Tuesday, July 17, 2007
The Pentagon is playing games
War games, which is something they regularly do to give themselves an idea of what will result from various actions they may take. This time they are working on the possible results of US withdrawal from Iraq. According to the Washington Post article from Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks, the predicted results will not be good.
If U.S. combat forces withdraw from Iraq in the near future, three developments would be likely to unfold. Majority Shiites would drive Sunnis out of ethnically mixed areas west to Anbar province. Southern Iraq would erupt in civil war between Shiite groups. And the Kurdish north would solidify its borders and invite a U.S. troop presence there. In short, Iraq would effectively become three separate nations.But this is not the only try by the governmental haruspices, and the predictions are as varied as the people making them. In the end the final quote of the article should be taken as the best course possible.
That was the conclusion reached in recent "war games" exercises conducted for the U.S. military by retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson. "I honestly don't think it will be apocalyptic," said Anderson, who has served in Iraq and now works for a major defense contractor. But "it will be ugly."
White, speaking at a recent symposium on Iraq, addressed the possibility of unpalatable withdrawal consequences by paraphrasing Winston Churchill's famous statement about democracy. "I posit that withdrawal from Iraq is the worst possible option, except for all the others."
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