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"...even the wicked get worse than they deserve." - Willa Cather, One of Ours

Thursday, May 27, 2004

Europeans say the U.S. cannot leave Iraq

Philadelphia Inquirer
Despite strong opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and a continued nervousness about a European presence there, few European foreign-policy experts believe the United States can withdraw its troops from Iraq without creating global chaos.

Asked recently what the United States should do about Iraq, expert after expert repeated one assertion: Whatever the result of the U.S. presidential election in November, Americans must be prepared to stay in Iraq, perhaps for years.

Even as popular pressure mounts in ally nations Britain, Italy, Poland and Denmark to remove troops from Iraq, and though Spain has withdrawn its troops, the foreign-policy experts said the United States could not leave. Why? Because while the war has always been unpopular, the notion of a chaotic Iraq is terrifying.

[...]

A spokesman for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs predicted that if the U.S.-led coalition pulled out at once, "Iraq would be in civil war within 24 hours."

..."Can we turn our backs on the Iraqi people? I'm afraid that would be bad for [Iraq], bad for the people, bad for the region, and bad for the world. It would, however, be good for the terrorists."

How European experts feel about the United States' presence in Iraq might not boost their countries' willingness to send more troops. There is virtually no popular support for dispatching European troops to Iraq...

[...]

..."Signs of disarray only encourage the terrorists. They must now believe the West is losing its will. There could hardly be a surer recipe for anarchy, victory for al-Qaeda and even more turmoil in the Middle East."

[...]

"The military element is essential, and will be for a couple more years," he said. "But the troubles are only going to increase in the coming months...
There is exactly zero chance that Germany or France will ever contribute troops to Iraqi peacekeeping operations, even under a UN umbrella. It is just too late to internationalize security operations in Iraq. The European public would not stand for it.

I hope that Kerry realizes that his proposal to get troops from other countries to relieve the burden on the US is not going to happen. I also hope that his stated policy here is just campaign rhetoric. Because if Kerry really believes what he is saying about internationalizing the security burden in Iraq, then he is clearly an idiot and shouldn't be President of the United States. (We already have an idiot in the oval office. We don't need two in a row.)

I am confident that this is just campaign rhetoric designed to keep his Democratic base happy. He couldn't be stupid enough to believe what he is saying.
Posted by: Zayphar / 5/27/2004 08:35:00 PM
Comments:
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Doug,

Thanks for visiting my blog. I am very sorry that I disappointed you.

That fact is that I am not only a Navy veteran, I am a life-long Democrat. I am also a Roman Catholic (whatever that means these days).

As you probably know, I am a strong hawk on the War on Terrorism, and though I was skeptical about the immediate necessity of invading Iraq to further the aims of the war, I am now a strong and unrelenting hawk on the war in Iraq. Once the Senate passed the war resolution in the summer of 2002 I was completely on board with the Iraq invasion, occupation, nation-building and all that entailed. I am the kind of Democrat that says, "When it comes to war there is no such thing as a loyal opposition."

But the fact is that I am also a social liberal, though some of the nonsense that the extreme left comes up with these days leaves me a bit disgusted.

Democrats divide into 4 factions. From center to left are: moderates (me on foreign policy), liberals (me on social policy), Progressives (most of the rest of my relatives), and finally Leftists (another name for hard-core Socialist anti-American crazies, i.e. IndyMedia, Democratic Underground etc.).

Politically, the blogger that is closest to my views is Roger L. Simon (http://www.rogerlsimon.com/).

Most of my Democratic friends are irrational when it comes to Bush and the war. There are very few liberals like me that are willing to look beyond politics and deal with the reality. Together with Republicans, the pro-war liberals like me make up the majority that continues to support president Bush on the war. But how does this relate to the election.

If I suspected that the democratic candidate was in the slightest against a vigorous war policy on Iraq, then I would definitely vote against him, without any hesitation. That is why I find Kerry's babble about the UN and other nations contributing troops so disconcerting. It makes me doubt that he has a serious foreign policy in this area.

While I will never vote for Bush, but if he doesn't get his act togeather, there is still a possibility that I will refrain from voting for Kerry.


Peace and Freedom for an Independent Iraq
# posted by Blogger Zayphar : 6:05 PM
 
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