Iraq Will Be A 'Complete Disaster' if the US Stays....

[leftchick]

The chimp says Iraq will be a complete disaster if the US leaves. This is a very good read from Tomdispatch that argues just the opposite...


Tomgram: Schwartz, 7 Facts Making Sense of Our Iraqi Disaster

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=114108

<Snip>

So many situations in our world make a mockery of all attempts at prediction; and yet Iraq, since March 2003, has seemed otherwise. There is a terrible logic to the situation in that country, which has only worsened incrementally under three-plus years of American (and British) occupation. Whatever the promises, whatever the "turning points," whatever the provisional good news offered at any moment, the situation in that country (and the region) only gets worse.

In this case, history should be our guide. As long as Americans believe that Iraq is some kind of imperial Rubik's cube, where what's at stake is hitting on just the right combination of tactics, plans, and political mix inside Baghdad's Green Zone, as long as we believe that we are indeed part of the solution, not part of the problem, matters will only continue to worsen.

Michael Schwartz, a Tomdispatch regular, offers seven facts that help explain why the lethal brew our invasion let loose in that country will have no hope of "solution" under present conditions. Tom

Michael's seven ponits follow and end with this....

<snip>

There is still some hope for the Iraqis to recover their equilibrium. All the centripetal forces in Iraq derive from the American occupation, and might still be sufficiently reduced by an American departure followed by a viable reconstruction program embraced by the key elements inside of Iraq. But if the occupation continues, there will certainly come a point -- perhaps already passed -- when the collapse of government legitimacy, the destruction wrought by the war, and the horror of terrorist violence become self-sustaining. If that point is reached, all parties will enter a new territory with incalculable consequences.

[damntexdem]

1. Yes, Condi, Iraq WOULD likely be better off if Saddam were still in power.

Or even better off had an indigenous movement overthrown him.

[Jacobin]

4. Yep. They have to repeat that

"they're better off without saddam" because it is becoming increasingly obvious that they are not.

[leftchick]

5. and there would be 200,000 more Iraqis alive

than there are now. :(

[bluerum]

2. Will be? nt

[Jim__]

3. "All the centripetal forces in Iraq derive from the American occupation...

I find it very hard to accept that statement. After the '91 Gulf War the Shiites in the south rebelled against Saddam; most of what I have read of Iraq history implies that the union of the the Sunni Iraqis and the Shia Iraqis in a single country was a deliberate attempt to make the country ungovernable except by a dictator. I agree with much of the article. But, in the claim that it's only the occupation that is pulling Iraq apart, I believe the author stumbles into the same trap that he claims the war's supporters fall into; namely, he is assigning far too much weight to America's presence and ignoring historical factors that tend to drive Iraq apart.