Tom,
I hope your prediction comes true (i.e, that "The political/religous/ethinic entities in Iraq will see it to be in their own best interest to get along. Those who play nicely in the sandbox will reap the largest rewards."). As you can guess, I doubt it, though I don't think of myself as an "appeaser" just because I don't think invading Iraq will lead to anythin that is good, or even in the interest of the US in the long run.
While I was in the car this evening, I heard a general on NPR say something to the effect that war has a way of bring out justice, settling old scores. He said that the US has no interest in dealing with Saddam's henchmen or the leaders of his military or his "intelligence" service, that we aren't completely sure who we will deal with, but the really nasty people under Saddam will either be killed or will find a way to disappear from the scene. He didn't mean that they will be killed by the US necessarily, in fact he implied that they will be killed by their internal enemies. "We will deal with the ones left standing," he said, after the others are weeded out.
Sounds rational, in a perverse way (but perversity of course is the way of war). But he presumes that we will be able to control the violence of the Aftermath. That there will be this huge cathartic bloodletting and then it will be over, and we will be there along with the survivors who will work with us. I don't believe it will be that easy. Violence begets more violence. It won't be easy to stop once it gets started. And the lulls will be deceiving. Further, the problems we will unleash won't be limited to Iraq. You may or may not have read the article I posted earlier today on Turkey--95% of the people there oppose the US invading Iraq. The govt is squeamish about it, but need the money and the support that the US is offering. I suspect the US also dangled the carrot of being able to control the Kurd's desire for an independent if Turkey supports us. But what if there is a civil war or a coup in Turkey as a result of this? It needn't occur immediately, it could happen a year, two years, three years down the line. Same with Pakistan, or other Islamic countries, several of which have already been in civil wars in the recent past (I am thinking here of countries carved out of the Soviet Union). Suppose their govts become strongly anti-US. Are we going to invade them too? Will we have a choice? Can we actually afford this?
I know, I know, according to the Gospel of George, we can afford everything. Reagan said the same thing back in the early 80s when he pushed his tax cut through. It took us years to overcome the deficits that that caused, and here comes another Republican govt creating still more gargantuan deficits. And creating those deficits without even investing in our infrastructure or our schools, which would at least be investments that would lead to greater wealth creation down the road. No, these deficits are just going to create more inflation down the road, more governmental neglect of important things.
I know you call this a "hysterical" scenerio. I call it realism. I would rather you be right. But I doubt it.
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