Maliki or Bust-ed?
***I apologize in advance for saying former prime minister Jafari’s name wrong. I owe you 20 pushups and a cold one on me.
If Iraq Falls
Wall Street Journal
August 27, 2007
By Josef Joffe
In contrast to President Bush’s dark comparison between Iraq and the bloody aftermath of the Vietnam War last week, there is another, comforting version of the Vietnam analogy that’s gained currency among policy makers and pundits. It goes something like this:
After that last helicopter took off from the U.S. embassy in Saigon 32 years ago, the nasty strategic consequences then predicted did not in fact materialize. The “dominoes” did not fall, the Russians and Chinese did not take over, and America remained No. 1 in Southeast Asia and in the world.
But alas, cut-and-run from Iraq will not have the same serendipitous aftermath, because Iraq is not at all like Vietnam.
Unlike Iraq, Vietnam was a peripheral arena of the Cold War. Strategic resources like oil were not at stake, and neither were bases (OK, Moscow obtained access to Da Nang and Cam Ranh Bay for a while). In the global hierarchy of power, Vietnam was a pawn, not a pillar, and the decisive battle lines at the time were drawn in Europe, not in Southeast Asia.
The Middle East, by contrast, was always the “elephant path of history,” as Israel’s fabled defense minister, Moshe Dayan, put it. Legions of conquerors have marched up and down the Levant, and from Alexander’s Macedonia all the way to India. Other prominent visitors were Julius Caesar, Napoleon and the German Wehrmacht.
This is not just ancient history. Today, the Greater Middle East is a cauldron even Macbeth’s witches would be terrified to touch. The world’s worst political and religious pathologies combine with oil and gas, terrorism and nuclear ambitions.
In short, unlike yesterday’s Vietnam, the Greater Middle East (including Turkey) is the central strategic arena of the 21st century, as Europe was in the 20th. This is where three continents — Europe, Asia, and Africa — are joined. So let’s take a moment to think about what would happen once that last Blackhawk took off from Baghdad International.
Here is a short list. Iran advances to No. 1, completing its nuclear-arms program undeterred and unhindered. America’s cowed Sunni allies — Saudi-Arabia, Jordan, the oil-rich “Gulfies” — are drawn into the Khomeinist orbit.
You might ask: Wouldn’t they converge in a mighty anti-Tehran alliance instead? Think again. The local players have never managed to establish a regional balance of power; it was always outsiders — first Britain, then the U.S. — who chastened the malfeasants and blocked anti-Western intruders like Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
With the U.S. gone from Iraq, emboldened jihadi forces shift to Afghanistan and turn it again into a bastion of Terror International. Syria reclaims Lebanon, which it has always labeled as a part of “Great Syria.” Hezbollah and Hamas, both funded and equipped by Tehran, resume their war against Israel. Russia, extruded from the Middle East by adroit Kissingerian diplomacy in the 1970s, rebuilds its anti-Western alliances. In Iraq, the war escalates, unleashing even more torrents of refugees and provoking outside intervention, if not partition.
Now, let’s look beyond the region. The Europeans will be the first to revise their romantic notions of multipolarity, or world governance by committee. For worse than an overbearing, in-your-face America is a weakened and demoralized one. Shall Vladimir Putin’s Russia acquire a controlling stake? This ruthlessly revisionist power wants revenge for its post-Gorbachev humiliation, not responsibility.
China with its fabulous riches? The Middle Kingdom is still happily counting its currency surpluses as it pretties up its act for the 2008 Olympics, but watch its next play if the U.S. quits the highest stakes game in Iraq. The message from Beijing might well read: “Move over America, the Western Pacific, as you call it, is our lake.”
Europe? It is wealthy, populous and well-ordered. But strategic players those 27 member-states of the E.U. are not. They cannot pacify the Middle East, stop the Iranian bomb or keep Mr. Putin from wielding gas pipelines as tools of “persuasion.” When the Europeans did wade into the fray, as in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, they let the U.S. Air Force go first.
Now to the upside. The U.S. may have spent piles of chips foolishly, but it is still the richest player at the global gaming table. In the Bush years, the U.S. may have squandered tons of political capital, but then the rest of the world is not exactly making up for the shortfall.
Nor has the U.S. become a “dispensable nation.” That is the most remarkable truth in these trying times. Its enemies from al Qaeda to Iran — and its rivals from Russia to China — can disrupt and defy, but they cannot build and lead.
For all the damage to Washington’s reputation, nothing of great import can be achieved without, let alone against, the U.S. Can Moscow and Beijing bring peace to Palestine? Or mend a global financial system battered by the subprime crisis? Where are the central banks of Russia and China?
