For 45 years this nation viewed the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc nations as this intensely formidable enemy that had far greater military might and total control than anything dreamed of in Iraq.
Want regime change? End the sanctions. Flood Iraq with all the trade and cultural ties and commerce and humanitarian assistance and everything that we can. Allow the people of Iraq unfettered by sanctions to take control of their own fate. Military might cannot withstand the will of the people. Idealistic and silly? That is how the government of the USSR, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czecholslovkia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria and every eastern Eurpopean people threw off Communist rule without recourse to war. That is how China went from a Maoist state to a vastly improved climate from its Maoist days. That is how Vietnam evolved into a healthier place. War is not the answer. However, it seems nothing can withstand the will of the peopole combined with good old American consumerism. Call me silly (hey, silly!) but I do believe the Berlin Wall fell without a shot. In early 1989 who would have bet on that? Maybe only those of us who believe that war is not the answer to anything, that violence begats violence, and the people have the right to self determination and they will exercise that when they are ready. We cannot pick who the Lech Walesa is who will jump over the wall of the Gdansk shipyard, the people must do that themselves. And they will, if we enable them rather than attack them. End the sanctions and swamp them with US goods, humanitarian aid, commerce, and contacts. Be a friend, not a bully. Which is how the Eastern Bloc Communist nations all became members of NATO with no shots being fired. Vince
