[lit-ideas] Re: Iraq and news

On 2005/01/31, at 3:14, Eric Yost wrote:

>
>
> So we can agree that the idea of abandoning Iraq to its own devices and
> retreating to a nearby stronghold is a bad idea?

Not quite yet. My comments were specifically directed against 
withdrawal to Saudi Arabia, which, as the land of Mecca and Medina, is 
sacred to Muslims. If the various sheiks would agree, a withdrawal to 
Kuwait and the UAE might be possible. The practical question is how 
large a presence the sheiks would welcome and/or tolerate.

I observe that the UAE,  in particular, are working really  hard to 
establish themselves as the key Middle Eastern nodes in the globalized 
economy. (CNN-I and BBC-World broadcast a continuous stream of 
commercials advertising their Airlines, their tourist attractions, 
their hosting major sporting events, e.g., a new F-1 Grand Prix 
circuit, high-profile philanthropy, etc.)

>
> That's at least a positive step toward creating constructive notions of
> how to deal with Iraq.

Leaving is probably not the best idea but still a clearly better one 
compared to the US having to deal with its very own West Bank for 
several decades to come.  Look at Vietnam. We leave with a bloody nose; 
our local puppets are fled, dead, or imprisoned....and 40 years later 
American tourists and American business people (together with their 
Asian and European counterparts) are welcome. Iraq could well be 
nastier, since Vietnam wasn't plagued by the ethnic rivalries that 
divide Iraq.

The other geopolitical consideration is that if the US pulls out and 
Iraqi oil ceases to be monopolized by US oil firms, other players 
(China, India, Russia, France) may get their meathooks in. But that 
might, again in the mid to long-term, be a good thing, forcing the US 
toward energy policies focused on independence from Middle Eastern oil.



>
> Maybe the next question is force size and deployment. Should the US
> institute a draft and increase force size to somewhere between one and
> two million soldiers? Or should force size remain the same?
>
Are we intending to fight wars all over the planet?  Or launch WWIII 
and try to win that one?

> And should forces be deployed differently?

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.... That's a really big one. The most 
interesting idea I've seen lately is to separate the War Machine (the 
high-tech, special ops, Shock-and-Awe team) from the Peacekeepers (the 
cops who come in after the War Machine has done its thing). The latter 
would have to be trained quite differently (one problem we've had in 
Iraq is that we've got too many young guys hyped on being "Warriors" 
and trained by exposure to video shoot-em-up games to respond to any 
threat with massive fire power). They would also have to be, using 
current models, a much larger force.

It isn't clear how politically acceptable it would be, but, on one 
view,  the Peacekeepers should be a big, multinational force, with 
substantial manpower from other countries besides the US. The problem 
is that to really work this would involve (1) a massive diversion of 
Defense spending from the War Machine;  (2) spending major amounts to 
support the expanded Peacekeeper force, and (3) putting large numbers 
of US citizens under "foreign" command.

Cheers,

John

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