The Bush presidency will soon be on the way out, but America is not. This truth has recently begun to sink in among the major Democratic contenders. Listen to Hillary Clinton, who would leave “residual forces” to fight terrorism. Or to Barack Obama, who would stay in Iraq with an as-yet-unspecified force. Even the most leftish of them all, John Edwards, would keep troops around to stop genocide in Iraq or to prevent violence from spilling over into the neighborhood. And no wonder, for it might be one of them who will have to deal with the bitter aftermath if the U.S. slinks out of Iraq.
These realists have it right. Withdrawal cannot serve America’s interests on the day after tomorrow. Friends and foes will ask: If this superpower doesn’t care about the world’s central and most dangerous stage — what will it care about?
America’s allies will look for insurance elsewhere. And the others will muse: If the police won’t stay in this most critical of neighborhoods, why not break a few windows, or just take over? The U.S. as “Gulliver Unbound” may have stumbled during its “unipolar” moment. But as giant with feet of clay, it will do worse: and so will the rest of the world.
Mr. Joffe is publisher-editor of Die Zeit, the German weekly and will be teaching foreign policy at Stanford University this fall. His latest book is “Überpower: The Imperial Temptation of America.” (Norton, 2006).
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well, what ’s that Mr Joffre ? a rapid “racourci” (sum-up)?
Other prominent visitors were Julius Caesar, Napoleon and the German Wehrmacht.
if one can speak of ME, he should quote the Phenicians and Grecs as first business traders with “comptoirs” all around Mediterranea ;
the Arabs, from the 7th century, still there !
The Turcs are the great conquerors of these countries : their staying last a few centuries (till WW1)
the solution will come from these countries themselves
educate the people there, give their rights to the women : they are the ones who will educate the new generations, who will give them a good image of your country… it’ll take time, may-be more than your genius in Whashington can hope, people are not machines, or even animals : you can’t force them if their heads don’t agree.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:48 amNice article, but, Mr. Joffe, perhaps you weren’t alive during the ’50s and 60s. Early ’60s all we knew was Khruschev pounding his shoe at the UN telling us he would bury us. Also there was the Cuban missile crises. There was the Berlin Wall. US policy was to contain communism whenever and wherever one could. If Ho Chi Minh had not called himself a communist maybe things would have been different. All we could do was to go with what we knew at the time. Revisionists of that time period say with 20/20 hindsight that the communists were only kidding and it was going to collapse anyway. Interesting spin, perhaps you should hire yourself out as a fortune teller. We had just come off with not having taken Hitler seriously enough and communists were very similar. They said they were going to take us over. Just like islamofacists of today say that if we don’t hit the prayer rug we have to be killed.
August 29th, 2007 at 3:27 amthe truth and democrats all in the same sentence..i dont know
August 29th, 2007 at 4:39 amFrenchy:
Madam:
“give women rights” That is a Western concept that does not exist in Islamic Jurisprudence. Women in Islam are second-class citizens and that fact is codified in the Koran and the teachings of Muhammed. Try reading the Koran sometime.
Beacuse that WILL NEVER HAPPEN so long as the current crop of jihadis and their sympathizers are in charge.
The only hope that Islamic women have in the greater mideast to gain independence, is for Western governments to stay engaged and on the ground…Once they leave, Islamic Women will be what they are in Iran: The tools and property of Islamic men.
Drink some wine and think about it Frenchy.
As to the premise of this article, there is an alternative POV as exposed by Hugh Fitzgeralds in his Six questions about victory in Iraq which you can read for yourself at Jihadwatch.
I don’t necessarily agree with him. But I am facinated by the cultural and religious arguments that Fitzgerald poses.
And to Pat:
(You got to imagine R.Lee Ermey’s voice here:)
Attention! (Ten Hut is out. More Like atennnn-shun…)
Front lean and rest position….move!
In cadence…excercise….1…2…
Note to “Team Infidel” members: Gee, I wonder if our little home-schooled droidian Command PrivateMajor understands this?
LOL Two beers for you Pat
August 29th, 2007 at 7:36 amOr was that Iggy who posted ***I apologize in advance for saying former prime minister Jafari’s name wrong. I owe you 20 pushups and a cold one on me.?
Whatever. I toast the both of you guys.
August 29th, 2007 at 7:42 amwoaaah ! Dan the infidel, how you are prompt on proclaiming defaitist statments !
in Koran, there is nowhere a sentence that says that women are “Untermenschen”, its only “us and coutûmes” in retarded countries that say so ; and my knowledge of it was refreshed from yesterday night : there was a TV program about this subject
http://www.arte.tv/fr/histoire-societe/Non-a-l-islamisme/1626712.html
things begin to change in north african countries
and thank you for your wish : yes I drink wine, but the good french ones
August 29th, 2007 at 8:14 amhttp://www.arte.tv/fr/Video/183604,CmC=1665532.html
http://www.arte.tv/fr/Video/183604,CmC=1665654.html
August 29th, 2007 at 8:43 amFrenchy:
No. My statements are not defeatist at all. My statement reflects my knowledge of the Koran and the Hadith. Whatever is happening in some parts of the Islamic world does not translate to what is happening in the Greater Mideast.
