National Journal Blog - 6 July 2009

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2009/07/the-iraq-war-over-or-not.php#1340668

Comments

[J]

Colonel,

True, true, true indeed, as you aptly put it -- 'The play goes on... Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, etc. -

[Fred]

It appears that only a few at the Journal remember Santayana, or the past - including the 101 ideas that led the US into this war. (Col.Killebrew especially - no mention of the evidence being a 'mushroom cloud'? Though Dr. Vlahos, like yourself, does give one pause to think.)

[PS]

Why is anyone respectable asking for Scheuer's opinion after his recent appearance on the Glenn Beck show, where he seemed to call for a major attack by AQ on an American city to make the U.S. take its security situation seriously?

[par4]

We'll be gone when the wells play out.Then the next phase will start.

[Jose]

par4:

I'll be here, just hope I miss America's final fall from power which is being to look like the fall of the Spanish Empire...

"We are now in the interregnum in Iraq. The first act has finished. Saddam is deservedly dead and the initial chaos is over. The six year long United States policy, whatever anyone may think of it, did provide that positive service to the world. It eliminated a crazed, genocidal maniac and gave a nation a shot at some form of governmental process." - We are now in the interregnum in Iraq. The first act has finished. Saddam is deservedly dead and the initial chaos is over. The six year long United States policy, whatever anyone may think of it, did provide that positive service to the world. It eliminated a crazed, genocidal maniac and gave a nation a shot at some form of governmental process. - Ron Marks

Are we on the same planet?

[William P. Fitzgerald III]

Pat Lang,

My answer to the question is, no, it's not over. That seems to be the consensus of the National Journal respondents also. Mostly citing the contradictions inherent in the Iraqi state. Another indication of the tension resulting from those contradictions was yesterday's news that the new Kurdish constitution will, if ratified, effectively separate the northern part of the country from the rest of Iraq.

We Americans have constructed the largest embassy in the world. It brings a whole new meaning to the idea of an embassy and seems to combine managerial, administrative, and military functions on a scale commensurate with governing the country. To what end, except to maintain enough control to guarantee American access to Iraqi oil on our terms and to maintain military bases in the country. Those were the aims rather openly proclaimed during the euphoric days of April 2003 and then not mentioned as the insurgency phase of the war gathered steam. I see all this as causing ongoing war, probably varying in intensity and sporadic.

Referring to the Marks quote on Saddam (the demon) Hussein. I recall an article in the Atlantic Monthly in the spring of 2002 before the big P.R. push for war began. It was written, I think, by James Fallows. The gist of the article,which was about Saddam, was that his mentality was basically that of a village chief or sheik. He was about maintaining power, balancing the various interests in Iraq, aggrandizing his "base". In other words, Iraq was not a threat to world peace a danger to America or the rest of the amazing rhetoric that charged America up for the war.

WPFIII