[lit-ideas] Re: Romney on the Iraq Surrender Group
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 21:44:13 -0800
Lopez: What did you make of the Iraq Study Group report that was
released last week?
Gov. Romney: (...) Suggesting that somehow the Israel-Palestine
conflict is a root of sectarian and insurgent violence in Iraq is
just wrong. Sunnis are killing Shia and vice versa. Pressuring Israel
won’t change that.
The Iraq Study Report (ISR) doesn't say that.
It says that all of the problems in the region are interwoven, incl. the Israeli/Palestinian
issue. But the ISR makes it very clear that the "war" in Iraq is actually internal sectarian
violence.
Proposing that we negotiate with terrorist regimes like Syria and
Iran — without a rigorous analysis of how our incentives could ever
be aligned — is just counter-productive.
Romney either did not read the ISR or misunderstood it.
The ISR's recommendation is to create a stable Iraq. To do that, all factors that create
instability must cooperate to stop instability. Iran is actively destablizing Iraq; Syria is
"passively" destablizing Iraq (by allowing the transport of weapons, etc.) However, both of
these countries, incl. all of Iraq's neighbors, do not want Iraq to collapse (this very well
could cause a regional war). Thus the ISR recommends that these countries be included in
cooperation to stablize Iraq by resolving its sectarian problems.
Finally, inferring that our troops may be withdrawn from combat positions before Iraq is
secure runs counter to my view and to the views I have heard from some of America’s most
accomplished military leaders.
Romney certainly did not read the ISR. Nowhere does it say this, and in fact, it strongly
argues against this.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
