall right.

I think we need to get them as prepared and stabilized as possible over the next 5 or 6 years, slowly move out (X %) of the military, and then all of it at once to prevent entrapment giving the Iraqi government 100% control (while still providing support, just not militarily).

After that's over... deal with other, more prominent problems.
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Postby pmcolt » Thu Nov 16, 2006 6:46 pm

Heid the Ba' wrote:Would it not be simpler to let Iraq split along ethinc/religious lines and form three stable, internally monolithic (is this the correct word?) states. This would remove much of the tension from what you admit is a man made country.

(Sorry if I sound cranky, late night, early start etc.)


As KOS said, no such clean split could occur. There would be disputes over resources and land. The Kurds might have some stability in the north, but we would end up with a Shi'a state gravitating towards Iran, and an oil-poor Sunni state possibly leaning toward Saudi Arabia. The border situation could devolve into an Israel/Palestine type situation, with disputes over who has what rights to what land.


I can't support a 5-year timetable. When we invaded Iraq and toppled its government, we should have known we'd be in it for the long haul. For right or wrong, we've destroyed whatever stability-through-terror Saddam managed to create, and now various autocratic groups are trying to take advantage of it. We now have a responsibility to do everything we can to make sure that these groups are unsuccessful, and to secure a stable future for the Iraqis, and you can't do that if you arbitrarily decide to set a five-year hard deadline on troop withdrawal.
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Postby The Beer Slayer » Thu Nov 16, 2006 11:32 pm

I'm afraid that the opportunity for making Iraq a democracy in the Arab world has probably come and gone, due to a combination of US mistakes and the usual Arab/Iraqi incompetence, corruption, and preference for old, failed ways. The endless havoc we see now is the whirlwind we are reaping from not going in with a large enough follow-on-force, dissolving the IRaqi military, not crushing the insurgency in its infancy in 2003, and so on. I don't think anything is going to hold that country together now.
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Postby Dragon Star » Thu Nov 16, 2006 11:59 pm

pmcolt wrote:I can't support a 5-year timetable.


Me either, but I can't support a 15 year tire spinning war with absolutly no benefit either. If it were the only issue in the world now, sure, fine, that's great. However we are on the verge of a possible new Nuclear Arms race, frankly that tends to have a bit more importance then Iraq for the near future.
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Postby Enzo » Fri Nov 17, 2006 5:09 am

Hell, we've beeen sitting in Korea for 50 years, and we still have our military bases in Europe 60 years later.

In the November 2000 election, it sure seemed to me love of the system was in short supply, whereas love of winning was quite abundant.


Yes of course, and we are not above trying to game the system. But comes the day after the election, and the losers are not out in the streets with machine guns mounted on our jeeps shooting the winners. SO in my humble view, deep down we in the US do think the system is more important than being in charge. We like to win, but we don't have to have armies in the street to prevent armed insurgencies. There is a line we draw and we don't cross it, and that line is tolerance.
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Postby Enzo » Fri Nov 17, 2006 5:14 am

We COULD adopt Iraq, and descend upon them with a total immersion process, and after a couple generations, the kids would have grown up knowing nothing but our western ways. But that won't happen.

Our system is foreign to the Iraqis. Imagine if an outside force such as the USSR once was managed to occupy the USA and expected to convert us to communism. Aside from the fact that the Soviets were not very good at it and they corrupted it, the concept of everyone contributing as he is able and taking as he needs is not a horrid concept. But imagine how we as a people would fight tooth and nail the whole time. Just so Iraq.
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Postby Мастер » Fri Nov 17, 2006 5:28 am

Enzo wrote:the concept of everyone contributing as he is able and taking as he needs is not a horrid concept.


It's not a concept at all until "able" and "needs" are defined, wherein lies the rub. Irregular verbs are fun:

I need
you want
he's greedy
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Postby Heid the Ba » Fri Nov 17, 2006 9:10 am

pmcolt wrote: but we would end up with a Shi'a state gravitating towards Iran, and an oil-poor Sunni state possibly leaning toward Saudi Arabia.


Why is this a bad thing? It would correct some of the un-naturalness of the present frontiers. It would allow the Iraqis to be in a nation with those they have things in common with, rather than forcing them to stick to the boundaries imposed a century ago. You cannot force people to think of themselves as Iraqis.

The border with Iran is presently unenforceable, moving it several hundred miles inland doesn't make it any worse.

I'm still unclear on your views on self determination; if it can be shown that a minority of Iraqis (and not a majority of the puppet government) want US help, is that not the time to leave regardless of timescale or the state of the country?
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Postby pmcolt » Fri Nov 17, 2006 6:00 pm

Heid the Ba' wrote:I'm still unclear on your views on self determination; if it can be shown that a minority of Iraqis (and not a majority of the puppet government) want US help, is that not the time to leave regardless of timescale or the state of the country?


No. The people of Iraq did not rise up, oust Saddam from power, and come together to work out a new plan of government. We went in, destroyed Saddam's regime, and then terribly botched the rebuilding in the aftermath. The responsibility and the duty to reestablish a stable government still falls to us, regardless of how long it takes or how much hardship we have to bear to get it done.

If we left, even at the request of a majority of innocent Iraqis, we would leave them in the unenviable position of being in the middle of a civil war, just as now, except in this case, without Coalition backing, there would be little hope of any stable system taking hold. It would either degenerate into civil war and a tyranny of the majority, or the three-state system that has come up before.

The principle is simple. I would never help a friend commit suicide, nor stand idly by as he attempted it, particularly if I were the one that handed him the knife. On the national scale, the Coalition cannot simply hand the militant groups the capability of destroying Iraq, then walk away guilt-free. There exists a responsibility to make things right.
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Postby The Beer Slayer » Fri Nov 17, 2006 9:50 pm

I have no doubt that with enough time, money and bloodshed we could eventually impose a democracy on Iraq by force. But Americans don't like the idea of being an empire, which is what that would entail.
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Postby DrPostman » Sat Nov 18, 2006 12:48 am

If we included ALL the gulf states along with Syria and Turkey there
might be a way of putting together an all Arab force to take the
place of our troops. Just having us there irritates the hell out of a
lot of Iraqis, and many of them are legitimately resisting occupation,
along with the criminals and the religious fighters. It's a very complicated
mess over there and I don't see how we can participate in any part of
the solution other than funding.

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:glp-end: and always will be
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