Fears over a 'new Saddam' as Iraq battles to avert civil war

[RedEarth]

........

Advances in training an Iraqi national army have been slow. The Pentagon announced on Friday that the number of Iraqi battalions able to operate independently of US forces had fallen from one to none.

Krepinevich believes 2006 is a crunch year for American public opinion. “If we haven’t made any significant progress four years after the invasion, it will be hard to persuade the public that it’s worth sticking with,” he said. In the event of a civil war Americans might “want to wash their hands of Iraq”.

Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff at the state department, shares Krepinevich’s view that a new Saddam could emerge. “If a civil war were to break out, we would be faced with a difficult choice. Do we enclave ourselves in Iraq and hope and pray the violence is short-lived or do we throw our weight on one side?”

In Wilkerson’s scenario, emergency powers would be granted to a political leader, much as they would be in any threatened democracy. Allawi could be a potential candidate. The Americans would make sure there were “checks and balances” to the leader’s authority, but they might not last.

“If you put someone in who is extremely powerful at the top, the key is whether that person turns into another Saddam Hussein,” Wilkerson said. “After a year you might see the political apparatus around him disappearing and he’s there for life.”

The alternative could be a war that engulfs the region and leaves Iraq as a haven for terrorism. According to Allawi, if Iraqi politicians fail to agree on a secular government with the power to dismantle the sectarian militias, “the situation will be catastrophic and civil war will break out”. “If this were to happen, it will not be limited to the borders of Iraq but will most certainly spill over and affect a lot of neighbouring countries,” he warned. Last autumn, Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, argued that a civil war “would finish Iraq for ever”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-524-2058790-524,00.html

[marmar]

1. Averting a civil war?

Uh, too late.

[formercia]

2. Make another bogey man

Quick, someone give Madison Avenue a no bid contract....

[tularetom]

3. Iraq is a fake country anyway

It was cobbled together by the British after WWI as a defense against the Turks. The only reason it held together as long as it has is because of strongman rule by Hussein. Democracy will never take hold there and if left alone (or subjected to the ineptitude of * foreign policy) it will break apart into two or more separate fiefdoms. Civil war was probably inevitable (after all Hussein had to die eventually) but it has been hastened and intesified by our interference. This ain't a good thing for the region, the world, or the US.

[adriennui]

4. while we're waiting let's

return saddam to power. at least there was some semblance of order.

[Jayhawk Lib]

5. YES..Sadam was a great leader...

[adriennui]

6. i'm not saying he was a great leader

i'm saying he led and at least there wasn't murder and mayhem in the streets of baghdad and elsewhere.
there is a part of me that sort of admires him (folks don't flame me). he reads, writes novels, and is not religious, and remember at one time he was our buddy. when israel bombed osirik he sent a few scuds over and that was it. i know for a fact that israelis didn't fear iraq as they did iran and syria.

saddam was our buffer, now we're all vulnerable, the religious wackjobs are running the asylums (in the US as well as the other muslim countries in the mideast).

we need moderation. it's becoming more and more elusive.