Now all Bush has to do is hold on until November 2004 and sweep in with a landslide. Assuming the economy doesn't tank in the meanwhile. Though the timing leaves time for a quick conquest of Syria (or possibly some other country), so the newly liberated Iraqis have somewhere to roam with their new Qualcomm CDMA phones.
Mind you, winning the peace will be harder than winning the war. Though once FOXNews take their gung-ho theme music and title graphics and go home, only a few politically-suspect intellectual types will pay attention to what's going on over there. (How much attention is focused on Afghanistan these days?)
i just can't stop recalling another conflict where the u.s. won every battle but lost the war.
given how well the C.O.W. (colition of the willing) is doing in afghanistan it bodes double plus ungood for this op to be anything but an osama bin laden recruiting drive.
i hope that the iraqi's will be able to forgive the u.s. in the not too distant future.
Which other conflict?
Apparently the US government slashed the Afghanistan rebuilding budget to $0 recently. That's right; it's not our problem and we've got Iraq on our plate. Which is rather short-sighted; dropping a few bombs on the regrouping Taliban here and there is no substitute for eliminating the conditions that cause people to join extremist movements.
Given that just a few months ago, Bush authorized that over $3bn be spent on assistance to Afghanistan, I assume that this story is a beat-up. Links for anyone who wants to get to the bottom of it: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/04/10/afghanistan/index_np.html http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/
As a USian, I can report that triumphalist displays of flag-waving have already begun here-- locally, in the parking lot of a tire franchise. To these people, the fat lady has sung. Ask Jane SixPack about W's long-term strategy in the region, or about lingering cluster bomblets, and you get (at best) a blank stare. *sigh*
First, Baghdad is not Iraq, anymore than New York or Los Angeles is the U.S. Iraq is a huge country and I suspect that the bad guys have been allowed to slip away in favor of photo-ops of statue toppling.
The Neocons seem to be under the delusion that the pro and anti Saddamites, Kurds and Shiites will now all happily lay down their arms, join hands and sink "Kumbayah".
I think they're in for a shock.
Heres something for you. In case you think that W. was alone in this endeavor. History all over again.
Clinton attack on Iraq ----explanation by clinton. The similarities in the explanation of the attack are unbelievable to todays situation. You can almost remove the words Bill Clinton and replace them with George Bush.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html
Response from Republicans
.theres very little consistency here. Nor in the democratic response. Looks like they read each others lines.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/congresstional.react.02/
Response from the world
.consistent with todays situation. Except for France's move to "counter" the US.
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9812/17/world.reax.iraq.02/
Iraqi Kurd Endorses Fox: http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000349.php#000349
The WMD question is the biggest unknown. Did they initially refrain from use for political reasons? Did the USA get Saddam on day one after all, and decapitate the only command structure that could have authorized WMD use? Have the WMDs gone underground with the surviving Iraqi leadership, to be used in a guerrilla/terrorist campaign inside and outside Iraq? I do find it hard to believe that they are not there at all, given the ease with which a cell line (for example) can be preserved. You don't spend years building up a bioweapons program, and then throw it all away, when you can secretly preserve the kernel of it for future regeneration. But perhaps the Iraqis whittled away so much of the weapons infrastructure for the inspectors that they didn't have time to regenerate it for use in the war.