hypothetical situation

[waider]

What if... right now, Paul says the Iraqis aren't ready to secure their country. George says that the June 30th handover will be achieved. So what if the shiny new Iraqi government took stock of the ongoing mess and decided that the fastest way to quell the insurgent violence would be to ask the lib^Woccup^Wcoalition forces to leave the country? I'm not suggesting this is even a vaguely likely scenario, but wouldn't it really make for some exploding-head politics?

Comments

[anavolena.livejournal.com]

this is definitely one of those painful, damned if you do/don't situations. june 30th was picked solely on the basis of what might work best for dubya's reelection campaign. but now the u.s. is stuck with it. how can we possibly say, "nah, just kiddin'! we'll keep control until you qute widdle iraqis are really ready!"

of course, if dubya were to miraculously wake up tomorrow with an ounce of reason in his skull, he might do something like invite the U.N. to come help us out of this hole we've dug ourselves into. then he could concentrate on convincing the neocons this is what they wanted to do all along, while blaming the july 1 bloodbath on the ill-prepared U.N.[1]

i honestly didn't think it was possible to be more disgusted by my nation's foreign policy, and yet here i'm feelin' even more queasy and embarrassed. i may need to find myself a cuteron-emitting irish boy to marry so i can flee to the E.U.

[1] and here i've been saying i have no mind for fiction any more.

[waider.livejournal.com]

Should the need arise, I am, of course, available.

cough wheeze

Anyway. Yes. I don't think there's a good way out of this. I suspect that in addition to a July 1 bloodbath there will be a June bloodbath and a May one, certainly going on the current trends. The little piece of rock I call home has proven pretty conclusively that the best you can hope for in an organised-army-vs-guerillas situation is a stalemate. Of course, the point had already been made amply in the past by some short guys in pyjamas in South-East Asia, but *handwaving*

In all honesty I imagine Kofi Annan is in one sense hoping that the US <dubya>stays the course</dubya> solely because if the UN does have to go in and sort things out, they won't be able. I think the least damaging course of action at this point is for everyone to withdraw, let them fight it out amongst themselves (don't forget the Kurds vs. the Turks) and then welcome them into the UN once they've finished killing each other. Because any other scenario really does look like leading to a greater quantity of bloodshed, coupled with international grudge matches (i.e. they killed our people, we'll kill theirs)

It's all a mess. It's debatable whether a lack of invasion would have resulted in a greater or lesser mess; I think the death of Hussein Pére would have caused a mess as well as his sons scrambled to take his post while everyone else scrambled to depose them. But right now, people are saying things were better under Hussein, and they mean it. It doesn't matter if it's true or not, because it's perception that counts, not objective reality. So, it's all going to end in tears. And blood, and sweat, and other fluids I'm sure. I only hope that it does end.

[bitpuddle.livejournal.com]

My hope is that the only thing (politically) worse than blowing the deadline, which was hasty to begin with, would be to install a shaky government, hand over control, and have the whole mess descend deeper into chaos.

[kodi]

Honestly, I think it's just a game of chicken - the administration is counting on some sort of excuse to pop up between now and then, so they can say "Well, we WERE ready to hand over on June 30, but then so-and-so had to go and such-and-such, and you don't change horses in midstream, do you? Bush-Cheney '04."