Krugman: A No-Win Situation

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/31/opinion/31krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

Everyone wants to go to Baghdad; real men want to go to Tehran." That was the attitude in Washington two years ago, when Ahmad Chalabi was assuring everyone that Iraqis would greet us with flowers. More recently, some of us had a different slogan: "Everyone worries about Najaf; people who are really paying attention worry about Ramadi."

Ever since the uprising in April, the Iraqi town of Falluja has in effect been a small, nasty Islamic republic. But what about the rest of the Sunni triangle?

Last month a Knight-Ridder report suggested that U.S. forces were effectively ceding many urban areas to insurgents. Last Sunday The Times confirmed that while the world's attention was focused on Najaf, western Iraq fell firmly under rebel control. Representatives of the U.S.-installed government have been intimidated, assassinated or executed.

Other towns, like Samarra, have also fallen to insurgents. Attacks on oil pipelines are proliferating. And we're still playing whack-a-mole with Moktada al-Sadr: his Mahdi Army has left Najaf, but remains in control of Sadr City, with its two million people. The Christian Science Monitor reports that "interviews in Baghdad suggest that Sadr is walking away from the standoff with a widening base and supporters who are more militant than before."

For a long time, anyone suggesting analogies with Vietnam was ridiculed. But Iraq optimists have, by my count, already declared victory three times. First there was "Mission Accomplished" - followed by an escalating insurgency. Then there was the capture of Saddam - followed by April's bloody uprising. Finally there was the furtive transfer of formal sovereignty to Ayad Allawi, with implausible claims that this showed progress - a fantasy exploded by the guns of August.

[Dudley_DUright]

1. Just about to post

PK paints a grim picture of the future of Iraq which is well known here, but probably a surprise to most. The scariest graph was the concluding one:

Yesterday Mr. Bush, who took a "winning the war on terror" bus tour just a few months ago, conceded that "I don't think you can win" the war on terror. But he hasn't changed the national security adviser, nor has he dismissed even one of the ideologues who got us into this no-win situation. Rather than concede that he made mistakes, he's sticking with people who will, if they get the chance, lead us into two, three, many quagmires.

[necso]

2. Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani is elderly and not in great health.

The war is lost. The future isn't bright anyway you slice it. Time to get the f* out and spend the money on alternative energy sources.

These idiots should not have gone into Iraq. We knew it in 1991 and we knew it in 2003.

But in the big picture who gives a f* anymore -- four more years of these f*ing a*holes and there won't be an America left, worthy of the name.

The time may be coming when we will have to make much harder choices than what the f* to do in Iraq. --- Give 'em the vote, smile, spin it merrily and get the f* out!

This is another nice editorial by Mr Krugman, but there are matters of greater import looming... I feel them press closer now, and they lay heavy on me.

[acmavm]

3. While that idiot Rudy tries to tell us bush* is a great war leader, the

truth that was apparent to many people starts to become obvious:

<snip>
Here's another thought. President Bush says that the troubles in Iraq are the result of unanticipated "catastrophic success." But that catastrophe was predicted by many experts. Mr. Cordesman says their warnings were ignored because we have "the weakest and most ineffective National Security Council in post-war American history," giving control to "a small group of neoconservative ideologues" who "shaped a war without any realistic understanding or plans for shaping a peace."

<snip>

Yep, heard many times pre-Shock and Awe that this is what would happen. But the thugs who believed troops would be greeted with flowers and songs got their way in the end. This cabal is the most dangerous bunch of delusional crazies ever to hold power in Washington.

[MISSDem]

4. Most people have no idea of what is going on

in Iraq or Afghanistan, that they have fallen back into the hands of "insurgents" in Iraq and warlords in Afghanistan. That isn't shown on the nightly news blips and that is where most folks get their news. And they are happily going their way.