Iraq: Irreconcilable Differences...
...SO I was listening to something on NPR about the latest bombings in Iraq; apparently there were 4 car bombings up north, in villages of some tribe or group particularly friendly to the US. They believe the fact that these folks were friendly to us drew the hostile attention -- just like all those times people shot at and tried to blow up the police and military units friendly to us and working with us, etc.
And it got me thinking... Our government isn't ever going to support a government in Iraq that isn't modeled along lines WE think are right, or that isn't friendly to US. Stands to reason, right? Go in, take over, find some dudes who'll do what we want, put them in charge. So we have constraints on what we'll allow as far as a permanent government in Iraq to exist.
But THEY have constraints too; many of them don't seem to like us very much, and lots of the don't seem to see a lot of appeal in political institutions structured along the lines that Western culture dictates. And those constraints matter: it seems to be pretty hard to ram a government down the throats of an indigenous people and think that it will stick very long after you go home, if they don't buy into it.
Now in math, if you pile on too many constraints, pretty soon you find that there's no solution. It may be that that's what were facing; it may be that there will never be a permanent stable government in Iraq as long as we're in charge, because there won't ever be a government that meets the requirements on both sides.
And it got me thinking... Our government isn't ever going to support a government in Iraq that isn't modeled along lines WE think are right, or that isn't friendly to US. Stands to reason, right? Go in, take over, find some dudes who'll do what we want, put them in charge. So we have constraints on what we'll allow as far as a permanent government in Iraq to exist.
But THEY have constraints too; many of them don't seem to like us very much, and lots of the don't seem to see a lot of appeal in political institutions structured along the lines that Western culture dictates. And those constraints matter: it seems to be pretty hard to ram a government down the throats of an indigenous people and think that it will stick very long after you go home, if they don't buy into it.
Now in math, if you pile on too many constraints, pretty soon you find that there's no solution. It may be that that's what were facing; it may be that there will never be a permanent stable government in Iraq as long as we're in charge, because there won't ever be a government that meets the requirements on both sides.