And it's a fair question. I can see from my remarks how you might mistake me for one of those who thinks keeping forces in Iraq is a good idea. I don't. For the past three years, I have swallowed my disgust, kept my Commie mouth shut and worked for Democratic Party campaigns starting with Howard Dean in order to try and keep us out of Iraq and then get us out of Iraq (although I never did become a Democrat myself). Washington state sent more Dean delegates to the Convention than any other and so I am pretty happy with my efforts.
I just couldn't stand working for the Dems any more and here in Washington I have been a vitriolic and tireless critic of our junior Senator Maria Cantwell and encouraged people not to waste time on her useless campaign because of her support for the Iraq war.
I was fooled into thinking that Saddam Hussein had WMD, but I always knew the Bush Administration approach would be a nightmare. In my view, we should, despite the threat of WMD, have pushed the Iraqi Army South and North of the Northern and Southern no-fly-zones, respectively, and attempted to decapitate the regime in Baghdad with air strikes AGAINST MILITARY TARGETS ONLY - no power stations or communications infrastructure.
I think we should have helped create alternative states in Kurdistan and the Shiite South, asking Iran to give up some Kurdish territory in the North of their country in exchange for destroying Iraq's ability to project force into their territory again and allowing there to be a unified clerical administration of the 12 holy sites of Shia Islam (which Iran would inevitably dominate). I think we should have made the same deal with Syria, and should have forced the Turks to give up at least one Kurdish province as a price for joining the EU.
I recognize that Southern Iraq would inevitably become a semi-theocracy, but so long as it was formally secular, I think that would have been fine. Obviously Muslims - like many Christians in this country - don't see a problem with religion's informing their governing philosophy. We should then have gotten together with Muslims (particularly in Britain and the Gulf Emirates) and helped develop Islamic finance so that there would be a real, financial and economic reason to develop a reformed Islam.
Saddam Hussein was our guard dog and I think we had a responsibility to put him back on the leash. We gave him a military to play with and we had to take it away from him. Iraq was hardly free of colonialism before the invasion. I see Saddam Hussein as a colonial master, locally hired.
So I guess I was a proponent of partition, mainly to protect the vulnerable populations in Iran, Kurdistan and the Shiite South from the rabid animal Saddam.
I think the US should withdraw its positions to lines of partition and create safe havens for internally displaced refugees ON THE WAY OUT. But the reality is that we are almost certain simply to leave in disgrace, Fall-Of-Saigon-style, and the main thing we have to do is leave.
> [WS:] So here we are, between the Scylla of the Western capitalism cum US
> interventionism (I do not think it is imperialism in the traditional sense
> of the word) and the Charybdis of anti-Western Islamic nationalism (which
> has all the telltale signs of fascism). I know it is dandy to verbally
> support the latter while living in the US or Europe, because it is a risk
> free way of acquiring radical credentials while being effectively shielded
> from the horrors of the Islamist nationalism, which are many. But let's for
> a while think in pro-active rather than reactive terms i.e. consider what
> has a better prospect for the future instead of what has been bad in the
> past.
>
> If the ultimate goal is some form of socialism i.e. a system that is
> universalistic, rational, egalitarian, democratic, and secular, the question
> then is which of the two offers a better chance of achieving such a system:
> Western capitalism or Islamic nationalism? AFIK, Western capitalism cum US
> interventionism (this includes Israeli expansionism too!) offers a much
> better chance of achieving socialism in the future than Islamism does. This
> is precisely the way Marx approached the issue in his take on the British
> rule in India - and this is also the way I am inclined to think.
>
> In sum, being against US policies is not enough, Marvin. You (and that
> applies to Yoshie, Jean-Christophe and others) need to show that Islamic
> nationalism is a *better* alternative to the unholy triumvirate of Western
> capitalism, US interventionism and Israeli expansionism. Arguing that it is
> just an alternative does not quite cut it. I do not think that many
> rational people would give up the latter for the former.
>
>
> Wojtek
I also reject the idea that there was some moral superiority in leaving the Iraqis to the predations of the Western puppet Saddam. America simply fucked up the right and necessary removal of Saddam to an almost unimaginable extent. Bush adopted an insane Israeli-based foreign policy that was completely removed from reality.
To be completely frank, people in Iraq are probably too backwards to be expected to create a government that's not largely dominated by Islam. There's just too much tradition there. Hell, America is just barely throwing off the yoke of the God Delusion. But Turkey and Morocco suggest that there is great value in rejecting theocracy even though it's probably more popular than liberal-democracy and easier to institute.
A note to Yoshie:
Hang on! You mean religious people actually sometimes MEAN what they say???? You mean sometimes that "charity" and "compassion" business they teach, they actually take seriously???? Oh My God, I never realized that! Wow, imagine a religious state being so...you know....religious!
Seriously, have you actually read history? Are you unfamiliar with the role of religion as a mollifying force on government for...oh, say...the past couple THOUSAND years? Doesn't mean we should put Europe back under the control of the Vatican, though, does it?
And the Vatican is a left-wing think tank compared to the Muslims you are talking about.
Make some sense.
boddi