re:Mr. Bisvas

Submitted by true believer (India), May 4, 2006 at 06:49

Mr Bisvas,

I think you have a valid point. The ouster of Saddam and the sudden collapse of the existing power structure has only led to chaos and resulted in the erstwhile baathist's unholy union with the islamists. Iraq with its heterogenius population ( shias, sunnis,kurds, christians et al ) seems best controlled by a dictator like Saddam. Bush should have bumped Saddam and/or replaced him with someone who would take orders from US. Bribing Saddam would have done no good, he was hardly trustworthy. It would have been just as useless as trying to bribe Qadaffi or Khomenei. But the military victory over Iraq though easy, has been costly and without much returns. This has also benefitted Iran (a former enemy of the arabs) which has become the self appointed messiah of the arab/moslem world including palestine with its self confessed nuclear ambitions with the intent of destroying Israel.

Iraq's sizable shia population would also continue to be influenced by Iranian mollas. I don't see Iraqis ready for democracy in the near future. That way Clinton's foreign policy was much more result oriented. He had Kuwait liberated and Iraq brought to its knees within a relatively short time without commiting any US soldiers on ground in Iraq to fight its domestic squabbles, while keeping Saddam on a tight leash at the same time. But then Clinton did not have to deal with 9/11. At least this time Bush should have had workable plans to use the existing Iraqi security forces (say with exception of Saddam's Republican guard units) and the Iraqi police to maintain law and order before launching his attacks on Iraq. After the war the elusive enemy ( that fights without donning the uniform and by being pretty much indistinguishable from the general public ) would have been better controlled and contained by Iraqis themselves than by American GIs. Making Iraqis clean their own backyard also have reduced the casualties suffered by Americans in Iraq after winning the war.

Having said that, it is not right to blame the people for the decisions taken by their leaders, whether elected or not.

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