It's a coalition of the dwindling

[bigtree]

VIENNA, Austria - It's a coalition of the dwindling. The U.S.-led multinational force in
Iraq is losing two of its most important allies — Italy and South Korea — and up to half a dozen other members could draw down their forces or pull out entirely by the end of the year.

The withdrawals are complicating America's effort to begin extracting itself from the country, where a fresh onslaught of deadly attacks on coalition forces is testing the resolve of key partners such as Britain and Poland to stick with the mission despite the dangers.

Some observers say Iraq's deteriorating security situation is an argument for coalition forces to stay — not leave — and perhaps even deploy additional forces to help tamp down violence as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki works to shift all security duties to Iraqis over the next 18 months.

Underscoring the reality, the Pentagon said Tuesday it is shifting about 1,500 U.S. troops from a reserve force in Kuwait to western Iraq's volatile Anbar province to help the Iraqis establish order there.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060530/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_dwindling_coalition

[shadowknows69]

1. Way to spinthat one

we can't leave now because all of our allies are.

[NNN0LHI]

2. The USA has to provide security for most of the "forces" who are there

Having them leave will be an improvement.

Don

[Lexingtonian]

5. That was never the point

The point was always about getting committed diplomatic cover from those countries, i.e. propping up the Bush/Blair thang in the UN. All non-American forces in Iraq, with possible exception of the British, have been token size all along.

The Coalition Of The Corrupt and Debtors is in its last throes. This is the last Colonial Age alliance and war for the Americans, British, Italians, and Spanish. It's also been a debtor's prison for the countries the U.S. propped up during the Cold War and Eastern Bloc and ex-Soviet countries we peeled away from the USSR.

The Iraqi Resistance is playing the game correctly, doing its part to break up the remaining Coalition. They've obviously had under-the-table deals with various contingents. Now it's down to the British and Americans, and the British are the weak link. So they're now focussing on making the British bleed and violate their claimed aims in Iraq, collapsing domestic support for them.

[ixion]

3. I tell you this: If the US were to pull out today, my bet is that the

violence would decrease multi-fold.

The longer we stay, the worse it will be. All you have to do to know this is pick up any history book containing a description of what happens when an imperial power seeks to occupy a soverign nation that is hostile to its intent.

[bigtree]

4. true. Problem is, Bush is still tied to this notion of victory in Iraq

That means less U.S. soldiers doing the same muckraking, creating even more combatants with a grudge against our forces.

Bush can't admit he was wrong, he's stuck with his vow to 'defeat' the 'terrorists' there. Any pull back of forces in the face of increased violence would make all of the blather in the past weeks about defending the new authority an obvious lie about the 'conditions on the ground'. The war is escalating and our soldiers (a meager force which is not up to the type of oppression it would take to subdue a civilization) are now expected to hold back the tide of resentment against the junta.

Immediate, unconditional withdrawal is the solution, but Bush will never go for that if it means admitting failure. He's stuck in a Nixon moment, and he can't get out of it by his own designs.

Bush needs Congress to step in and take the deployment of our troops out of his hands by pulling the plug on the war funds. Otherwise, Bush will keep throwing bodies on the pile to elevate himself above the mire he's created.

[ixion]

6. a leader who is unwilling to admit abject failure on his part,

who is unwilling to be a Man and face the consequences, seals his own fate historically speaking, and often serves to bring the people and the country he lead down along with him. Yet that never seems to stop narcissistic megalomaniacs from doing just that. :-(

Humans: all conception, no vision.

[Lexingtonian]

7. And you believe

that somehow this mass of Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence, i.e. civil war, to settle their internal historical grudges and scores can be prevented?

I'd say the way to minimize the killing is for a very short and decisive civil war, not a prolonging of it during which the losing side simply runs up the body count.

Which is, btw, essentially what the U.S. military achieved in the late phases of the Vietnam war, when political defeat of South Vietnam was obvious- buy time by running up the body count. And that's what it is stuck doing in Iraq now too, imho.

[ixion]

8. I didn't say it would stop

in fact I believe there would be an all-out civil war.

However, it would be an Iraqi problem that would have happened at some point anyway. The only reason it hadn't happened sooner was because of the repressive Ba'ath party. It's something that has been going on for thousands of years, and is not really the US's problem to solve.

I guarantee you, though, that the US military is NOT helping anything by being there, only making it worse.

[patrice]

9. Iraq weakened by Civil War . . . wouldn't Iran invade?

Isn't it the Iranian Shia we're stopping from invading Iraq, while it is weakened by this Civil War?

[NNN0LHI]

10. Iran already has control of southern Iraq.

They are busy building an airport there right now. Make a phone call to hotel and the attendant answers in Persian.

Don

[Virginia Dare]

11. So what are our options at this point?...

can we get it back if we send in 1/2 million troops, or is it a lost cause? Are we headed toward the inevitable showdown with Iran?

Just picking your brain....

[NNN0LHI]

12. No 1/2 million troops troops won't help

I think we are trying to get Iran to take the problem off of our hands to be quite honest.

I don't see any showdown with Iran.

Don

[DearAbby]

13. At one time each one of those excuses were used

for the reason of staying in Vietnam too. At some point we have to pull out...when, how many more deaths? Who will ask the last person to die, for a the lie, before they finally make that decision to pull out?

And pulling out is what is going to happen anyway. Iraq will be the equivalent of USSR / Afghan War, for the United States. It will financially and morally break this country otherwise.

So how much longer? How many more deaths? Looking like Nixon's "Peace with honor", and names, on a future wall growing.