Cut & Run?
November 17th, 2003 - 12:55 am
Leave aside (for the moment, anyway) the obvious slant of this Independent story — just read it for the facts:
The United States accepts that to avoid humiliating failure in Iraq it needs to bring its forces quickly under international control and speed the handover of power, Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, has said. Decisions along these lines will be made in the “coming days”, Mr Solana told The Independent.
The comments, signalling a major policy shift by the US, precede President George Bush’s state visit this week to London, during which he and Tony Blair will discuss an exit strategy for forces in Iraq.
Anyone seen another report on this? If true, it’s big.
And a very, very stupid idea.
Decisions will be made????
Well, that’s one way to lose an election if he does it.
I’d take that with a heaping shovelful of salt. If it was from Blair, or Bush, or Powell, I’d say there might be something to it, but if it’s Javier Solana saying the US must bring it’s forces under international control well, I think he’s off in the la-la land of internationalist wishful thinking. Which isn’t a new thing for him.
Forces under international control?
ERROR
bwooop!
ERROR
bwooop!
But wait — this article is the NULL set. No American officials are quoted; Javier Solana spews only bland diplo-speak. Last but not least it all reeks mightily of Euro-sneering — always a good sign Good Journalism was not foremost in the author’s mind.
Still, what an idea! The thought of placing our troops under “international control” is uniquely horrifying. It had better be false.
Colin is on his way to discuss things, tho.
I think what’s happening in this article is Solana preparing for an announcement in the coming weeks that there will be a NATO or possibly even UN flag over the coalition forces in Iraq.
However, the real control will still be with the US, as in Bosnia or Kosovo. Solana gets to say that the Americans “begged for help.” An international flag may help grease the skids for Japanese or Korean forces in Iraq.
Winds of Change has an excellent discussion of this, with some links everyone should follow and read before jumping to any conclusions. The antiwar types are going to be spinning this one as hard as they can, so please read the whole thread and don’t let Javier Solana upset you.
What Javier Solana has to say about US intentions is less than irrelevant. Does this really sound like something the Bush administration would submit to. In fact, it would represent a complete about face from everything the administration has said.
Hasn’t Bush earned any credit for steadfastness yet?
Is anyone seriously attaching more significance to the pronouncements of Javier friggin’ Solana than GWB?
The Independent and the Guardian have had stuff like this before – stories about how the Bush administration was going to do this or that – only to be proven wrong later.Consider the source.
Sorry boys. Wishing doesn’t make it so.
That was directed at Solana et al, right erp? ‘Cause it’s never gonna happen.
Perhaps a political landscape with more Iraqi control but certainly not a military posture with international control. Mr. Solan has gotten his hands on some of that “good” crack.
Giving international control of our armed forces would be the definition of a humiliating failure. I wish George Orwell were alive to see this bit of poo.
It was directed at anybody who thinks the U.S. is going to back down and put our military under foreign command.
My time is my own and I will personally make it my life’s work to defeat Bush if even the perception of anything like this happens.
Steve,
First, this “newspaper” is not exactly a reliable source (I agree w/ JH) — and it certainly isn’t objective. (Read the vomit from a “correspondent” named Cornwell.)
Second, the very same Solano was quoted earlier this AM as stating that the Germans would send troops to Iraq, only to be contradicted within hours by their gov’t.
Finally…..100% agree w/ “erp”, just in case.
We have two, do I hear three?
Yeah. You have a tentative 3, erp.
Read all the comments and links on the Winds of Change thread. Then you don’t even need to speculate about Solana or the Guardian because you will hear it right from Bush and Rumsfeld’s mouths.
Check out Bruce Rolston’s blog Flit [www.snappingturtle.net/flit] for a good, cogent analysis (typically for him on military matters) on what this might REALLY mean for Iraq. Short version: “official” NATO cover for NATO troops already on the ground: big to-do over great new “internationalization” of Iraq effort.
Subtext: Sr. Solana is just grandstanding to make the EU look more important: hence the production of patent EU mierda about “humiliating failure” and “international control”.
But watch the upcoming news: Bush’s State Visit may be more interesting than we thought.
Okay, I give up. Everyone is keeping a big secret from me. Everyone (e.g., tacitus, windsofchange, newspapers, yada yada) is all excited about how we’re thinking of “cutting and running,” and I can’t find any evidence that we are. So, I give up. What’s the evidence that we’re thinking of cutting and running?
