Winston Churchill, authorized the RAF to drop poison gas on 'primitive tribesmen," meaning Iraq's Kurds and Afghanistan's Pashtun, a fact conveniently forgotten by Tony Blair and George W. Bush\\
the U.S. is now trying to block direct Elections
At the same time, Iraq's Kurds, who now have two virtually independent mini-states in the north, are determined to create an independent nation in northern Iraq that controls the rich Kirkuk oilfields. They are dead set against losing their newfound political and economic autonomy,,,,rurks are not about to countenance the emergence of a Kurdish state
^solution to Iraq's ethnic problems defies easy answers. A Swiss-style system, with a weak central government and powerful cantons, is probably the best solution. But long-term, Iraq's dissolution into three nations may be inevitable.
Tiat should the U.S. do? The most sensible course: hand Iraq to the UN and pull out
If a total pullout is not in the cards, then the best option is to co-operate with Iraq's Shia majority and show that the U.S. can work fruitfully with an Islamic regime. Co-operation with Islamists in Baghdad opens the way to good relations with Tehran and a major lessening of anti-American feelings across the Muslim World.
SURPRISE, SECURITY, AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE By John Lewis Gaddis
http://www.nytimes.eom/2004/03/21/books/review/2 lMATLOCT.html?pagewanted=print&...
. Gaddis argues that pre-emption, unilateralism and hegemony remained persistent features of American behavior until World War II, when they were modified by Franklin D. Roosevelt. While Roosevelt acted to extend American hegemony beyond the Western Hemisphere, he discarded unilateralism. Rather than going it alone, the United States took the lead in creating a series of multinational institutions. Gaddis writes. Multilateralism was used to ensure American hegemony, not to undermine it. ...Roosevelt also discarded pre-emption, refusing to approve actions that violated his agreements with Stalin, even though Stalin was reneging on his commitments. Roosevelt, Gaddis believes, ...)ne can argue that the United States emerged from the cold war as the unquestioned global hegemon precisely because it had been willing to mute its traditional unilateral tendencies and to avoid the temptation of preventive war against its principal adversary.
of two cold war legacies in the international environment: "the declining authority of the international state system, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." ...A. preventive war is a different matter, since its justification rests on the perception, often questionable, of a potential rather than actual threat. ..Bush's decision to place the burden of today's wars only on those who do the fighting -- and on future generations that must pay the bills. One has to wonder whether the administration's fiscal and energy policies are consistent with the goal of maintaining American global predominance. [or are driven by an economic agenda of protecting the wealthy while they take their money out of the economy ]
Unfortunately, there are no magic potions or certain cures, despite the tendency ot both sides in the political debate to pretend that there are.
