Ted Koppel on Iraq

[myboynoah]

Maybe this is SGC to you all, but I was listening to a podcast of Meet the Press from a few weeks back and heard Ted Koppel say this:

"I made a little note here of something that Ambassador Khalilzad said to you a moment ago. He said, 'The region will not be stable until Iraq is stabilized.' It’s the one thing nobody talks about. Everyone is concerned about the United States being in the middle of a civil war inside Iraq. But they forget about the fact that if U.S. troops were to pull out of Iraq, that civil war could become a regional war between Sunnis and Shia. And the region, just in case anyone has forgotten, is the Persian Gulf, where we get most of our oil, and, I’ve talked about this before, natural gas. So, the idea of pulling out of there and letting the region, letting the national civil war expand into a regional civil war, is something the United States cannot allow to happen.

I see a lot of wishful thinking going on here in Washington right now. I mean when Congress talks about, first of all, setting these these milestones. And, the irony is if the Iraqis successfully meet the milestones, the implication is we stay. If they fail to meet the milestones we leave. That doesn’t make any sense at all. It ought to be the other way around. If they fail, we stay because they need us. If they succeed, we can start to pull out again.

So, I, I have this feeling that on the one hand, the Democrats are making a great deal of hay out of saying we have to get out of Iraq, and indeed we do at some point or another. But the notion that the war will be over when we pull out of Iraq, and even when we pull out of Afghanistan, you heard what Gen. Abizaid had to say, it’s not going to be over. It’s going to be a different war, but the war continues."

I don't know, I realize I'm on the fringe of the current debate in the U.S., but I think this was the first time I'd heard anybody from the media fully verbalize the entirety of the dilemna so precisely. Frankly, I was shocked.

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by myboynoah

Maybe this is SGC to you all, but I was listening to a podcast of Meet the Press from a few weeks back and heard Ted Koppel say this:

"I made a little note here of something that Ambassador Khalilzad said to you a moment ago. He said, 'The region will not be stable until Iraq is stabilized.' It’s the one thing nobody talks about. Everyone is concerned about the United States being in the middle of a civil war inside Iraq. But they forget about the fact that if U.S. troops were to pull out of Iraq, that civil war could become a regional war between Sunnis and Shia. And the region, just in case anyone has forgotten, is the Persian Gulf, where we get most of our oil, and, I’ve talked about this before, natural gas. So, the idea of pulling out of there and letting the region, letting the national civil war expand into a regional civil war, is something the United States cannot allow to happen.

I see a lot of wishful thinking going on here in Washington right now. I mean when Congress talks about, first of all, setting these these milestones. And, the irony is if the Iraqis successfully meet the milestones, the implication is we stay. If they fail to meet the milestones we leave. That doesn’t make any sense at all. It ought to be the other way around. If they fail, we stay because they need us. If they succeed, we can start to pull out again.

So, I, I have this feeling that on the one hand, the Democrats are making a great deal of hay out of saying we have to get out of Iraq, and indeed we do at some point or another. But the notion that the war will be over when we pull out of Iraq, and even when we pull out of Afghanistan, you heard what Gen. Abizaid had to say, it’s not going to be over. It’s going to be a different war, but the war continues."

I don't know, I realize I'm on the fringe of the current debate in the U.S., but I think this was the first time I'd heard anybody from the media fully verbalize the entirety of the dilemna so precisely. Frankly, I was shocked.

You're not on the fringe. Congress is not going to do anything that is going to force the president to do anything, nor which will limit the options that the incoming president (a Democrat they hope) will have.

This is the reason that there is a fair amount of continuity in American foreign policy. The incoming President when (s)he focuses on what to do about Iraq, is going to realize (will probably have realized it long before) that the options on the table are the same ones the previous administration had. Will the next president want to be the one who starts WWIII by withdrawing?

In some ways I hope a Democrat wins if for no other reason than one you strip away the absolute hatred the left has for W, it will be able to take a much more rational view of what the course of action is going forward. Right now it is the opposite of whatever W says. In 2009, all the options will be out there and, marks my words, a Democrat president with by and large pursue the same policy that W has, even if it is dressed up a littel differently.

I think at the end of the day rational decisions makers will do the cost benefit analysis you have done and will keep us there as long as necessary. I actually think the American people would get behind this notion of keeping the region from coming apart if only someone would articulate it to them in a half way intelligent manner. But it will have to come from someone who does not have the baggage of having started the war on grounds that ultimately proved to be false.

[myboynoah]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

You're not on the fringe. Congress is not going to do anything that is going to force the president to do anything, nor which will limit the options that the incoming president (a Democrat they hope) will have.

This is the reason that there is a fair amount of continuity in American foreign policy. The incoming President when (s)he focuses on what to do about Iraq, is going to realize (will probably have realized it long before) that the options on the table are the same ones the previous administration had. Will the next president want to be the one who starts WWIII by withdrawing?

In some ways I hope a Democrat wins if for no other reason than one you strip away the absolute hatred the left has for W, it will be able to take a much more rational view of what the course of action is going forward. Right now it is the opposite of whatever W says. In 2009, all the options will be out there and, marks my words, a Democrat president with by and large pursue the same policy that W has, even if it is dressed up a littel differently.

I think at the end of the day rational decisions makers will do the cost benefit analysis you have done and will keep us there as long as necessary. I actually think the American people would get behind this notion of keeping the region from coming apart if only someone would articulate it to them in a half way intelligent manner. But it will have to come from someone who does not have the baggage of having started the war on grounds that ultimately proved to be false.

Then I'm really pissed off by the way Democratic leaders have thoroughly politicized their opposition to the war. Young men and women are dying while they try to score some political points. I rarely, make that never, hear a realistic alternative from the Democrats to maintaining our presence until the country is stabilized.

This is very depressing, hence my reaction to Koppel's statement of what to me is so obvious. Wow, somebody removed from the White House actually gets it and is saying it.

We need more voices like that to drown out the political gainsayers.

[BarbaraGordon]

Originally Posted by myboynoah

I rarely, make that never, hear a realistic alternative from the Democrats to maintaining our presence until the country is stabilized.

This is where I've been really impressed with Mitt. He is incredibly articulate in outlining exactly where mistakes have been made, but also in making it clear that the approach of "every soldier will be home within four months" is unrealistic at best.