Am I supposed to take the fact that the administration wants to have an Iraqi govt installed eight months from now as evidence?
Oh, and another secret: Okay, okay I give up: Why is it that the leaked Iraq-alQaeda memo is not newsworthy?
Until some US policy makers are quoted this is just Solani’s wet dream. More accurately it’s his bid to be important on the eve of Powell’s visit. It’s an outragous demand at the beginning of negotiations.
What’s really going on is a hedged bet. There is a long shot that a transformed Iraq will change the face of the Islamic world. I personally think this gamble has a damned slim chance of working. The payoff, if it does pay off, will be us not having to fight the rest of the Islamic world. Peace prosperity and self determination would be contagious. That’s a real payoff and is worth the gamble since it costs us nothing. Wether or not the Bush Administration tried this gamble we’d be over in Iraq anyway, doing just about exactly the same thing. We cannot take the next step without a base for our troops to attack from. Syria is small change, we’ll only move that way to solidify our rear and then only if they become too big a pain in the ass. The center of gravity is Saudi Arabia and Iran. Assume Bush’s gamble pays off, they’ll fall like the Soviet Union did after Reagan’s gamble. Problem solved, without Saudi Arabia and Iran, India would make short work of Pakistan.
Assume Bush’s gamble doesn’t pay off, we still can’t move on Iran and Suadi Arabia untill the Iraqi oil is flowing full stream. The world economy would collapse.Given the decripitude the Baathists left their biggest resource it’s doubtful we’ll be able to make the next major move until late ’04 or early ’05 even without the election cycle.
Meanwhile we’ll keep on trying. After all, there’s a bazillion pissed off pig fuckers that want to kill us. Either they get too wrapped up in their own affairs to care about killing us (best case) or we kill them or they kill us. It ain’t like we’d do real well under sharia so surrender is a nonstarter.
It’s real likely that if Bush’s gamble doesn’t pay off then sooner or later the Islamists are going to come up with some form of WMD eventually and we’d respond with nukes and then things will get very bad for a very long time.
“Everyone (e.g., tacitus, windsofchange, newspapers, yada yada) is all excited about how we’re thinking of “cutting and running,” and I can’t find any evidence that we are.”
A lot of the arguments and links on the WoC thread debunk the idea that we are cutting and running, which is why I suggested it.
My initial reaction to reading Sr. Solana’s statement was that it sounded a lot like all the statements the EU people were spewing the week before President Bush gave his now famous speech about the Palestinians.
They were all salivating about how he was going to have to cave in and slap Israel down hard, and instead, he completely shut them up for weeks by saying things they never would have guessed he’d say, calling for real change from the Palestinians as the first steps toward getting a Palestinian state of their own.
So I expect this may be another one of those things. And if it is, this week might turn out to be really interesting. The press and the EUro’s just can’t stop misunderestimating him.
This will be an interesting week indeed. Bush in London and Powell in Brussels, asking NATO to give US troops in Iraq its good label to hid behind.
This from an old American:
The day that U.S. troops need anyone, least of all NATO, to hid behind, is the day all hope for peace, justice, truth, liberty and sanity on planet Earth will have come to an end.
And that’s not going to happen, so old European, why not sit back and enjoy the paradise you and your socialist comrades have created in Europe and let us warmongering, imperialistic, running dogs of democracy undo the mess you’ve made in the Middle East.
I think it was Colin Powell who said going to war with the French is like going hunting with an accordion. No help, but a lot of hindrance.
Rest easy. We don’t need or want your help.
The Europeans keep behaving as though we’re just like the British but with funny accents. We are significantly different. For one thing our destinies are not entwined in the EU. Apparently they believe that catty whispering behind our backs like school girls will hurt our feelings (how could she wear those shoes with that purse!). It’s an odd way to manipulate foreign policy and certainly not very effective outside the salons of Europe.
But then aren’t their foreign & domestic politics predicated on everyone wanting, desiring, aspring to being just like them. Therefore, everyone must want to, n’est pas? So by that ironclad circular reasoning, Bush must be stupide et simplisme not to aspire to be French.
Maybe Old Europe can get him to join their clique by insulting his fashion sense in an attempt to manipulate him into desiring their approval. Well yeah that might work. Geeez.
I am looking forward to see his ‘Save the Queen’ boots again. Very fashionable.