[CLUE-Talk] Iraq Stuph

[Timothy C. Klein]

* Dennis J Perkins (djperkins at americanisp.net) wrote:
> The war was the easy part.  The hard part will be setting a government 
> that does what we want.  The politicians talk about setting up a 
> democracy but
> when the people don't know what one is, how long will we stay to teach 
> them?  Will the Iraqis still be so happy to see there in two years? 
> Will we be asking ourselves why we are there?  Bush's wanting to keep 
> the UN out won't look good either.

This sentiment, while seemingly innocent, is what scares the rest of the
world.

"The hard part will be setting a government that does what we
want."

While I understand your sentiment, and even agree with it somewhat
(we do want at least mostly friendly government there, don't we?), it
could be terrifying to nations that have no ability to oppose us (which
is just about everybody, it seems these days.) We invaded a sovereign
nation (albeit a really nasty one) to put a new nation in its place
that "will do what we want." That is what most foreign nations see,
particularly Arabs. Add to this that our case for war was not strongly
made, in most non-Americans eyes, and that we invaded without any
blessing of the UN, NATO, etc., and we start to look like an 'empire'
to others, even if we don't rule our 'colonies' directly. If enough
people *think* we are an empire, it becomes irrelevant whether or not we
actually are. Our neighbors will treat us as one.

And in the long term, I think this may cause more trouble than good.
Hopefully I am wrong.

Tim
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