More attacks against Coalition Forces

This has become a daily phenomenon. It seems the situation is not just going to simmer down and go away as the Pentagon would like us to believe.

In a complex situation like this, splintered and fragmented resistance groups may keep the "fire" going for a long time.

It may be best for the Coalition Forces to leave and let the Iraqis determine how they want to be governed and by whom.

After all, Bush's main objective of Regime Change has been accomplished and Saddam's gone.

[Epidemic]

Hey shahani that is a brilliant idea.

Just let militant factions decide the fate of the average iraqi.

what a great recipe for disaster.

This is the time when we need to pull up our britches and keep a stiff upper lip. Keep control as best we can while a fledgeling government is launched. Not run for the hills and allow another saddam take power. If we were to leave now there would be definitely years of civil war and millions of dead. The ultimate winner would be an oppressive government of the Elite by the Elite and over the people.

Baloney.

[Skywalker[TSG]]

Originally posted by shahani
Baloney.

Trust the force shahani you know it to be true.

[Vagabond]

“Baloney”

now that is an intelligent and well thought-out rebuttal

[Mike]

Do you really think it will do that much good Epidemic? Look at Afghanistan. Aren't the drug lords once again growing and shipping drugs? Aren't their still war lords once again running around terrorizing people?
The hunt for Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein seems to have made us forget about the civilians.

[Epidemic]

Great response shahani. I see how you really thought through the ramefications of leaving them to their own devices and who the likely power grabs would come from.

As for afghanistan as an example, we never took control of the ground in afghanistan. that was a mistake but it is fact. Afghanastan is a passive sort of involvement and definitely not as effective.

Can we fix Iraq to what we consider a rational fair democracy by american or western values?

I do not know. Their progressive education system and former secular government as well as wealth give them a better chance then a country completely run into the ground beyond all belief.

[Mike]

Well even with us taking ground force (if that happens) I really don't think that the drug trading would completely stop. They would find way to sneak it out of the country.

Right now wouldn't be the time to try and come over to take ground control of Afghanistan anyway.

[Epidemic]

You are right about it not being time to do this.

It had to be done during the war not after. The boat has sailed on a speedy recovery for afghanistan. I hope we do not lose heart on Iraq before a stabil government is launched.

[MTAtech]

Quote by Epidemic:
Just let militant factions decide the fate of the average iraqi.

They already have. This is from the New York Times Op-Ed section:

Cover Your Hair

June 24, 2003

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF



BASRA, Iraq

Still no luck in my quest to help the administration find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But meanwhile, I'm getting the impression that America fought Saddam, and the Islamic fundamentalists won.

For a glimpse of the Islamic state that Iraq may be evolving into, consider the street execution of an infidel named Sabah Ghazali.

Under Saddam Hussein, Christians like Mr. Ghazali, 41, were allowed to sell alcohol and were protected from Muslim extremists. But lately extremists have been threatening to kill anyone selling alcohol. One day last month, two men walked over to Mr. Ghazali as he was unlocking his shop door and shot him in the head — the second liquor store owner they had killed that morning.

An iron curtain of fundamentalism risks falling over Iraq, with particularly grievous implications for girls and women. President Bush hopes that Iraq will turn into a shining model of democracy, and that could still happen. But for now it's the Shiite fundamentalists who are gaining ground.

Already, almost every liquor shop in southern Iraq appears to have been forcibly closed. Here in Basra, Islamists have asked Basra University (unsuccessfully) to separate male and female students, and shopkeepers have put up signs like: "Sister, cover your hair." Many more women are giving in to the pressure and wearing the hijab head covering.

"Every woman is afraid," said Sarah Alak, a 22-year-old computer engineering student at Basra University. Ms. Alak never used to wear a hijab, but after Saddam fell her father asked her to wear one on the university campus, "just to avoid trouble."

Extremists also threatened Basra's cinemas for showing pornography (like female knees). So the city's movie theaters closed down for two weeks and reopened only after taking down outside posters and putting up banners, like this one outside the Watani Cinema: "We do not deal with immoral movies."

"We're now searching all customers as they enter the movie theater," said Abdel Baki Youssef, a guard at the Atlas Cinema. "Everybody is worried about an attack."

Paradoxically, a more democratic Iraq may also be a more repressive one; it may well be that a majority of Iraqis favor more curbs on professional women and on religious minorities. As Fareed Zakaria notes in his smart new book, "The Future of Freedom," unless majority rule is accompanied by legal protections, tolerance and respect for minorities, the result can be populist repression.

Women did relatively well under Saddam Hussein (when they weren't being tortured or executed, penalties that the regime applied on an equal opportunity basis). In the science faculty at Basra University, 80 percent of the students are women. Iraq won't follow the theocratic model of Iran, but it could end up as Iran Lite: an Islamic state, but ruled by politicians rather than ayatollahs. I get the sense that's the system many Iraqis seek.

"Democracy means choosing what people want, not what the West wants," notes Abdul Karim al-Enzi, a leader of the Dawa Party, a Shiite fundamentalist party that is winning support in much of the country.

Mr. Enzi is the kind of figure who resonates in mud-brick Iraqi villages in a way that secular American-backed exiles like Ahmad Chalabi don't. While Mr. Chalabi was dining in London, Mr. Enzi was risking his life on secret spy missions for the Dawa Party within Iraq, entering from his base in Iran.

Four of his brothers and one sister were executed for anti-government activities, and Mr. Enzi was himself sentenced to death in absentia in 1979. He was once arrested in Iraq on a spy mission, but officials did not realize who he was and released him a month later. I found Mr. Enzi brave, admirable and medieval.

What should we do about this?

I'm afraid there's not much we can do to discourage fundamentalism in Iraq, although staying the course and building a legal system may help. For now, the U.S. seems to be making matters worse by raiding offices of Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, who ran an anti-Saddam organization from exile in Iran and who in the past advocated an Islamic government. Cold-shouldering Mr. Hakim is counterproductive. It bolsters his legitimacy as a nationalist and further radicalizes his followers.

We may just have to get used to the idea that we have been midwives to growing Islamic fundamentalism in Iraq.