Victory In Iraq?

RedRalphWiggum said:
It's to early to tell.

The surge worked far better than I thought it would, but a big part of its success is down to bribes given to people to stop attacking the US military, when those bribes stop coming in and the US withdraws, I think we'll be right back to 2006 again, but thats not certain. The thing about it is, the US will go home eventually, Iran will always be next door.
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RRW, afaik, those type payments have already stopped. The budget under the new admin just isnt there to support it anymore and the well has run dry. One of my friends over there right now is doing that type of work, being a liaison officer to some local government types. He said they still talk to them in regards to the situation, but since the cash has dried up they arent nearly as happy to see them coming as they used to be. Heh. But so far it hasnt resulted in increased violence or anything so thats a positive sign so far.

I agree with you that its probably too early to tell.
 
The real victory in Iraq is when Iraqis start thinking of themselves as Iraqis first and Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds second.
 
MobBoss said:
RRW, afaik, those type payments have already stopped. The budget under the new admin just isnt there to support it anymore and the well has run dry. One of my friends over there right now is doing that type of work, being a liaison officer to some local government types. He said they still talk to them in regards to the situation, but since the cash has dried up they arent nearly as happy to see them coming as they used to be. Heh. But so far it hasnt resulted in increased violence or anything so thats a positive sign so far.

I agree with you that its probably too early to tell.
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Yeah, maybe I'm wrong, but I have to say if I was head of an Iraqi militia, I'd be biding my time. Why fight the US now when you can just wait a couple of years until they are gone? Wait until their economy is even weaker and they decide to leave Iraq completely to its own devices (not saying that will definitely happen, but thats what some may be thinking)?
 
RedRalphWiggum said:
Yeah, maybe I'm wrong, but I have to say if I was head of an Iraqi militia, I'd be biding my time. Why fight the US now when you can just wait a couple of years until they are gone? Wait until their economy is even weaker and they decide to leave Iraq completely to its own devices (not saying that will definitely happen, but thats what some may be thinking)?
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Then he hasnt been paying attention to Obamas plan. Currently, even after the 'pull out' we will still have somewhere in the neighborhood of 50k soldiers or so in theater and keep some of the larger bases occupied, but no outside the wire operations will be conducted. Afaik, it will be a station keeping presence only.

The pullout is just the act of taking down are manpower in the area to a miminum level to keep the neighbors honest.
 
MobBoss said:
Then he hasnt been paying attention to Obamas plan. Currently, even after the 'pull out' we will still have somewhere in the neighborhood of 50k soldiers or so in theater and keep some of the larger bases occupied, but no outside the wire operations will be conducted. Afaik, it will be a station keeping presence only.

The pullout is just the act of taking down are manpower in the area to a miminum level to keep the neighbors honest.
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I thought the remaining troops were not there undefinitely and not going to participate in any combat ops? Plus the neighbours couldnt care less about how many US troops are there, it certaintly hasnt kept them honest up til now, cant think why it would when theres only 50,000 left
 
no, they only blow each other up on very few occasions, still, catalans merely thinking of themselves as catalan first doesnt seem to hurt the functionality of spain too much.
 
You mean the kurds too? They are just going to somehow give up on their ethnic identity for the sake of Colonial border definitions?
 
No one has to give up their identity, but if Iraq as currently drawn on a map will survive then everyone needs to jump on the 'ol classic nation state bandwagon in one way or another.
 
illram said:
No one has to give up their identity, but if Iraq as currently drawn on a map will survive then everyone needs to jump on the 'ol classic nation state bandwagon in one way or another.
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"Iraq" is an artificial construction of the British and French, anyway. I definitely think they would be better off split into three countries.
 
Maybe. If that could be shown to be likely I'd be all for it. My concerns though, in an unorganized order:

When was the last time Iraq, or the area now known as Iraq was separated like that? I'm not a history buff but hasn't it always been ruled by one empire/colonial power/country for a long time? And is the current ethnic makeup partly an artificial creation of Saddam? (I.e. lesser Kurdish influence in more traditionally Kurdish area, wiping out tribes in the wetlands, increasing Sunni influence, etc. etc.).

Who is to say they won't squabble amongst one another as 3 separate nations? Who would draw those borders? As 3 separate entities would other powers just creep in anyway? E.g Iran would hold sway over shia Iraq, Turkey may decide to invade Kurdish Iraq, etc. etc. If you continue to carve it up everyone just gets weaker, so don't you run the risk of a power vacuum over some very valuable land?

I am not a huge fan of British and French map drawing, which has brought us so many wonderful dysfunctional "countries" such as Afghanistan, Yemen and just about the entire continent of Africa, but as far as Iraq goes, it seems like the area has just never been stable as a bunch of separate entities. It also seems like the central government we have installed right now is very keen on a single, united Iraq.

I dunno though. Convince me!
 
illram said:
I dunno though. Convince me!
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Well, I was thinking more about how Europe has divvied and will continue to divvy itself up into ethnic-oriented states.

I'm not saying its preferable per se. But the US is unique in almost all the world in that there is no such thing as an ethnic American. So, it can be hard for us to understand the interrelationship that exists in much(most?) of the country between ethnic identify and national identity.
 
.Shane. said:
Well, I was thinking more about how Europe has divvied and will continue to divvy itself up into ethnic-oriented states.

I'm not saying its preferable per se. But the US is unique in almost all the world in that there is no such thing as an ethnic American. So, it can be hard for us to understand the interrelationship that exists in much(most?) of the country between ethnic identify and national identity.
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What about some sort of Federal/State concept in Iraq? Where they are on the spectrum of weak to powerful central government would probably be relative to however close knit of a national identity they are comfortable with. IIRC didn't they try to do that already?
 
.Shane. said:
"Iraq" is an artificial construction of the British and French, anyway. I definitely think they would be better off split into three countries.
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I agree in principle, but I'm afraid such a transition would not go smooth. Just think about border disputes for one. Ideologically the best solution perhaps, realistically it could be an even more vicious hornet's nest.
 
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