Elaborating on his argument for a change in course, Mr. Kissinger said a clear-cut military victory was no longer achievable. At the same time, he argued that withdrawing American forces might lead to a civil war more violent than the fighting that occurred in the former Yugoslavia.then i read a different article and noticed this:
"If you mean by clear military victory an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," Mr. Kissinger said.
As a bugle sounded across Fort Hood with the call to lower the flag at dusk, General Odierno paused, and added, "Notice I left out a few things, such as a democracy in the sense that we see a democracy in the United States. We have to allow them to shape their own democracy, the type of democracy that fits them and their country."dumping the idea of iraqi democracy is clearly in the air these days. i think it's now likely that the bush administration itself might decide to support a strong man dictator to bring iraq to order. maybe they'll call it a "temporary measure" or pretend that the dictator is some kind of democrat at heart but needs to declare martial law to get iraq under control. it may be presented as "temporary" but won't end anytime soon, like egypt's two decade old "state of emergency."
i'm convinced that the only thing that has stopped washington from throwing its support behind a strong man so far is domestic politics. if bush dumps democracy in iraq, he'll be letting go of the last excuse he has for invading the country. that doesn't mean he won't try it anyway. but that does mean that if he backs an iraqi dictator, he'll still keep talking about iraq as if it is a democracy--or at least a country in transition to democracy.
i think if there's gonna be any shift in iraq policy out of the bush administration, backing a dictatorship there will be it. troop withdrawals will never happen under bush's watch, no matter what occurs in iraq. the only policy shifts we will ever see are shifting reasons to keep u.s. forces there.
