And Dr. Jean Y. Haine of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute warned that “the tendency for the Pentagon to control civilian aspects of reconstruction is not a recipe for success….force protection will remain the highest priority. In other words, the game is tipped in favor of the spoilers.”
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I understand that to Dr. Haine it might look like the Pentagon has a 'tendency to control civilian aspects of reconstruction', but that is by default. Rumsfeld complained publicly that other agencies, e.g., USDA, were not carrying their weight.
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“It is, in fact, a strategic contradiction to have a military surge on the one hand and an increased rhetoric against Iran on the other,” noted Dr. Jean Y. Haine.
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There is no contradiction, given that it is Iran contributing a great deal toward the need for the surge in the first place, from arms to safe haven. And my military contacts tell me they've been killing Iranians in Iraq for some time now. I'm not quite sure Dr. Haine has a good feel for the situation.
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“US should make significant efforts to form a new international framework under the authority of the UN Security Council.”
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And my head should stop exploding. Seems to me that we've been getting kicked around for being unilateralist because hardly anyone else WANTED to join the party. Now Spain will get back in and Germany will deploy outside Afghanistan? Who knew?
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Boleslaw Wozniak, of the Center for European Strategy questioned the likelihood of “encourag[ing] Arab speaking and Muslim countries to provide all the front-line troops of the new international force in Iraq.”
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Someone is actually proposing this? I am at an absolute loss to come up with any Arab/Muslim country that would be a good fit for 'front-line troops'. Although if the PKK doesn't knock it off, we'll have Turkey in there whether we like it or not, and I can't say I blame them.
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Others, however, were strongly opposed to a partition. In their view, any such announcement would only result in accelerated bloodshed and further isolate any remaining nationalist sentiment in the country:

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A lot of what I've read recently and what I'm hearing from people on the ground is that no announcement will be needed. It's already happening to some extent from the bottom up, not the top down.

Thanks Joerg, looking forward to parts 2 and 3.

"It seems quite a few Americans in the blogosphere do not even trust the Brits. "

As a whole, I think it's safe to say we trust the British people, but it's obvious they've been neutered by their 'elites' and their gov't.

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Britons give many reasons for leaving, but their stories share one commonality: life in Britain has become unbearable. They fear lawlessness and the threat of more terrorism from a growing Muslim population and the loss of a sense of Britishness, exacerbated by the growing refusal of public schools to teach the history and culture of the nation. What it means to be British has been watered down in a plague of political correctness. Officials say they do not wish to "offend" others.

http://www.daily-journal.com/archives/dj/display.php?id=404231

(check out the comments)
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The head of the UK’s Commission for Equalities and Human Rights – a new, vast and largely unaccountable bureaucracy concerned with tackling the oppression of minorities, real or imagined – has called for British history to be rewritten to reflect the roles played by other races and religions – singling out, not surprisingly, Muslims for a bit of positive PR.

Trevor Phillips told a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth that the revisionism should start with the story of how Muslims helped the English fleet, led by Sir Francis Drake, to fight off the Spanish Armada in 1588. Phillips said forces of the Ottoman Empire delayed the sailing of the Spanish fleet so the English navy was better prepared, but claimed the story had been ‘airbrushed’ out of historical accounts.

http://monkeytenniscentre.blogspot.com/2007/09/rewriting-history-of-britain-and-islam.html
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And this is an absolute must read. It's by 'Theodore Dalrymple', the nome de plume of Anthony Daniels. He worked for years as a psychiatrist in prisons and hospitals in the UK, gave up in disgust and moved to France. He has, in some respects, lived to rue the day.

The uselessness of a police force that once excited the admiration of the world is now taken for granted by every Briton who calls the police only to obtain a crime number for insurance purposes, not in the expectation or even hope of any effort at detection. This is not because the individual policeman is lazy, ill-intentioned, corrupt, or stupid, though in the present system he might just as well be: for the system in which he works imposes upon him all the effects (or defects) of precisely those qualities. P.C. Copperfield is clearly a man who wants to do a good job, like most of the policemen I have met, but the system actively and deliberately prevents him from doing so.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_1_oh_to_be.html
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Joerg, I encounter quite a few Brits on the internet every day. I cannot tell you how disgusted they are.

