Yoshie writes:
What I question is the notion that anyone can stabilize Iraq, especially while US troops (even after reductions) still remain in the country. _That_ seems to me to be wishful thinking.
What I wonder is who would the remaining US forces support - the Shia or the Sunnis? In Vietnam, the choice was clear: the US advisors and the air force assisted the puppet government until it was defeated by the NLF-NVA. The difference here is the the US has been trying to balance between the two sides, and the Iraqi government is always on the brink of breaking apart into warring factions if the US glue holding it together is dissolved. What does the thinned-out US garrison hunkered down in its barracks do if there is full-blown civil war? Expose its troops to a murderous crossfire? In the event of civil war, US politician and generals would sooner see Iraq burn than put their own forces between the two sides. Their best hope is to split the Sunnis so that a new Iraqi government, with limited US military assistance, can isolate and destroy the remaining insurgents. ==============================
I'd also question the notion that stability in Iraq is in Washington's interests, or at least the faction that favors the continuing special relation between Israel and the US.
All US factions of any significance favour a continuing special relationship with Israel, but not to the point it would prevent a bipartisan decision to quit Iraq, nor will Israel's security be more threatened if Iran and Syria come to an agreement with the Americans. Israel might be required to pay a modest price; it's been close to a peace deal with Syria involving the Shebaa Farms and Golan Heights before, and it would just have to learn to anxiously live with an Iranian nuclear deterrent the way the US and Soviets and the Indians and Pakistanis had to do in their conflicts. In what way do you think continued instability in Iraq can possibly be "in Washington's interests" - with its troops tied down and being maimed and killed, all that oil staying in the ground, its global position being undermined and Islamist radicalism strengthened, and Americans becoming increasingly alienated from their leaders? The US, after all, went into Iraq to "stablize" it - not with the intent of producing the chaos which has caused it much grief. Occupiers and capitalists invariably prefer order to mayhem - a fact sometimes overlooked on the left. ================================
Do the factions represented in the Iraqi government have any control over the degree and kind of violence? That, too, is questionable.
Yes, that's the central question on which everything else hangs - whether the Iraqi factions, supported by the Iranians and the Syrians within the framework of a withdrawal agreement with the Americans, would have the power and determination to rein in their forces and stop the murderous intercommunal strife provoked by the US invasion. I have no idea, and am waiting to see.
