All opinions posted. None too pathetic or contrived. Everyone gets their say.

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

Thursday, June 03, 2004

Changes in Policy on Iraq

Financial Times (London)
US starts to think the unthinkable about Iraq
...the administration is focusing on supporting the newly selected caretaker government as it tries to organise legislative elections by next January.

"There is no Plan B," a senior official said.

...Washington has come to realise it must confer real authority on the new government on June 30. But officials believe that France, Germany and Russia, leading opponents of the war, have been slow to recognise this US swing towards pragmatism.

Within the administration there is still a sense that the European detractors are not unhappy to see the US in trouble...

[...]

...defines failure as an abrupt withdrawal of most US troops while Iraq dissolves into internecine strife.

[...]

"The Europeans have already dropped Bush and they are now waiting out the election. They do not want to see a strategic failure for America in Iraq, because that would be very bad for them. But at the same time they don't want to do anything that confirms the Bush approach to the world."

[...]

...Mr Bush laid out what he thought the "unthinkable" would mean: "Every friend of America and Iraq would be betrayed to prison and murder as a new tyranny arose. Every enemy of America and the world would celebrate, proclaiming our weakness and decadence, and using that victory to recruit a new generation of killers."

The US has contingency plans, including the evacuation of some civilians from Baghdad, in case of an uncontrollable surge in violence. However, a military spokesman said that eventuality was "both unlikely and inconsistent with the reality on the ground".
I am often amazed about how clueless European elites are about US politics and policy making.

The above article is a case in point. FT is a realtively conservative paper but this article absolutely reeks of contempt for the Bush administration. They can not separate their abhorance for Bush with the realities in Iraq.

The idea that the Bush people would care what the Europeans think about our policy is laughable. The unanimity of opinion among journalistic and politcal elites (with rare exceptions like New Labor in Britain and the eastern European states) prevents them from having ann impact on the decision making of the Bush administration.

In fact, Bush had to go out of his way today to deny that he personally hates the French.

Blair is right about one thing. The Bush people will never take into consideration the views of anyone who states that they oppose the US on policy. Blair hasn't been able to significantly modify Bush's policies, but if he was with the others opposing Bush, he would have no say at all.

Bush is holding the whip hand here and the Europeans are unwilling to face their own political weakness.
Posted by: Zayphar / 6/03/2004 02:56:00 PM 0 comments

Legitimacy of the Interim Government

Iraq the Model
:: Al-Sistani also said that the new government, appointed Tuesday by a U.N. envoy, lacks the "legitimacy of elections" and does not represent "in an acceptable manner all segments of Iraqi society and political forces"
I'm quite sure that even if Prophet Mohammed himself was appointed to be the new president, those clerics would have shown the very same criticism and they would consider him as a puppet of the Americans. Can't they just remain silent for a couple of months and wait for the elections to come rather than trying to hinder any step Iraq takes.

Wasn't Sistani himself the one who asked the GC and the CPA to invite the UN to come to Iraq and supervise the political process?!
From a purely technical viewpoint Sistani is correct. Any government that does not come to power via a free and fair election is not "legitimate".

Of course this also means the none of the predominantly Arab contries have legitimate governments (i.e. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc.).

This is the beginings of a democratic revolution. Iraqis will be able to say "we were first, we led the way into a better future for all Arabs."
Posted by: Zayphar / 6/03/2004 02:48:00 PM 0 comments

Something to Fight For


"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

John Stuart Mill

Posted by: Zayphar / 6/03/2004 12:42:00 AM 0 comments