Republicans: Is "Victory" in Iraq Possible? Please Explain Fully.

[BT]

Did Chamberlain in any of his writings indicate that he knew a war was coming and or that he was simply buying time?

[_JS]

I'm not aware of any, though many in Britain supported the policy at the time (it had links to the "splendid isolation" conservative policy from years ago).

Airey Neave wrote a famous essay in 1933 on the rise of Hitler and dangers of fascism as well as the inevitability of war, yet he was but a student at the time.

[domer]

Rather than trying to establish or refute parallels, why not discuss on how acutley dissimilar Iraq is from pre-war Germany? The starting point to recognize is that there is not a monolithic opponent such as the Nazis. Indeed, in Iraq, were it only for al-Qaeda, in my opinion there would be no war. What we have in Iraq, instead of the metasticizing cancer that was the Nazis, is, in effect, a civil war between two sets of "nationalists" (the term is used loosely), the Sunni insurgents and Shia sectarians both angling to win the upper hand in whatever happens to be left of Iraq when they're through. Iraq in its present posture is thus a "domino" in the larger war on violent, radical Islam, not its home and fortress. I concede that al Qaeda was instrumental in provoking this civil strife, but that is history. The present situation has al Qaeda as a minor player, not significant as to outcome. I will add in closing that a surefire strategy to ameliorate the particular US problem now concerning Iraq is to strike at the heart of what is left of al Qaeda in the border region of Pakistan, a good in itself if politically viable and a cover for a very graceful exit from Iraq.

[domer]

From the character of the replies here and in other threads, I can only conclude that there is no valid vision of victory in Iraq, that is, how it can be achieved and, indeed, what it is. Given the present situation, "dire and deteriorating," which most people credit, any proponent attempting to refute the sensible prescriptions of the bipartisan Iraq Study Commission carries the burden of proof, which is profoundly lacking in this instance. Without that effort, the position falls as the stubborn whim of the true believer belied by facts.

[_JS]

Any parallels to Chamberlain's situation are weak and confused.

Chamberlain:

1. Did not have hindsight to work with
2. Did not have very much time (Remember Stanley Baldwin was PM until May 1937)
3. Did not have a well equipped army or air force (much of the British forces were very scattered to protect the Empire)
4. Did not have a United Nations with a Superpower sitting on a Security Council
5. Did not have an ally willing to help them defend the Sudetenland.

Let's compare this to Bush:

1. Bush has not had hindsight, but he has had a number of advisors suggest that the aftermath of Iraq would be difficult. Those included his father who famously stated that occupying an Arab country was too dangerous (post Gulf War). Chamberlain's previous war to reflect upon was the Great War, an unmitigated disaster for every nation involved. What was Bush's previous war to draw upon?

2. Bush has had years to get to this point. Chamberlain was in office sixteen months when he signed the Munich Accords.

3. Bush has what most of the world considers the greatest military on the planet. Chamberlain was handed a very good but very scattered navy and a nearly non-existent army and air force.

4. Bush has the most authority at the UN of any nation from which we have historically been able to wield a great deal of power. In fact, we went to war on the basis of UN resolutions. Chamberlain had no such body and no such authority.

5. Bush has Britain among other coalition partners as well as the Kuwaitis and supposedly other Arab nations to support the goal of a democratic Iraq. Chamberlain watched as the Germans captured the Sudetenland, then Poland while the Soviets attacked Finland and Poland all the while no one was willing to help (it took a few days to gain France's commitment even after Poland's invasion).

I won't even get into the differences between the wars themselves, how we got there, and what it meant. I'll repeat that I often see Chamberlain's name mentioned as a tactic to attack diplomacy, but it is often used by those who have no historical understanding.

[domer]

Well, JS, this illustrates that I have a mind like, say, St. John the Baptist, but weaker, and you have a mind like Alex Trebeck, but stronger.

[domer]

That should read "St. John the Evangelist." D'uh.

[Jwmcc]

"Airey Neave wrote a famous essay in 1933 on the rise of Hitler and dangers of fascism as well as the inevitability of war, yet he was but a student at the time."

Just looked up Neave on wikipedia.org. Very interesting character, especially with his prison escapes during the war, only to end up being assassinated by a Irish Socialist group.

But I haven't found this essay in question yet though.
Jw

[_JS]

Airey Neave was an interesting character as well as being one of the primary forces responsible for Margaret Thatcher's rise to power. His essay might be at the Eton archives, I'm not entirely sure. He was not the first person to wish to fight Hitler. A number of Labour Party members wanted to ally with the Soviet Union and attack the Germans and Italians early on in fascism's rise. Churchill also made some leanings towards war as did Baldwin (who began a program of investment in the RAF) but both they and Chamberlain had reservations and considered Communism a strong threat (for which Hitler was a known virulent anti-communist.

[BT]

From the character of the replies here and in other threads, I can only conclude that there is no valid vision of victory in Iraq, that is, how it can be achieved and, indeed, what it is

Victory as defined by me would be a dismantling of the Saddam regime, already done, and the installation of a democratically elected Iraqi government capable of administering the country's affairs, in all that that entails.... partially done.

and i would start doing it by disarming the militias.

[Plane]

The first job in Victory is defineing victory.


If you let an opponent , foreign or domestic , define victory you will never win.

Note that Hezboallah's Nasrallah did a victory dance on a huge heap of his own peoples corpses , this was strictly due to his skill at setting the bar high for his opponent and low for his own.

What would President Bush have to do in order to claim "mission accomplished " with no argument ?

Establish a peacefull paridise better than any other on earth , or merely bring Iraq to the standard of the US?




http://www.netanyahu.org/inwithezlead.html

[domer]

This discussion should be proceeding on an absolutely realistic plane (sorry for the pun). I think it is much closer to the truth to establish our next goal in these terms: preventing Iraq from becoming a completely failed state, to the best we can, which may not be much. That is not "victory" as Bush conceives it, but it would be "success" in my book. And, not to lose the point, it is the Iraqis who will determine their own fate, one way or another, with the US only as the "catalyst" to get the process going.

[BT]

What part of my post specifically

an Iraqi government capable of administering the country's affairs, in all that that entails

is different than what you just posted?

Other than i didn't dilute the debate by bringing bush bashing into the equation?

[Amianthus]

is different than what you just posted?

Why, can't you see the difference? You don't have his gift for language and wasn't trained by Catholic clergy, so obviously you're wrong and he's right.

[domer]

For starters, and I'll leave it there, a successful state need not be democratic, eh?