DU: What is your prediction for the outcome in Iraq?????

[tedzbear]

Right now, the Sunni Saddam supporters are taking out our troops one at a time.
The Shiite majority is politely waiting for us to hand them their nation on a silver platter. They are glad we removed Saddam so they are being patient with our occupation for now. But if we don't hand over the reigns soon, they will start to revolt against us and then our troops will really be sitting ducks!
So I think what's happening right now is the calm before the storm.

What do you guys think???

[Dont B bush N Me]

1. Eventually there will be peace and prosperity

Bush will visit and because of a terrorist attack...a mushroom cloud.

[searchingforlight]

2. One thing I CAN predict

More dead Americans and Iraqis.

[htuttle]

3. I predict US troops and Iraqis will continue to die...

...until the US military leaves the country.

I also predict that they won't be able to keep the oil flowing for more than a few days at a time during that period.

Finally, when all is said and done, Iraq will be an Islamic Republic, but probably somewhat more liberal than Iran.

[GumboYaYa]

4. I see this thing in three phases.

The first phase is over, that is the initial invasion and ceasing of the country.

We are in phase two, that is the removal of the remnants of Saddam's regime. I suspect that eventually Saddam's day will come and he will be killed. If that doesn't happen Saddam may be the consummate evil genius.

Phase one and two are bloody enough, but phase 3 will be much longer and worse.

Phase three is when we actually start trying to install a democracy. That is when all the tribal rivalries and divergent interests of the Iraqis will become apparent. You do not impose democracy on people. People chose democracy. It will be an expensive lesson that America will learn over several years. We will fail at this, partly because we do not want a true democracy in Iraq. Eventually we will have to withdraw from Iraq and there will be a period of internal strife in the country. Lord knows who will rule Iraq after that.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Well, you can impose a democracy, sort of

It happened in Germany after World War II, although it certainly helped that they were surrounded by stable democracies on the north and west, countries that were real sensitive to any sign of a return to fascism.

It also happened in Japan, to a degree, but that was a completely different situation. First of all, due to the hierarchical nature of the society, the population stopped fighting as soon as the emperor gave the word, so there were no Americans killed by guerillas during the Occupation. For another, the U.S. government studied Japanese culture thoroughly in order to avoid the worst blunders--although they did blunder. For still another, the people who carried out the Occupation were not Busheviks but New Deal idealists.

However, that attempt was sidetracked once the Korean War broke out. Japan was a supply base, so "stability" became more important than democracy. To its shame, the CIA got some of the low-level war criminals out of prison and encouraged them to get in touch with their yakuza contacts to break up the leftist unions.

The result today is a multi-party democracy in which only one party really has a chance of winning, lots of graft and bribery, and in the past ten years, a stunning feeling of inertia, since no one can do anything about the economy without offending one or more of the groups that keep the ruling party in power.

On the whole, I'd say that the German experiment was very successful, since Germany had always been a key player in Western European culture and had always had liberal elements in its cultural and political make-up.

Japan was partly successful. Civil liberties are pretty good by Asian standards, social services are decent, and minority political opnions do have a voice, but the political system has been passively gerrymandered. By that I mean that they have never redistricted, so that the rural voters, which support the ruling party, have a clout disproportionate to their numbers, despite major population shifts from rural to urban living. In addition, the non-ruling parties have not governed except for brief periods since 1956, so they come off as clueless and inexperienced.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. As for the main question

of what to do about Iraq, I would ask the U.N. to take over with a peacekeeping force made up largely of soldiers from the more liberal Islamic countries, such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Tunisia, and Egypt, which would take the starch out of the "religious war" argument. (Normally, I would include Turkey, but given that we're talking about Iraq, the Turks should stay out. However, I would like to see the Turks, along with the other countries I mentioned, in on a peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, serving as models of modern, non-fanatical Islam.)

[GumboYaYa]

14. Yes, but Germany was a democracy before Hitler

and had been through the age of Enlightenment. Iraq is in large part a tribal society. The west experienced tremendous pain in getting to the age of enlightenment. The Spanish Inquisitions are but one example of that.

Germans had the historical and philosophic mindset to adopt democracy. We really did not have to impose it on them.

Iraq is a far different story.

[librechik]

5. if we're lucky, the UN will take over.

It'll take awhile tho, becasue we have to figure out how to KEEP THE OIL and hand Iraq over at the same time. Bushie's never release power willingly.

[robbedvoter]

6. Not about luck - if we get rid of buscho, it will happen

It's really in our hands. UN will wait until the elections. Dean said it: "but for this we need a change of presidents" Until then, more of the same.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[StandWatie]

8. umm...

How the hell would you even begin to weigh a polling sample in a country where only the richest quarter of the country have power much less a phone?

