Charles Brown wrote:
>
> > CB: U.S. withdrawal will save the most Iraqi and American lives. I don't
> agree with your "chaos" analysis of Iraq. That's why U.S. withdrawal is the
> optimum viable alternative.
U.S. withdrawal is not only the optimum viable alternative. It is the only alternative to complete disaster. But what you call the "'chaos' alternative" is very possible, and we don't need to claim that there will not be chaos in Iraq after U.S. withdrawal. All we need to claim is the obvious fact that the longer the u.s. stays, the worse it will be after u.s. withdrawal.
Ravi is daydreaming if he thinks it is possible to force or persuade the u.s. government to follow even as minimally decent program in Iraq. We have no influence whatever, we will NEVER have any influence whatever on _how_ the u.s. acts in Iraq or Yugoslavia or Afghanistan. The only power (or possible power) we have is to hasten u.s. withdrawal. When Ravi asks that the u.s. not withdraw until it has done something decent he is, though he seems not to realize it, favoring the u.s. to stay there forever killing more and more Iraqis.
"Solutions" that exist only in the brains of well-intentioned people are far far far worse than no solution at all.
Nothing that happens in Iraq after an early u.s. withdrawal, no matter how horrible, can be half as horrible as what will happen after a later u.s. withdrawal.
If the u.s. stays long enough, trying to "fix" things, the result might even be worse than Cambodia.
Carrol