Obama staying the course set by Bush...discuss

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

To illustrate that it doesn't exist, even in concept.

You're the only person I know who habitually tries to turn things you don't agree with into things that don't exist.

[Monkeyleg]

You're the only person I know who habitually tries to turn things you don't agree with into things that don't exist.

Zing.

[taurusowner]

You're the only person I know who habitually tries to turn things you don't agree with into things that don't exist.

That's just a standard leftist way of looking at things. "If reality doesn't match my feelings, reality must be wrong"

[roo_ster]

You have to ask, why, exactly?

While I don't agree with SS that a "win scenario" doesn't exist, we have to keep in mind that any win scenario will have to have lower expectations than Iraq.

What does a "win scenario" look like to you?  Does it matter if that scenario exists for a day/week/hour or does the "win" have to be at all persistent?

What does a Afghan "win scenario" look like to me?
1. Drive Taliban & AQ from power.
2. Kill lots of Tali & AQ.
3. Impress upon any bystanders that we will destroy, with ruthlessness & vigor, those we deem a threat...and we are indifferent to the damage caused to those between us & the threat.
4. Make it clear to the local schmoes who wind up with authority after the Taliban & AQ get the boot that if he/they don't keep their barbarous affairs from seeping outside their borders, their lives are forfeit.
5. Git while the getting's good.  Do not let familiarity breed contempt.
6. No great expectations as to persistence.  The swamp will have to be drained every once in a while and new generations will have to be taught not to screw with America.

We've been dick-dancing around long enough that any pull out will look like we left at their behest, not ours.  Best we can do now is to kill the hell outta the current batch of savages with a surge in troops, declare victory, and go home.

Unfortunately, "win scenario" for many includes setting up a stable and not too hideous central gov't and some sort of start on building infrastructure.  That is too bad, since any central gov't left to locals will degenerate and collapse in 2 years, tops, and the bricks we use to build the functional edifices of civilization will be stripped to build brick stoves and isolated little enclaves to ignorance.

Two years after we leave Astan, it will be a mess, again.  Unless we are willing to smack their militants around and nation-build for the better part of a century*, it doesn't matter if we stay 6 months or 10 years, no matter, as the result is not proportional to the effort input.

The heart of the matter is the Afghans and their lack of human capital, not American resolve.





* Essentially colonize the place, civilize the locals, and build the infrastructure.

[Balog]

Actual (as opposed to Daily Kos hyperventilating) empire building is the only way to win in places like A-stan. We, as a nation, do not have the will to do what is needed.

[De Selby]

jfruser, be careful, or you'll be branded a leftist forever like me 

The "win" you are describing is already a lose, because that could have been done in one month.  The Taliban fell, and Al Qaeda was decimated, within a month using a few hundred troops. 

Now we're eight years and billions of dollars deep.  That outcome is a loss, and should be considered a lesson learned for the future.

It's easy to dismiss criticisms of the Afghan war with "eh, they said that about Iraq" (I notice that no one is disputing the facts about its ties to Iran) and "if we want to we can win" (no facts to discuss with that one).  But any analysis of the facts will lead closer to jfruser's analysis that anything else.

On the point about Iran-Iraq you raised, it's important to focus on a difference between Hizbullah/Hamas and the Iraqi government: Hizbullah and Hamas are both independent groups who received some training from the Iranians, but who have operated primarily in their home countries, and who have entirely independent religious and ideological networks.

This is not true for Islamic Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq - both operated in Iran and under the network of the Iranian religious state for decades, and still continue to do so.  Ali Al Sistani himself is an Iranian passport holder.  These groups are literally part of the Iranian state, unlike the Lebanese or Palestinian factions. 

It's worth noting, before you rely on the racial difference, that Iran is a multi-racial state as well with substantial populations of religious minorities.  The clerics have managed that problem far, far better than the coalition government has, and there's no reason why they wouldn't be able to do the same in Iraq.

[roo_ster]

Afghanistan
I think your end state is 50%-75% of my solution.  Either way, the vast sum of lives, material, and cash expended since has been a waste, as they will not buy us much.  On the upside, Astan has not been a useful training base for AQ & other jihadis, what with all the MAerican & NATO forces there.

