How Many Troops
The deployment of additional troops in Iraq Deepening Quagmire
It seems that President Bush will announce an increase in "temporary" number U.S. troops deployed in Iraq. The president is adding complexity to a series of bad decisions he has made since the beginning of the invasion. It is hard to imagine how an increase of U.S. troops can solve a problem created by itself?
We have made the same mistake as the five star General Douglas MacArthur warned against Asia, "not to engage in a land war in Asia." Presidents Kennedy and Johnson did not take into account the views and the rest is history. Now, once again, we have a president who has volunteered (the United States was never attacked directly or indirectly by the evil of Saddam Hussein) in a ground war in a country Arabic, where suicide bombers are as common as a cup of coffee.
The basis of the advice of General MacArthur is that Asia's economic life. Our country is tired, and the public to continue the effort will be reduced before the opposition is tired of losing life. The same advice applies to the Middle East as it has been in Asia. Saddam Hussein, Iraq, Iran and the mullahs has lost several hundred thousand men in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, and do not feel the loss. States United States openly supported Saddam Hussein during the war, and prevented an Iranian victory in intervening with weapons and intelligence.
Our President, for its part continues receiving bad advice very same people who initiated this effort. Let's look at history to understand what is happening. Saddam Hussein was a tyrant like all other tyrants in this part of the world. Goggle "slaughter of Hama, and see how the Syrian leaders killed tens of thousands of its own people in 1982. When the mullahs submitted on Iran and the Shah, people can be hundreds of thousands of deaths as a result.
The history of the entire region is one of violence, instability, anarchy and uncertainty. In this simple sentence, you will understand why our president to install a democracy in Iraq can not work. All Middle Eastern countries have a unstable regime in power in a society whose members have a low tolerance for another, and are inherently unstable. Even if our president were able to force our democratic principles the people of Iraq, the whole system of the fall of the need to share a few months to a year or two as a new balance would be formed between warring factions.
This is not the fault of George Bush. Wrong simply left on the daily reality of the situation in Iraq. His advisers have failed miserably United States and his advisers do not change fast enough to understand what it is.
The main objective of all U.S. presidents and Congress is not to determine for our nation and our interests are. The then president should create a policy to advance our interests. It is no coincidence that the first invasion of Iraq in 1990 took place shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. Our policy in the Middle East so far to prevent Soviet penetration and domination the oil-rich Middle East.
With the fall of the Soviet Union, our policy has been to prevent any country in the region since establishment of hegemony in the region (the reason is oil). This was the sin of Saddam Hussein. He tried to control the region's oil wealth with the invasion Kuwait and Saudi Arabia thus neutralized. This should be avoided at all costs. In 1990, the cost was a US-led coalition to overthrow Saddam as a threat to stability oil in the region, so the first President Bush never Baghdad parade. removing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait was sufficient to ensure that hegemony is not created.
One the way the current President Bush got into his mind, even Saddam was a threat to stability in the region, and therefore invades again. This done, he opened the Pandora's box. Once the box was opened, no one can predict precisely how it will develop. Of course, made a number of things, none of which plays to our favor:
1) have been strengthened and encouraged Iran. We are no longer capable of threatening Iran with invasion to continue its nuclear program. We do not have the force structure to safeguard our threats.
2) We have strengthened in Syria, like Iran.
3) have worsened the situation in the conflict Arab-Israeli weakened our image as an honest third party in the conflict.
4) A destabilized Iraq as a country and as a working condition, no end game in mind.
5) We put our reputation online, and are at the lowest level of respect in the eyes of our allies since World War II.
6) Our position as moral leaders of this planet is in peril.
7) We have started a war we do not know how to finish.
What the President must do now is to recognize where we are. That's why the Congress lost the last election. Americans are never living room, or watch idly. We an active nation. If the President is not fast enough, the people elect others who will?
Our troops should be used for to train Iraqi forces, police and military, and not act as combatants in a country whose government has already been defeated. If the president considers necessary deployment additional troops, once these additional forces should be used to train Iraqi forces not to intervene. This is not a civil war among Muslims with Muslims, and sect against sect. It's not against the Catholic Protestant or a Jew against Arab. This is all taking place in the same religion. It is still ongoing, even within of sects. Sunni are killing Sunnis and Shiites Shiite death. We can not expect to be able to intervene against such indiscriminate slaughter.
We are all in a democracy, a beacon of light in a world where there is much darkness. Our ongoing efforts in Iraq could undermine the country any more than they could potentially bring Iran's nuclear create regional hegemony that we have tried to avoid Iraq creation. Was not it a sad state of affairs? Replace it with another monster.
Goodbye and good luck
About the Author
Richard Stoyeck’s background includes being a limited partner at Bear Stearns, Senior VP at Lehman Brothers, Kuhn Loeb, Arthur Andersen, and KPMG. Educated at Pace University, NYU, and Harvard University, today he runs Rockefeller Capital Partners and StocksAtBottom.com
Value Investing at StocksAtBottom.com
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