[lbo-talk] Focus on Iran and Palestine, Not Iraq

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 5/16/06, Julio Huato <juliohuato at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yoshie wrote:
>
> > Leftists in the West (the US, the EU, and Japan)
> > should focus on Iran and Palestine, Latin America,
> > and Moscow and Beijing (in that order), rather
> > than Iraq, on the foreign policy front.  Face it
> > -- Iraq is a goner.  We failed Iraqis, and we
> > won't be in a position to do much for them for
> > many years to come.
>
> I rub my eyes... and still don't understand your position.  Are you
> really saying that the people in the U.S. and other rich countries
> should abandon the global, mass opposition to the occupation of Iraq
> (which involves millions in the rest of the world, including Iraq)?
> What do you mean by "we failed the Iraqis"?  And why the correction of
> that failure is giving up instead of redoubling the effort?

We failed the Iraqis, because we couldn't force US troops to withdraw
before they and their local hirelings wrecked Iraq and sowed the seeds
of a civil war, which may possibly last for decades.

There are mass sentiments against the Iraq War, but the sentiments
have not been translated into any mass activity since the beginning of
the invasion.  So, Washington won't withdraw from Iraq any time soon;
and if it did, it would do so only to attack Iran, for instance,
blaming Tehran, not itself, for the civil war in Iraq.

Our failure has helped Washington wreck one nation in the Near East,
which wasn't free but at least modern; let us not help it destroy
another.
-- 
Yoshie
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