Blumenthal: A ruinous trap of their own making

[kskiska]

Iraq is now more dangerous to the US than when they went to war

There was no "imminent threat" to the United States from Iraq. Then there was no strategy for building a new Iraq."Hubris and ideology" ruled. Now, "Iraq is more dangerous to the US potentially than it was at the moment we went to war".

These are the reluctant judgments of one of the key US officials who participated in the highest levels of decision-making of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Both interviewed by me and in a forthcoming article in Foreign Affairs journal, Larry Diamond offers from the heart of the Green Zone an unvarnished first-hand account of the unfolding strategic catastrophe.

(snip)

In Iraq, the US cannot escape from its own trap without even more ruinous consequences. "If we walk away the place falls apart disastrously. Americans are not only a bulwark against civil war. They are a stimulus for nationalist and Islamic fundamentalist mobilisation. We need to reduce that stimulus and provocation without robbing the new Iraqi state of the bulwark it needs.

"We have been dealt a bad hand by mistaken decisions, going to war, in prewar planning and in the first few months after the war ended. A lot of negative things are difficult to alter because of mistakes that were not inevitable. There are really no good options."

Fallujah remains under terrorist control; insurgents run rampant even beyond the Sunni triangle; the number of US soldiers killed spirals towards 1,000; the Iraqi army, disastrously disbanded by the CPA, is being reassembled and trained. The American campaign is consumed with false charges made by a Republican front group about the medals that John Kerry earned in a war more than 30 years ago. The arrogant and incompetent blunders of the Bush administration in Iraq are not debated. On the eve of the Republican convention, Bush burnishes his image as a prudent and reassuring leader. The lethal realities of his "hubris and ideology" are for the moment off the screen. Mission accomplished.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1290870,00.html

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. "Americans are not only a bulwark against civil war"

Well now, this has been trumpeted on DU for years, but they are just now getting around to it.

The good ol' USA is up to it's neck in it now!

[Gyre]

2. The Guardian is a really fine paper

I just wonder how many Americans read it.

Gyre

[Briar]

3. Rather a lot

though not necessarily in an open minded way. In her most recent article, Polly Toynbee referred to the avalanche of obscenely abusive emails they receive from right wingers in the US.

[Michael_UK]

4. 2nd most read, UK news source

Apparently, because so many americans read it