Such smugness, arrogance ...such insufferable moral superiority.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Or rather the man who helped form the UN coalition against Iraq. It's more impressive than anything on Barak's resume.

James Baker's right hand on the ME was Dennis Ross, and Dennis Ross didnt do any better at Camp David and Taba than Barak did.

And indeed, Baker at Madrid didnt do any better either. He DID manage to let Arafat and "the Tunisians" wangle their way into control of the Pal delegation, with unfortunate consequences for the subsequent middle east peace process.


In any case, the issue is about public diplomacy. Whatever Baker presents in private will be twisted around by the Iranians in public. Barak, Ross, and Clinton himself couldnt undo that twisting after Taba. I doubt that Baker with his winning public manner, the way he just oozes sincerity and conviction, would do better than they did.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Baker can always call on his old friends from the Iran Contra era .

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Baker can always call on his old friends from the Iran Contra era .

Perhaps Karen Hughes will help him.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I meant the ones IN Iran.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Baker can always call on his old friends from the Iran Contra era .

Your're pinkoism is deepening its hue.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I meant the ones IN Iran.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I meant the ones IN Iran.

Much easier to do that in under cover of helping some rightist types take down a leftie regime in Latin America.

You listening Senor Chavez? Ollie to Teheran, once again, freed from talk radio at last. Truely, the path out of Iraq, to a just, hopeful, foreign policy has been laid.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Ned


"Many Democrat politicians and some from the Republican Party have stated a withdrawal from Iraq would end the insurgency there.

That doen' quote anyone, that's an assertion by the article's overtly ideological author.

In a recent interview with CBS's "60 Minutes," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, stated, "The jihadists (are) in Iraq. But that doesn't mean we stay there. They'll stay there as long as we're there."

That the "full" quote.

There are ways to mislead, Rufus. One is by not including in your quote the very thing you say is not in the quote.

Yep. That's the full quote. I know, because I quoted it in full --TWICE -- on page six. I also donned my old professorial cap and explained how the English language works and how we could use our knowledge of English to interpret the quote for ourselves, rather than relying on the author's mischaracterizations.

No, don't thank me; I'm always happy to give a little something back to the community...

[MrFun]

We can only win the war in Iraq if more Americans put yellow ribbon magnets on their cars!

[Drake Tungsten]

What causes you to make posts like that one? It really mystifies me...

[MrFun]

just to be weird

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Ned
We have three goals

1) suppress the insurgency;

2) build up the Iraq army; and

3) end outside interference and support of the insurgency.

If the world were to put sanctions on Syria and Iran and isolate them as best we could, ditto Saudi Arabia, if necessary, that might work.

There's basically zero chance of that happening in any meaningful way or of the US being able to convince other countries to do that.

So basically success in Iraq is contingent on something that is very unlikely (to say the least) by your own admission. By that logic because success is so incredibly unlikely getting the troops out as soon as is feasible is the best of a lot of very bad options.

[Bosh]

To expand opon my previous point, if you accept the Nediverse logic that if Syria and Iran are isolated Iraq will become winnable (a dubious proposition at best) the US could:

1. Convince Syria and Iran to isolate themselves (not going to happen if they kept on being called enemies).
2. Convince the rest of the world to stop trading with Syria and Iran (not going to happen since the US has lost so much diplomatic credibility thanks to Bush, specifically good luck trying to convince the Chinese to not spend a ****load of money buying oil from Iran).
3. Get Syria and Iran to stop messing with Iraq by using threats of military force (simple not credible, there's no way in hell that the US could spare the manpower to pull off a ground invasion of Syria or Iran and a bombing campaign would be about as effective as the bombing of North Vietnam was for winning the Vietnamese War).

And that's leaving out doing anything at all to the Saudis, which is a complete pipe dream. I simply don't see how you idea has the slightest chance of working.

Now this is a bit off topic but I think that the main thing that kept the US winning in Vietnam was the myth of the monolithic communists. The US policymakers didn't appreciate how much bad blood there was between different communist countries and didn't do anything at all to try to exploit that. If they had, the war could've definately been won.

[Ned]

Originally posted by MrFun
We can only win the war in Iraq if more Americans put yellow ribbon magnets on their cars!

Just thinking about the kind of magnet Borat wanted in his car!

[Ned]

Originally posted by Bosh


There's basically zero chance of that happening in any meaningful way or of the US being able to convince other countries to do that.

So basically success in Iraq is contingent on something that is very unlikely (to say the least) by your own admission. By that logic because success is so incredibly unlikely getting the troops out as soon as is feasible is the best of a lot of very bad options.

We shall see. Iraq is a UN protectorate, after all. If the UN is unwilling to live up to its obligations, then IT, not the US, will lose all credibility.