On 10/27/06, Marvin Gandall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yoshie writes:
> One option for Washington is to retreat into the Iraqi Kurdish region
> in Iraq...The rest of Iraq may possibly break down into a Sunni region and
> a
> Shi'i region...As
> long as Washington can't stomach the idea of Tehran taking the Shi'i
> South, though, it will have to stay in Iraq, no matter how costly or
> bloody.
==========================
You should consider, though, that the war has already proved too "costly and
bloody" for the US, and that the decision has been made to withdraw the bulk
of its forces from Iraq over the next one to two years. Most Republicans as
well as Democrats incline towards the use of air power and special forces
based in the Kurdish region and across the border in Kuwait and Jordan to
launch raids against targets inside Iraq. The targets will depend on how the
situation evolves; the US is trying to split both the Shias and the Sunnis,
and the alliances aren't yet clear. The US does seem resigned to living with
a Shia-controlled south. They don't have much choice, which is why there is
so much bipartisan sighing in Washington about "no good options".
But the maintenance of an occupation army has become untenable, IMO, and the
Baker group was predictably commissioned to devise a formula to somehow make
the defeat look less like defeat.
All that the Baker commission does is to make recommendations, which
the White House is unlikely to accept; and even if Democrats take one
or both chambers of Congress, the Democratic leaders are committed to
not denying the President his war funds, and lower-ranking Democrats,
as well as Republicans, are hardly of one mind. So, that means at
least several more years of muddling through, imho. Then perhaps they
will take the Iraqi Kurdistan option.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