The Islamic culture is what it is…a backward version of 7th Century totalitarianism, complete with a set of rules(sharia) and a set of standards (Hadith), and an idealogical manual on a par with Mein Kampf (The Koran)
Here are two quotes from the Koran:
“Women shall with justice have rights similar to those exercised against them, although men have a status above women. God is mighty and wise.” The Cow 2:28
“And let them [believing women] not stamp their feet when walking so as to reveal their hidden trinkets.” Light ~24:31
From the Hadith:
NOTE: Some Hadiths go to extremes in their demeaning views of women. For example:
“Women are naturally, morally and religiously defective”. (Bukhary - from http://www.submission.org/women/equal.html)
If you want to understand Islamic views on anything, don’t try to mix in Western ideas. It doesn’t work. North African women living in the West have far more freedom than does the average Islamic woman in the greater mideast.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:49 amwell, in Irak, seems that women right have decreased since 4 years
http://www.equalityiniraq.com/english.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/15/iraq.prostitution/index.html
August 29th, 2007 at 10:40 amLady of France. (silent chuckle),
There is a weird air of feigned superiority about your comments. I understand that there is a quasi-pompous nature inherent to French people so I will not gold it against you. A couple of things for you to consider, the women’s right in Iraq have not diminished at all. Under Saddam civil liberties for women plummeted in comparison to pre-Saddam Iraq. The treatment of women has nothing to do with the US invasion, rather it is imposed by the respective sects of Islam; Sunni, Kurd, Shia. I would argue that there is an improvement in the fact that there are women serving in the Iraqi government, almost otherwise unheard of. This is a big deal and there are a large number of civil advancements for women in Afghanistan. And you do not want to listen. But beware, your own rights are in jeopardy in your own country. Your declining birth rate is almost one-third Muslim and pretty soon, you will be veiled as you leave your home, not out of cultural sensitivity, but out of fear.
And remember, your country has its own very dirty history in Vietnam, which we came to clean up your mess. And what about Algeria? Your wonderful country, after selling out the Jews in France, spent a century of injustice to Muslims and Africans, and then engaged in a brutal campaign to oppress the Algerian people; even after many Algerians shed their blood for France during both world wars, and you repaid the favor by shedding their blood in the name of French colonialism. (after denying them French citizenship) Nice. So then what? You felt guilty about what you did to the Jews, and then the Algerians and other African colonies, and you opened the gates to your country. And now your Muslims on well on their way to breeding you out. No more worrying about American culture overwhelming France, you now have more Muslims than you know what to do with.
And how do they repay the favor? By rioting and creating impenetrable neighborhoods of crime and violence since the 80’s. And how does France respond? With your continual socialist policy of feeling sorry for them. So now your taxes are well higher than the US, and your unemployment rate is double ours. You rank as one of the lowest countries for economic liberties. So you continue to pay for a growing population that despises you and your way of life, yet they are more than happy to take your money and not lift a finger for France. How does that make you feel?
You can’t pet a rabid dog.
Good luck with everything.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:22 pmIggy,
Have you ever considered running for President?
You have my vote if you do.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:03 pmSandy K, yes you deserve a (p)iggy ignorant as president, many happy returns for the global war of terrorism then
and sir of USA,(applauses ?) funny how you throw at us always the same refrain of arrogance when we ask you a disturbing question ; seems your a big ass who doesn’t stand that his child contests his autority, then prepare to die, all your allied countries will contest your superpower one day or another, the day they see your not invincible
Vietnam and its consequences was your mess (funny how you wanted to take the relay in our former colonies, if your nice , I’ll give you a link, where it is explained why you still carry on prejugees on our country ; that shows too that a large part of your people don’t make work their meninges
) but I concede that we ought to have given Vietnam the independance in 1945, but you know, even in your country there are still some bosses who did not want to sell out their negroes
I won’t answer to your stupid following exemples, I used to , and I am tired of doing it, carry on in your blindness, I predict you a nice future
August 30th, 2007 at 2:19 amFrance the retour
You really are an ignorant fuck
I will take any “future” and that includes death
over living in the kind of world that you,
the defeatocrats, and all our enemies want
to welcome for the rest of the world.
Take your shit somewhere else.
August 30th, 2007 at 5:51 amHere is a great site for the rest of the folks here
to look at if they have not seen it already.
