The Iraq Generation

By Anonymous -
If you want to know what's happening in Iraq the best source is probably Juan Cole.

Cole, a professor at the University of Michigan specializing in South Asia, is a columnist, a "go-to guy" for talk shows when they cover the subject, and a very good blogger.

Today I especially want to point you to one paragraph in a recent post, almost a throwaway line. But if it doesn't chill you to the bone, you can't be chilled:

One aspect of the bad news at this and another hearing was covered by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (i.e. it is on the ball)-- which is the wide agreement that the US is stuck in Iraq militarily for at least 5 years, and can't expect really substantial help from allies. I personally thing it is even worse than that. I have said I think this generation of young Americans will be the Iraq generation.


I boldfaced that last because it's so important. If we are stuck in Iraq for a generation, I don't think we can win. I think we'll be bled to death, and the future will belong to China or India. A generation in Iraq will be the end of America as a great power.

Howard Dean said repeatedly during the campaign that we can't bug out. We broke it, we have to fix it. But if it can't be fixed (and it can't) is there an alternative policy available? Like, handing the whole issue to the UN, presenting Bush and Cheney before the War Crimes Court at the Hague, apologizing profusely to the world, and getting the heck out of there?

I'm expecting some firm disagreements with that last paragraph, folks. Please don't disappoint me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A fair solution to Jerusalem

By Aziz P. -
I remember reading one of the books by Tom Clancy in which Jack Ryan was credited with coming up with a solution for Middle East peace which was pointedly never actually detailed in the novel. It was just a way to give his character some foreign policy cred, but ended up like that mysterious suitcase in Pulp Fiction. I couldn't help but be reminded of that, though, when I read former New York mayor Ed Koch's innovative solution to resolving the status of Jerusalem . Instead of putting the hot-button issue of Jerusalem last on the agenda, the issue should be addressed first. If the Jerusalem question is solved, everything else should fall into place more easily. I believe there is a way to keep Jerusalem unified. I am talking not only of the old walled city, which is a very small part of the city of Jerusalem, but the whole city, east, west, north and south. [...] My suggestion is to situate the new Palestinian capital in that part of East Jerusalem that is occupied overwhelming
Read more

Conservatism's shari'a, liberalism's ijtihad

By Aziz P. -
An interesting meta-debate by intellectual conservatives over conservatism's future is playing out. It started with David Frum's Waterloo essay, which led to his political excommunication. Julian Sanchez observed that this represented an epistemic closing of the conservative mind , a thesis that was validated by the retribution visited upon Jim Manzi for daring to suggest that conservatives will achieve more persuasion by using honest, strong arguments instead of weak, emotional ones. All of this has led John Quiggin at Crooked Timber to argue most wisely that as conservatism implodes, liberalism needs to find its own rationale that is more than just "not conservatism". Quiggin has a list of priorities for the liberal movement to address, and closes with the general plea, ...the left has to stand for something more than keeping the existing order afloat with incremental improvements. We need to offer the hope of a better world as an alternative to the angry tribali
Read more