RE: "U.S. Plans Massive Attack on Iraq - Report"
This entire build-up and the above plans are all straight from Machiavelli. It's too bad these people have an incomplete understanding of him. They should only do this if they are prepared to stay for a very long time, and believe that the American people will stand for that kind of open-ended commitment. Otherwise, everything they will do will simply unravel in a matter of a few years after they leave. That is where they miscalculate, IMO. And even if they and we are willing to stay for a very long time, it is still extremely risky at best. Iraq is a radically different geographical and cultural environment. They think they can reproduce Germany and Japanese democracy, but haven't thought clearly about the fact that those countries had homogeneous populations with a long cultural past that tied them together as countries. Iraq doesn't--it was cobbled together, it is held together by force, not be cultural ties. The two Koreas are more together than Iraq ever was or, IMO, will be. It isn't so bad to make errors in speculation in books; it will lead to disaster in reality. And we will make many new enemies along the way who will have a renewed determination to knock us off our perch. Even people who should be our friends are slowly being turned into our enemies because of the way the Bush Admin is talking and acting.
Gee, what a brilliant foreign policy, what brilliant diplomats. They take enormous assets, and turn them into tools for isolating us. Oh well, we don't need anyone else, we only need the "willing" who will follow us whatever we do, since whatever we do will be right. Right?
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