The Emerging "Neocon" Alibi on Iraq

[Ski]

Jackals or wild dogs is a better desciption for Al Qaeda. Not for the Baathists in Iraq. They were mosquitos - kept at bay with a nice fresh dose of DDT every so often.

Agree that Iraq was not strong, but was relatively stable, much more so than what we are seeing today. Unloved dictators are dime a dozen in the world, it does not mean we are invading their countries however. I suspect our political beliefs are different and that's good.

Where we part ways - Gathering bases is a do-nothing plan for me when we have bases scattered in the region from Turkey to Oman to Kuwait to Qatar to Bahrain to Kyrgystan...how many is enough? We could have done enough damage to non-state terror groups without invading Iraq for additional bases (do you really believe that?) We could have kept a close eye on Iraq, built up a Division size presence on the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border. Hell, we had a great deal of military surveillance on the place as is...after 13 years, we should have known everything about the damned country.

I don't believe the American public will allow us to stay in Iraq for 15 years, much less 30. We shall see.

Not really, but I'm incredibly easy. Not lions then. How about a pack of Jackals -- or even wild dogs? Still propose to do nothing? If so, we have a different approach to life.If you were under that illusion, as were many, not my problem. IMO, they were neither stable nor strong but they did have the misfortune to have an unloved dictator and be smack dab in the geographic center of the ME, they thus became an easy target.Stability in the region was not the issue -- export of nominally Islamic fundamentalist terrorism to the rest of the world was the issue and, in particular, attacks on the US (read: Afghanistan, here we come) and more importantly, US interests worldwide (as in Khobar towers, the embassies, Beirut and all that -- read Iraq and the greater ME, here we come...) were the triggers to do more than passively accept them -- which Desert Fox and such did absolutely nothing to deter. One could argue that such halfhearted foolishness merely encouraged the Jackals...

The object in attacking Iraq was not to produce a stable ME, it was to get bases in the area in order to facilitate the local development of greater stability and to deter local adventurers in the field of global terrorism by cutting the time to accomplish that from four or five generations to only two or so. May not have been the best plan in the world but it'll probably work and it is certainly vastly preferable to continuing to encourage the attacks by NOT responding significantly.Shouldn't need to be sustained indefinitely, just another 15-30 years or so. Hang in there, it'll get worse before it gets better.

[Ken White]

Jackals or wild dogs is a better desciption for Al Qaeda. Not for the Baathists in Iraq. They were mosquitos - kept at bay with a nice fresh dose of DDT every so often.

you're supposed to do; concentrate on Iraq and miss the rest of the ME. Part of the strategery, I think. Seems to be working. Your mosquito advice was adhered to by three former Presidents-- you see where that got us...

Iraq is just the most visible aspect of the multi pronged strategy, Afghanistan is another -- and totally separate LOO (to use the buzz-acronym) -- while the real effort is closing off the money supply and infiltrating the operating entities (nothing classified in that, been touted in open sources here and there). The Baathists were not an issue. Saddam was not an issue. Iraq's oil was not an issue. Iraq was not an issue. The issue was destabilizing the Islamist terror base throughout the ME. Iraq just happened to be the geo location thereof because it's smack dab in the middle of the AO.

Agree that Iraq was not strong, but was relatively stable, much more so than what we are seeing today. Unloved dictators are dime a dozen in the world, it does not mean we are invading their countries however...

The dictator wan't a big issue but the fact the he was unloved by many made him a better target than some others. That and the fact that an attack there was likely to be minimally disruptive to world oil supply. Not ours; the world's -- we really want China and India to have all the oil they want.

Nor was Iraq's stability an issue. Isn't really one today in broad terms other than as that stability affects our ability to do what we wish. Callous but that's life in the real world.

...I suspect our political beliefs are different and that's good.

Perhaps. Though the issue to me is not political and, domestically, I'm pretty much apolitical and don't like or trust either party or ANY politician. I am a complete pragmatist, I've spent a few years in the ME and I know that four previous Presidents inadvertently encouraged them to continue their attacks over a 20 year period. Bush may not be great but at least he had enough sense to say 'enough.'

Where we part ways - Gathering bases is a do-nothing plan for me when we have bases scattered in the region from Turkey to Oman to Kuwait to Qatar to Bahrain to Kyrgystan...how many is enough?...

Actually we don't have any bases in Turkey though they did allow us to use some of theirs under very tightly controlled conditions. The others you cite in the ME are all subject to similar conditions and all are small and would not allow for three or four BCT with training space. Kyrgyzstan is not in the ME (neither is Afghanistan). It's not how many, it's where they are and the capability they provide.

...We could have done enough damage to non-state terror groups without invading Iraq for additional bases (do you really believe that?)...

No, I don't believe we could have done such damage -- we haven't done them much damage even with Iraq ; that's a different thing entirely and is being worked quietly in many places around the world by a surprising number of US guvmint employees from many agencies (not least USSOCOM who are not into advertising). Yes, I do believe the bases were a very significant reason for the attack on Iraq; not the only reason, there were a dozen or more but the bases were a biggie.

...We could have kept a close eye on Iraq, built up a Division size presence on the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border. Hell, we had a great deal of military surveillance on the place as is...after 13 years, we should have known everything about the damned country.

In reverse order; we obviously didn't know much about it all (Intel failure of significant magnitude); Kuwait is not big enough to allow a Division sized force and adequate training room plus there would have been conditions of use; yet again, Iraq is not the issue -- the support of trans national terrorism by a broad swath of people throughout the ME is the issue.

I don't believe the American public will allow us to stay in Iraq for 15 years, much less 30. We shall see.

Heh. Okay. We will, indeed...