pen Name

Correct me if I'm wrong please, but it is my understanding you are in Iran. If so, can you comment on the following article? (it talks about the implications of the Irsaeli attack in Syria for Iran)

http://www.ocnus.net/artman2/publish/Analyses_12/Silence_in_Syria_Panic_in_Iran.shtml


A quote from the article
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The systems didn't even light up, gave no indication whatever of any detection of enemy aircraft invading Syrian airspace, zip, zero, nada. The Israelis (with a little techie assistance from us) blinded the Russkie antiaircraft systems so completely the Syrians didn't even know they were blinded. Now you see why the Syrians have been scared speechless. They thought they were protected - at enormous expense - only to discover they are defenseless. As in naked. Thus the Great Iranian Freak-Out - for this means Iran is just as nakedly defenseless as Syria.
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1- That the power to undo nuclear Iran does not exist in the International arena.

I read that article and that's not quite what I took away from it. What I got is that the diplomatic and economic conditions are unlikely to succeed. The article specifically states "short of military action".

6- 40% of US Army's hardware (tanks, APC, Cannons, etc.) are in Iraq. In the event of a war with Iran, some or all of that very very expensive hardware will be lost - destroyed by us, or by you since you will not be able to take that stuff out of Iraq.

The military guys I spoke to said 40% doesn't sound even close, but I can't find a reliable figure myself. I've emailed the Public Affairs Officer of CentCom to see if they can help. Worst case scenario, they tell me to piss off and stop bugging them.

9- Israel is not interested in adding Iran to the list of her enmies by attacking Iran directly. Israeli leaders have been very careful in their statements. They prefer US to attack Iran.


ADDING Iran to their list of enemies? Uh, penName, that nutcase President of yours keeps ranting about wiping the 'Zionist entity' off the map, so I think you guys made it onto the list awhile back.

As to the remaining items on your list, I think - correct me if I'm wrong - your premise is that we would come in or engage in land conflicts. We have 3 naval battlegroups in the area with 7 more available. We could stand offshore and pound you for months on end. Once your command and control is gone, so is any inter-operability of your forces. You would be dependent on Syria, and we've already seen Israel handle them. Any even moderate Iranian incursion into Iraq would be spotted easily and dealt with. I know of one instance when only about 500 Iranians came over. We let them in, fell in behind, ran them into a pincer movement and not one came home. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be cavalier about your countrymen or arrogant about my own country. I don't want more war. But if we keep hearing about Iranian arms in Iraq, there will be - well, there already are - voices calling for some kind of action. Personally, I favor more stringent sanctions to bring you to your knees economically - much better than bloodshed - as long as it works.

am not aware of the case of a 500-person Iranian incursion into Iraq. I have not heard nary a peep about it. Will you please elaborate: date-time-location-objective? This would have been very important news indeed; wonder why US did not use it as propaganda?


I was first told of it about 3 months ago - it came from soldiers who had watched them come in and were told to stand down - and were furious - until they received the next orders. They couldn't tell any of this until they were back stateside and would NEVER be allowed to tell when or where. The military does let out to the U.S. media that some Iranians have been killed in Iraq, but they rarely give details - it's called OPSEC - operational security.
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You want to dominate Islam and Iran.

No. We just want to stop Islam from trying to take over the world. Iran is welcome to it.
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I would also like to point out that Chinese weapons have been found in Afghanistan. Are you going to attack China?

I note here that your own weapons have been found in the hands of PKK - being used against your allies in Turkey. Are you fighting Turkey?

I HAVE heard about the Chinese weapons in Afghanistan - but there is nothing in any media I can find that gives much detail. Can't find much of anything, frankly. I have read some very speculative pieces saying such munitions may be associated with Chinese Muslims who fought with the muhajadeen against the USSR and now the US, but nothing that ties the Chinese gov't to them directly or indirectly. Muddy waters, there.

As for the PKK - I know about it and it just PISSES me off. It's not that we're arming the PKK, it's that we're arming the Kurds - some of whom happen to be PKK. Whatever one thinks about the merits of an independent Kurdistan, the PKK is a bad actor and always has been. As I noted earlier on this thread, if they don't knock it off, we're going to have Turkey in Iraq whether we like it or not and I won't blame them.

penName, don't mean to ignore the rest of your post, but I've got to go for today and get some work done. Back later

Pamela, are you also in favor of executing children?

No. What's your point? That children can also be child molestors?

If the crime was committed before the age of majority, I'll go with life in prison w/no parole.