Reply #51: US control is the problem. I'm not trying to predict what will happen.

[AP]

I'm just trying to argue what the best solution would be.

I don't think securing the borders of a US controlled Iraq is going to solve the problem. The world has enough history of colonialism and post-colonialism to know that it's impossible to suppress resistance to occupation (whether it's overt, or conducted from a distance, in the case of post-colonialism).

Saying that you're going to negotiate with the post-election governmnent is like saying "I don't compromise with myself", or whatever it was that Bush said. The post-election government is going to manifest the will of the US, with or without the charade of "negotiations." As for replacing forces with Iraqis, I don't think that's going to fool insurgents either. A feature of colonization, including the Phillipines, for the US -- one of the things the colonizing power always does -- is to try to use the locals to police the locals so that you create the fiction of autonomy. So long as the locals are enforcing rules that benefit the colonizer, insurgents are not going to be fooled. (And this is the reason the insurgents are killing so many Iraqi police officers -- they've read their colonial histories of the Phillipines.)

The problem with Iraq is that the US is setting that country up to be a spigot for wealth flowing to American oil and oil service and security companies. The thing that will cause insurgency no matter who is governming or what the racial make-up of the police and army is will be the realization that wealth is flowing out of the country.

Now, how can you solve that problem? Well, you could pull out totally, but like I said, American fascists will probably figure out a way to make political hay out of the ensuing chaos, and may already be able to control from afar thanks to what they've done so far.

The other thing you can do is put in a transitional aparatus that makes it impossible for any one country to set up Iraq as a colony. That's what the multinational force could achieve. The devolution of power and authority could mean that no one country or bloc of countries could turn Iraq into a colony.