[lbo-talk] CFR on civil war in Iraq

[Marvin Gandall]

Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>>
>>
>> Times change, and sometimes minds change. (At that time, most Iraqis
>> didn't want the US to leave; now they do.) In Aug 2003 few people had
>> an inkling of how messy things would turn out. But I'll ask Christian
>> when I interview him in about 2 hrs.
>
> You are probably right. A deliberate aim at civil war (or "chaos") seems
> unlikely -- but only unlikely, not inconceivable. The outcome of such
> chaos might be the Balkanization of Iraq, which would be preferable, I
> presume, to a unified state under an anti-u.s. government.
>
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I think the greater concern for the US is that a civil war would spill over
into neighbouring states, threaten the oil wells in the Shia part of Saudi
Arabia, further strengthen Iranian influence in Iraq, and catch US troops in
the crossfire. That is, it seems to me, the greater risk than a "unified
state under an anti-US government" which would have pretty much the same
makeup as the current Iraqi government, which collaborates closely with the
Americans. If the US pulled out and there were no insurgency, the government
could distance itself further from the US, but not to the point it would
jeopardize its oil markets and source of reconstruction loans and investment
in the West.

Also, you have to think if the USG didn't give a damn about an Iraqi civil
war, it would have done the politically popular thing and pulled the bulk of
its troops out rather than continuing to take casualties which make the
headlines. But who knows? If the Bushites had done the rational thing, in
terms of overall US global interests, it wouldn't have launched its reckless
adventure in the first place.