Iraq

[Justin86]

[quote name='Altari' post='1518297' date='May 5 2008, 03:36 AM']Did I say we should pull out (seriously, did I?)? That wasn't my intention.[/quote]
I never said you did. I was just expanding on your reason againist it.

[quote name='Altari' post='1518810' date='May 5 2008, 11:37 AM']There's a difference between military isolationism and total isolationism. The first is simply keeping our troops where they need to be - in places that actually pose a threat to us. No more bases, no more foreign wars for the sake of treaties. The Founding Fathers were a couple smart cookies, and they told us early on that foreign military entanglements = ++ungood.

As far as Paul's stance...I think it's important to remember that he advocates turning the war over to the generals. We're used to Bush's policy, where he plays Commander in Chief without knowing what's really going on. Paul wants our troops home as quickly as possible, but as safely as possible, and has stated that he would leave it up to his generals to create a plan to do so. All in all, not a bad idea...[/quote]
Well, first of all no President plays Commander-in-Chief. He [i]is[/i] my Commander-in-Chief. Secondly, Bush is not the type of President that's into bossing around the military. He convinces our flag officers to see things his way in non-hostile meetings.

Now as far s Paul is concerned, his isolationism is very dangerous. Military isolationism served us well before the world had nukes. How exactly are we going to discourage our enemies from threatening us and our allies with their nuclear weapons when all of our troops, and nukes are in America? The policy doesn't make any sense.

[goldenchild17]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' post='1517540' date='May 3 2008, 06:37 PM']This is just a dumb hypothetical question and not something I believe should happen or anything like that, I'm just curious.

What do you think would happen if instead of trying to build a new stable government in Iraq we were to just bail out and maybe facilitate the annexation of Iraq's territory to the neighboring countries? Maybe something like this:

10% (West) to Jordan
15% (NW) to Syria
15% (North) to Turkey
35% (East) to Iran
25% (South) to Saudi Arabia

Just a random thought - I'm not saying it is a good plan since my opinion is that it was cause massive problems and could destabilize the Middle East but I thought it was interesting to think about anyway.

What do you peeps think would happen? Oh, and maybe some of the territory could be annexed but the heart of Iraq (including Baghdad) would remain independent but it would be easier to manage since Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, et cetera would be worrying about their slice. Maybe give some territory, such as Al Bashra, to Kuwait too.

Btw, I realize this is probably the stupidest and worst scenario possible but I just want to know what people think would happen.[/quote]

interesting concept. Would it work? I don't know and I'm not sure how it could be fairly pulled off, but I've been wondering about a similar idea because the other countries have fairly stable governments and leadership and breaking down the areas could take the stress off of one particular government from having to police the whole area. Maybe if some sort of border was put up on the edge of each of these areas (according to your or a similar breakdown) it may disrupt the coordination efforts of the insurgents. But instead of having one clearly incompetent (at this point and I don't see it changing any time soon) government police a whole country, we could delagate different areas to different countries who may be in a better position to handle their areas. I like it, but I don't see it happening. I don't really care about the idea of the US getting this involved in delegating lands to foreign entities, but it might be best at this point.

[goldenchild17]

[quote name='abercius24' post='1518738' date='May 4 2008, 06:52 PM']I think splitting Iraq into 3 separate, independant countries would be more successful. The problem is civil war between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Neither group has the capacity to trust the other, let alone work with each other. Their mistrust is so deep that they are willing to kill to keep the other from gaining too much power. If we worked as hard at stablizing each ethnic/religious region into its own sovereign nation as we have trying to make all 3 regions into one, we would probably have been ready to pull out by now. It's not too late, in my opinion. The current policy is failing because it is based on changing people's biases and prejudices. The hardest thing to do is to change a people's collective mindset. Good politics has always been based on working within people's biases and prejudices. What better way to do that in Iraq than to help them isolate themselves into separate nations.[/quote]

I kind of like this idea too, and it might be better recieved by the parties involved. The problem I see with it at this point is how does this solve the issues of an incompetent government? Would we stay involved in setting up a government for each of the 3 new countries? Or just split em up and let me go at it? I don't know how that's a whole lot better than the current mess. But its a good idea to think about and work with.

[kujo]

[quote name='goldenchild17' post='1519127' date='May 5 2008, 02:54 AM']I kind of like this idea too, and it might be better recieved by the parties involved. The problem I see with it at this point is how does this solve the issues of an incompetent government? Would we stay involved in setting up a government for each of the 3 new countries? Or just split em up and let me go at it? I don't know how that's a whole lot better than the current mess. But its a good idea to think about and work with.[/quote]

I think decentralizing Iraq, breaking it up into 3 regions (or "states," if you will), with their own governing bodies who look to the federal government for things like distribution of oil revenues, national defense and public-works, would be the best idea. It would closely-resemble our own federalized system of governing...or at least the way it used to be, anyway. As for whether or not we would stick around to help create the regional governments, I think it would not be necessary. The Kurds already have a government that needs little more than tweaking, and the other groups would need to set one up as well. Sen. Joe Biden, as well as our beloved Sen. Sam Brownback, believes this to be the best and most realistic plan out there right now. I tend to believe them.

For more info, check out this op-ed from 2006 in the [url="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/23/AR2006082301419.html"]Washington Post.[/url]