Charlie Rose

ShalomFreedman  03/05/2010 08:18 AM Report

General Petraeus is an American hero, whose most well- known achievement is the Surge which at least for a time turned things around in Iraq. Here he presents a reasonable and sane defense of what the United States is doing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He makes a strong case for the importance of Iraq in terms of its energy resources. Nonetheless as someone who has lived in the Middle East for many years I cannot help being skeptical about the U.S. hope of creating a stable Iraq allied with the U.S. a stable Afghanistan allied with the U.S. This area is one of incessant conflict between competing ethnic, religious, national groups. I am not sure General Petraeus is correct in assuming the Iraqis will not be eventually under the direction of the Iranian Shiites.

We know General Petraeus as a first rate military figure. But here he sounds very much like a successful politican saying all the right things about his boss, the President.

One point which irritated. General Petraeus in surveying the whole of the Middle East pointed to Iraq or perhaps Lebanon as most democratic. Perhaps he was thinking only of the Islamic Middle East. But he forgot the one and only true democracy in the area, Israel.

On the whole I would like to believe that the United States is on the way to success in these areas. But in the long- term the United States is going home. The peoples of the area know that, and they probably have a lot more fear of those forces they know are likely to still be there when the Americans have left.

doodahdaze  03/04/2010 06:53 PM Report

All Iraq needs, is a saner Saddam Hussein. Just like, all America needs is a saner Ross Perot.

Hell, all the world needs, is a saner people.

REMant  03/04/2010 05:14 PM Report

I am not sure I would consider either Iraq or Afghanistan to be counter-insurgency situations. Pakistan perhaps. In order to have an insurgency, you have to have a govt in place that the insurgent guerrillas are trying to overthrow. That was not the case in Iraq, nor is it in Afghanistan. It's merely wishful thinking. Otherwise it has to be called civil war. No doubt they would have called the South insurgents and Reconstruction counter-insurgency. Some commentators, however, believe the govt situation in Iraq is greatly improved, despite the fact that the Shia are looking a lot like the Sunnis did. I see the Washington Post-owned Newsweek Magazine has called that conflict over with the emergence of a "democratic Iraq," much as it did the recession when the stock mkt rebounded a year ago. They must think things are all a matter of "positive thinking." In any case, clearly, what the general and others are calling counter-insurgency is in fact nation-building. I'll be willing to bet, incidentally, that a lot of that "all-star team" is none too happy to have had their career paths disrupted by it. Without the Pakistani offensive and the special operations things would be looking a lot less bright in Afghanistan no matter how few civilians we kill. Re Karzai's repeated attempts to conciliate the Taliban(s): Diem constantly tried to do the same thing in Vietnam, accusing the US of sabotaging the process, which, of course was nonsense in comparison to his govt's corruption. The attempt was seen by the Viet Cong as weakness. The Phoenix program to assassinate the Viet Cong leaders was one of the most counterproductive programs there, and the same will likely prove so in Afghanistan, because that kind of thing plays into the hands of factions, who will use it to get at their rivals, and provocateurs who would prefer the anarchy that would result from that. I still think the West misunderstands Iran's motives, which are foremost to hang onto its Islamic revolution, and maintain a balance of power in the region. Sanctions can only serve to force them into direct military action in the interest of preserving one or both.