Time to review my Iraq writings…
Now that the American people have registered their dissatisfaction with George W.’s Iraq policy, I think it would be a good time to review the Iraq-related writings in this blog:
April 15, 2003: I noted that it didn’t take long for the U.S. military to beat the Iraqi military, the “war” having lasted less than one month.
April 23, 2003: I advocated breaking up Iraq into three countries, one Kurdish, one Sunni, and one Shiite (and presumably taking a leaf from the British book and giving ownership of each to a friendly (to us) local strongman)
June 4, 2003: Bad intelligence over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq compared to a similar situation in WWII.
June 6, 2003: “Saddam may yet go down in history as the kindest and gentlest 21st century leader of a unified and stable Iraq.” (I think this one is holding up pretty well!)
July 3, 2003: I wish that George W. Bush would stop taunting Iraqis with guns.
July 21, 2003: Iraqis will be poor even if they crank up oil production. (includes the now-ridiculous assumption that oil will sell for $25/barrel… oops)
September 4, 2003: I bemoan the fact that we’re spending $100 billion to rebuild Iraq instead of on tech infrastructure for the U.S. [ridiculous posting now that people are estimating the total cost of our Iraqi adventure at $1-2 trillion]
September 26, 2003: skepticism that Iraq can be pacified within the $100 billion budget.
November 11, 2003: conversation with a reporter who had visited Iraq and said ““Iraq isn’t a country; it is three countries: a Kurdish north, a Sunni center, and a Shiite south.”
January 20, 2004: making fun of Howard Dean’s vacuous plans for America (the Democrats seem to have come up in the world since then, or maybe the Republicans have come down (the old joke was “one notch below child molestor”, but I guess that isn’t funny in the context of Republican politicans anymore))
March 11, 2004: musings about how we make foreigners angry and then have to tax ourselves to build more military capacity to go and attack them
April 11, 2004: pointing out that we will never be able to win in Iraq because we only attack governments, not civilians, and in Iraq it is the civilians who want to kill us
May 27, 2004: proposal that we give Iraq back to Saddam and apologize (I guess this won’t work too well after they hang the guy)
June 7, 2004: Ahmad Chalabi turns out to be an MIT graduate
July 16, 2004: Why we hate Bush more than Reagan (Reagan concentrated on domestic challenges; my assertion is that George W. is actually an Iraqi)
July 24, 2004: complaining about George W. glorifying angry Muslims (by talking about them all the time instead of letting a lower-level official deal with our antagonists)
November 28, 2005: conversation with a guy who had spent two years in Iraq: ““Democracy is a foreign concept to them, as is capitalism. Whether we get out in six months or ten years, our definition of success is not going to be a nation like our own.”
Probably I’m just in love with my own ideas, but imagine if George W. had done the things that I suggested:
- never personally mention Iraq or any Iraqis, delegating the entire affair to lower-level officials
- pull our military out after military victory had been achieved, splitting Iraq up into three new countries or handing it back to Saddam (all in 2003)
- concentrated his personal energies and speeches on doing things for Americans in America
I don’t think the Republicans would have lost the recent election so badly. (Though perhaps they needed to lose since they had become complacent, sending guys like Mark Foley to Capitol Hill, and cranking up public spending to frightening levels.)
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