London

[Occhidiangela]

No, I mean who exactly has this "problem", and what is the confusion over.  Are they confusing military vs. cultural problems, long term vs short term, that kind of stuff.
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In the fall of 2002, I posted here more than once that I was unconvinced that one could impose democracy with a bayonet, that the country was most likely to become an Islamic Republic post Saddam or three different countries, and "why now in 2003?" I also was unsure if the "third way" beyond UN or invasion had been attempted, or even formulated. Glad to see Saddam go, my concern that by breaking the egg the baby chick dies seems to be unresolved.

See what is happening in Basra.

Note the militias are NOT being disbanded.

Note that with the power vacuum we created, someone chose to jump in and make a play. A lot of someone's.

What was the aim? As far as I can tell, the aim was to change the security baseline of the Middle East. It was a big gamble. The baseline has changed.

Is everything better? My 8 ball says "still unclear, check later." See what happened with Qadhafi and Syria/Lebanon. Were those directly related events to Saddam's ouster or not?

Arafat's death was an event that actually gives hope to the Israeli's and Palestinians getting back to working, slowly and painfully, one step at a time with each other.

And we unintentionally have provided an excellent training ground for terrorists in Iraq's Iron Triangle. For the past 2 years.

So, what is the nature of the war: to solve the Mid East peace roadblock with a stick, since Clinton's carrot did not work?

Is it the extension of the old Carter Doctrine of increasing our presence in the entire Central Asian and Mid East oil bowl, rather than simply opposing Arabs since they don't like Israel, our client for the duration of the Cold War?

Occhi