It was “new” to me.
http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php
God bless President Bush and all our forces
for fighting the bullshit that is all over the world
right now and has been for decades. It all is
a gift to the world from AQ & Co. They will be
obliterated or every nation will end up
in submission of them.
I say obliterate them now.
Frenchie you can go with Mookie now
August 30th, 2007 at 5:57 amSandy K, do you realise that your, with yourself reactions, the cause that more and more non christians, or chrisians of this side of the pond, will see a threat in whatever good will you may have to treat us
BTW your link is blind
August 30th, 2007 at 6:51 amFrance,
Where do I begin. Let’s talk about Vietnam. You blame the US for Vietnam? As if France had a right to COLONIZE and subjugate the people? It wasn’t a pleasant trip either. (remember the French Thai war?) The US went to stop Communism, and that seems to have struck a cord with France; since you have a fondness for communist ideology. Not to mention a fondness for appeasement and surrender, like when your government, and people, followed the Nazi’s by supporting them with a puppet government. The price of appeasement was the loss of your soul. At least we went there with good intent: to free the people from communism, whereas you went there to plunder and oppress. And then when the communists, led by the French educated Ho Chi Minh, started giving you trouble, you did what France does best – SURRENDER and RUN. And here comes the US to fix your problems. How proud you must be.
And I noticed you didn’t mention anything about Africa. Did it have something to do with the 18 former French colonies? What about the decades of war in Algeria? Of How about the decades of TORTURE that makes Abu Gharib took like summer camp. Please explain that to us. Or how about the Hutu militia men that France trained and armed? Remember those guys? They were they tribe that massacred around 800,000 Tutsi in Rawanda. What a proud history you have!
Need I continue? I must.
France sold the Iraqis two nuclear reactors that the Israelis bombed in 1981. from 1980 to 1991, France sold Iraq over 25 Billion in weaponry, during the UN sanctions on Iraq, from 1991 on, France sold more goods to Iraq than ANY OTHER country (this includes military equipment and repair parts). France totaled over 1 billion in exports to Iraq in 2002. Way to lead the way. And from personal experience, there are a hell of a lot of Peugeot’s driving around Iraq. And finally, what about French oil company TotalFinaElf, who was promised by Saddam that they would get full access to the Majnoon and Nahr Omar oilfields, yielding about 20 billion barrels. Remember that France was pushing hard in the UN to relieve Iraq of economic sanctions. A lot of money at stake. Could this be a reason that France did not want the US to go to war with Iraq?
If you want to judge our cheese, or our wine go ahead. You have some credibility there. Leave it at that. You have no leg to stand on. And your mask of righteousness does not cover your dirty, blood stained hands.
You can try and soften your guilt by lashing out at the US, but if you really want to feel better about yourself, you can start by apologizing to the world.
Bring it…
August 30th, 2007 at 9:55 amI can’t read your litany any longer, it ’s the same old shit that your msm carry on for ages cause we are not your puppet country
as far as Africa, you were there too !
and did nothing to prevent the catastrophe neither the Frenchs, I agree ! but it was complicated to sort out who were the goods from the bads
Agree that our army experienced torture in Algeria, seems that is the rule in war times
anyway your military academies are still learning carrefully how our army managed war there
Indochine (or Vietnam, if you prefer) was the mistake that our post WW2 government made : Vietnameses deserved independance, anyway that was De Gaulle wish, but your nice government put always sticks across his wheels in Asia, in Algeria (who feed the rebels, your government), in Africa… still now there is a concurrence on who is going to have the metals there, but your overwelmed by China now
take a look at this link,
http://www.tedrall.com/longarticle_011.htm
may-be you’ll understand why we can’t really rely on your faith
and may-be our mutual bashing came partly from these times
August 30th, 2007 at 10:28 ampiggy, peugeot in Irak, I bet a cadillac was too expensive (search in the whole Africa, peugeot is everywhere (or was, now, they got japanese cars too)
your a jaelous nut
your affairists made business with Saddam too but hypocritically, no US names, letter boxes and fake names, nice people
http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/2695/proutif6.gif
August 30th, 2007 at 11:26 amFrance,
You got nothing. Typical liberal response. You have reverted back to nonsense. Let me me get my 10 year old niece on the line. And your “articles” are from the world of conspiracy theory. Maybe you will have more success in the other posts. Not here. Not on my watch.
August 30th, 2007 at 5:57 pmIggy,
seems it’s a leitmotiv for your sort of guis, that if we find some historians with sources, that you say it’ a dems or lefty propaganda,
If I push your logic,then Amstrong didn’t go on to the moon, , the romans are a french and italien dream, 9/11 was a hoax…
so, if you think that all the Frenchs are against you, it is mitiged, but, in fact, not really, only your discourses are sometime unapropriated) look at that Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2sAFHBptJE&eurl=
August 31st, 2007 at 12:41 am