In one way, BHO was correct: we had to go into Astan and smash the place up(1).  He's wrong in that Astan needed the level of attention Iraq did.

Hez & Ham
Oh, yeah, they have their own religio-political apparatus.   But, both still rely heavily on Iranian support to the point that they would not exist without it.

Really, what sort of funds can even the hardest heart extract from Gaza?  They got nothing to tax.  Without Iranian support, they'd never have come to prominence and would quickly succumb to Arafat's pestilential heirs(2).

Hez has it a little better, what with Lebanon only have been gang-raped by decades of warfare and not yet completely become an "Aid Economy" like Gaza.  So, there is something to extort from the Lebanese and the Syrians might come up with support on their own part, rather than being Iran's butt-boy.

Iran & Minorities
I think you are too generous when describing Iran's ethnic problems (there are several).  A few years back I had to study Iran & the Caucasus for work and it seems every ethnic group has its own militant wing and designs on a "Greater Whatever." 

The Aryans only make up half the population and the Azeris make up 25%...with a real, no-bull Azeri-stan (Azerbaijan) on Iran's border, who have been known to support ther co-ethnics.  The only thing the mullahs have in their favor is that the Azeris and the other ethnics are splintered.  And now the ethnics are importing Arab splodey-dope tactics.

If the ethnic groups timed their unrest correctly to align with the currently demonstrating anti-mullah folks, things would get frisky right quick.

Iraq Shiites
Iran was the natural sanctuary for Shiites on S--t List. 

I guess my view of human nature and especially ME power politics is rather dark.  I fully expect the Malikis to quickly sour on being Iran's toadies when they real authority to rival Iran's. At that point, it won;t be healthy to be an agent of Iran.




(1) I am reminded of a joke my math teach told:
Last night a tornado blew through Arkansas and did $17milion in improvements.

(2) Though, one must admit that some of the PA-controlled ares look startlingly normal from reports by reliable folk, what with no bombings by either palis or Izzies

[Monkeyleg]

Shootinstudent, I'll give you points for presentation. You make very convincing arguments, in part because you appear to have a command of the issue, so much so that it would require doing research to rebut your points.

I just grabbed one of your points at random from your last post to see how well it holds up. It was the point about Ali Sistani having an Iranian passport, your implication being that he is part of the Iranian state.

It's true that Ali Sistani has an Iranian passport. He is an Iranian citizen, and made it a point to visit Iran every year, right up until 1979 when Khomeini seized power. That's the last time he was in Iran.

He was invited to Iran last March by the Iranian government, but refused. Sistani is regarded as the leading religious Shilite cleric. Iran's Khomeinist version of Shiism is regarded as political rather than religious. He didn't accept the invitation to visit Iran because it would lend legitimacy to the Iranian regime. It was for this reason, too, as well as others, that Sistani also refused to meet with Ahmadinejad when the Iranian president visited Iraq in 2008.

That doesn't sound like Sistani is part of the "Iranian state," does it?

Perhaps other APS'er's could look into some of Shootinstudent's facts.

[roo_ster]

ML:

That is hilarious.

Reminds me of a buddy of mine who leaves choice bits out of reports and stories*.

Example:
"The last thing I saw before I fell unconscious was Will wrapped up in a bed sheet, walking toward the strip club."

Now, what he managed to leave out was that they both were in a two QS bed hotel room in Vegas on a cheap trip.  Will had something happen to his clothes and had washed but not completely dried them, necessitating the ol' bed sheet trick so as to not be nekkid when he got up right before bed to hit the lavatory & brush his teeth...and if one lined them up, the nearest strip club is in line with the bath room when moving from Will's bed.

I guess we'll have to treat SS's writings like the New York Times and require another source verify its contents before believing it.





* Deliberately, for comedic effect, and with plenty of broadcasting that he is doing such

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Shootinstudent, I'll give you points for presentation. You make very convincing arguments, in part because you appear to have a command of the issue, so much so that it would require doing research to rebut your points.

