What if?

[lydy]

What if the recognized government of Iraq unconditionally surrendered to the United States?

Comments

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

Huh? What would be the point?

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Dunno. It gets the Iraqis out of the difficult and dangerous business of trying to form a government. Would a protectorship be better? I doubt it. But it would change things, I just do0n't know what. Idle curiousity only

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

It would be dismissed as a publicity stunt.

B

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

Ah.

In my opinion, you question is based on incorrect premises. The previous Iraqi government vanished, and the U.S. could (if it wanted to) have kept control of Iraq. That wasn't the U.S. goal — the U.S. goal was an independent Iraq that wouldn't be a danger to the U.S. or its neighbors. Therefore the U.S. helped the Iraqis create their own democratically-elected government instead of taking over Iraq as a protectorate.

The problem the Iraqis are facing is someing like the one we face here in Chicago on the West Side: asymmetric warfare. A handful of people can make a city or country unlivible if they try hard enough. In Chicago, it's street gangs fighting for power and profit. In Iraq, it's gangs left over from the old regime, fighting for the return of the good old days when they could bury their opponents in mass graves.

At present, the U.S. is working to complete handover of Iraqi security to the Iraqis. This isn't going to be easy or quick, anymore than it was easy and quick to acclimate people in the newly-independent U.S. to their responsibilties and freedoms after the War of Independence.

What's interesting is that democracy has a domino effect. The U.S. introduced democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan; now Lebanon is freeing itself from Syrian dictatorship and Syria itself may start to totter. The 'stans of the Former Soviet Union are moving towards democracy, as did the Ukraine. The U.S. policy of promoting democracy is actively demolishing dictatorships all throughout Asia.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

the U.S. goal was an independent Iraq that wouldn't be a danger to the U.S. or its neighbors

Without getting into too much political debate in Lydy's LJ, surely you could write this more properly as "the U.S. goal was to get those 9/11 terrorists to get rid of Saddam's WMDs some other excuse-du-jour an independent Iraq that wouldn't be a danger to the U.S. or its neighbors"

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

I don't agree with your assessment of the reasons for the war in Iraq. The war in Iraq had a deeper, more fundamental cause than the one I mentioned, even though the one I mentioned and the ones you mentioned are also valid (and sufficient) reasons.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I suppose my dreams of a Marshall plan are right out.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Foreigners are just a bunch of terrorists and terrorist lovers. Can't you remember that?

B