[htuttle]

9. Do yourself a favor

Print out your response above, and tape it on the refrigerator.

Then keep checking every few months to see if you were correct.

When you discover that you were misled, analyze WHY you thought what you do now, and try to examine where your bad information is coming from.

Just a suggestion.

[Pallas180]

11. Tar Baby - as long as dimson & the fundamentalist fascists are in

office, we will not be leaving Iraq, unless it is to move
into Syrria, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc etc. There's a reason
he won't bring the third infantry home. Many of the soldiers
came from Afghanistan. They were told if you want to go home
the way to get there is through Baghdad....he'll try the same
thing- the way home is through Tehran, etc etc.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=111&topic_id=153&mesg_id=153&page=

[gasperc]

19. yep, like 16 of 33 divisions are in the middle east right now

don't be surprised if there is a big push for the draft to increase the army "in the interest of national security" more like so we can support our oil gluttonous ways

[bemildred]

24. It's a difficult situation.

There is a reason we don't have a draft anymore.
They don't want the sheeple to wake up and turn off
the tube, and there is nothing like having little Johnny
dragged off to boot camp unwillingly to get people's
attention, let alone having him get his ass shot off in
some foreign venue. If anything is done along this line,
I expect it to be in the form of mercenaries, corporate
armies, and greater use of non-citizen troops.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

13. Got a source for that?

It would be interesting to read the latest Murdoch bullshit... Oops! Did I give away the secret?

[molly]

17. I think you are dead wrong

[Not a robought]

18. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

A poll!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Jacobin]

15. The historical record on Western powers occupying the M.E.

is about 0 for 20.

Genghis Kahn, Alexander the Great, King Richard the Lion Heart, Napoleon Bonaparte, the British in the early 1900's.

All eventually got run out on their asses.

Of course, Americans don't take into account cultural differences or whether a country really wants us there or not, and certainly doesn't read history because we think we are unique and can make anyone do anything.

We will be tossed out in a matter of a few years, after a long and bloody guerilla war.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

20. Agree.

I'm afraid it's going to take a round number (1000 dead) for Americans to awaken to the folly, appx. 2 years from now.

[molly]

16. More bloodshed especially after the graphic pictures

all over the news. It would infuriate us to see pictures of our dead - all they need is another reason to hate us.

[Capt_Nemo]

21. Iraq, Summer 2003

Is just like Afghanistan, Spring 1980.
It can be called a "victory" in the same sense that the Soviets used
that term back then.
Its impact on US geopolitical standing in the World will be simmilar
to the consequences of the earlier conflict for the USSR.
And since I have a hunch that resistance in iraq is organized on
a decentralized regional level with different leaders, of different
factions, in each city, the Iraqis will inherit from the US a country
of quarreling warlords, just like Afghanistan...

[Feanorcurufinwe]

22. A long drawn out nightmare, followed by a humiliating retreat

A long drawn out nightmare, followed by a humiliating retreat. Or if Bush is reelected in 2004, an even longer drawn out nightmare, followed by an even more humiliating retreat.

[thebeaglehaslanded]

26. Absolutely true, Feanorcurufinwe.

This is another Vietnam quagmire in the making. And it won't end until the perps on this side of the pond are out of office.

[lanlady]

23. US has to be very careful

not to turn this into a general anti-Sunni war. I think the Sunni are figuring out already that they stand the most to lose. That's bad.

The Shiite imams are waiting for their chance to come into power. Democracy is the last thing on their minds.

There are no opposition parties (yet). This is unlike, say, Romania, where there were nascent parties and a reasonably cohesive opposition to take over when Ceaucescu and his wife were executed. Yet I don't see the "Provisional Authority" in Iraq addressing this issue.

[Noli Mitangere]

25. We will be like the Soviets in Afghanistan

We will be like the Soviets in Afghanistan. Muslims from all over will come to fight as mujahadeens against the foreign invaders and the puppet government placed in power. We will see the emergence of sophisticated resistance organizations with elaborate funding and resources, conducting effective attacks throughout the country with better weaponry. Efforts by the United States to win hearts and minds by improving urban infrastructure will be thwarted by consistent acts of sabotage. The whole country will violently turn against the Americans. Once US casualties reach 50 to 100 per day, we will see a withdrawal of troops.

Iraq as a country will then fracture leaving three separate states with an independent Kurdistan to the north, Sunnis controlling a small portion to the northwest and west, while the rest of the country becomes an Islamic state run by the Shiites with a deep hatred for the United State and will fund other Islamic extremist groups, namely Al Qaeda.

We will see more terrorist attacks on Americans here at home and abroad. Three years after 9/11, the problem of terrorism will not have been abated, but expanded and more deeply rooted.

We will have failed.