I just grabbed one of your points at random from your last post to see how well it holds up. It was the point about Ali Sistani having an Iranian passport, your implication being that he is part of the Iranian state.

It's true that Ali Sistani has an Iranian passport. He is an Iranian citizen, and made it a point to visit Iran every year, right up until 1979 when Khomeini seized power. That's the last time he was in Iran.

He was invited to Iran last March by the Iranian government, but refused. Sistani is regarded as the leading religious Shilite cleric. Iran's Khomeinist version of Shiism is regarded as political rather than religious. He didn't accept the invitation to visit Iran because it would lend legitimacy to the Iranian regime. It was for this reason, too, as well as others, that Sistani also refused to meet with Ahmadinejad when the Iranian president visited Iraq in 2008.

That doesn't sound like Sistani is part of the "Iranian state," does it?

Perhaps other APS'er's could look into some of Shootinstudent's facts.

SOP for him.  Rather than debate the facts and conclusions for a given discussion, he says something flat out untrue or utterly ridiculous in order to obfuscate discussions that conflict with his biases.  By the time you're done untangling his nonsense the discussion has lost all purpose and meaning.  

(Watch out, he'll argue the point on Sistani with you.  By the time everything gets sorted out it won't matter any more.  He'll have made his point, derailed any further discussion, and be long gone.)

[De Selby]

Many comments about style, very few facts to dispute those already posted.

Monkeyleg, the story that Sistani's rejection of the Iranian invitation meant he rejected Iran was floated by the same guy who made up the story about Jews having arm-bands in Iran.  Given Sistani's public support for Iran and his Iranian citizenship, you'd have to be really wanting to believe he opposes Iran in order to construe the events that way.


To sum up, no one's disputing that Islamic Dawa (Iranian sponsored) and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (goes without saying) actually run Iraq.  The holiest person in Iraqi shi'ism is Iranian, but maybe he opposes Iran because, after meeting with a senior Iranian official and welcoming Iran's renewed ties to Iraq, the man didn't travel directly to Tehran. 

Yet, when I say "yeah, these facts indicate that Iraq has a pro-Iranian government", I'm making subtle distortions and leaving things out, etc etc.  It's a bit hard to understand why, other than the fact that it's me highlighting these things, this position is taken to be such a stretch.  I think reasonably the public and consistent pro-Iranian positions taken by Iraq's Iranian-sponsored political parties, and its Iranian senior cleric, are more than reasonable justification for what I'm saying. 

Supporting the Iraq war does not mean you have to deny the obvious. 

[De Selby]

I guess we'll have to treat SS's writings like the New York Times and require another source verify its contents before believing it.

I would assume that's standard for anyone who presents an opposing or unpopular viewpoint.  It's healthy and I welcome it.

[Monkeyleg]

Monkeyleg, the story that Sistani's rejection of the Iranian invitation meant he rejected Iran was floated by the same guy who made up the story about Jews having arm-bands in Iran.

Yeah, I guess all those rumor mills like the NY Post and Gulf News can't be trusted.

You may be telling the truth sometimes, but how are we to know?

[De Selby]

Yeah, I guess all those rumor mills like the NY Post and Gulf News can't be trusted.

You may be telling the truth sometimes, but how are we to know?

Yeah, those news articles are written by the guy who made up the arm-band story - Taheri, ie, someone who badly wants Iran to be in trouble with Iraq and who has fabricated stories about Iran in the past.  Of course the event happened, it's just that there's no real reason to adopt his conclusions about what it means for Iran/Sistani relations. 

Like I said, I welcome the scrutiny jfruser talks about.  See for yourself, for example, who Islamic Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq are, and how influential they are in the Iraqi government. 

Having an opinion you don't agree with and that is shared by leftists doesn't make for a manufactured story. 

[Monkeyleg]

HTG, you must be one of those "authentic psychics" I see on TV.

[longeyes]

You build empires by neutralizing the other guy's empire, not permitting him to co-exist with "mutual interests."  That will be obvious enough in due course, after the pain threshold is escalated in the homeland.  We are still in dreamland.