Since president Bush himself compares Iraq to Vietnam it seems worth reexamining the Iraq war in that context, doesn't it?
As an experiment I took an analysis of our experience in Vietnam and reexpressed it in terms of Iraq. Bush replaced Johnson, Al Qaeda replaced Communists. Here is the result:
President Bush and his allies see Iraqis as instruments of Al Qaeda expansionism which must be controlled before all the Arab "dominoes" fall to Islamic Jihadists. Our policy is therefore to prop-up a weak client-state government which does not command the loyalty of all the Iraqi people (because it is tribal in nature).
That sounds about right for the current situation.
Bill Clinton admired senator Fulbright's foreign affairs experience (Source: "My Life", by Bill Clinton). What happens if we now apply senator Fulbright's recipe for withdrawal to the current situation?
We would make American withdrawal from Iraq conditional on agreement by all parties to self-determination for Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites and a referendum on reunification.
I wonder if Hillary will lean in this direction?
Is it already too late to expect an agreement about anything?
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