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Gen. Petraeus & Crocker's Washington Show is a Damp Squib "Unable to even look at the fiasco anymore, the nation is now just waiting for someone to administer the last rites.---The prevailing verdict on the Petraeus-Crocker show is that it accomplished little beyond certifying President Bush's intention to kick the can to January 2009 so that the helicopters will vacate the Green Zone on the next president's watch ," Frank Rich in The New York Times 13 April, 2008
"George Bush's Iraq legacy will present his successor with a potential presidency-wrecker of a problem," Simon Tisdall in the Guardian 1 April  By the end of 1990, Iraq President Saddam Hussein, who had sent his forces into Kuwait on 2 August, having been misled by the US Ambassador April Galspie in Baghdad and a statement by the State Department spokesman, felt cornered. He had already given up the historical claims on Shatt-al Arab, a bone of perpetual tension and wars between Arab Iraq and Persian Iran and lost popularity .After all why then the 8-year debilitating war against Iran was fought?
However, Saddam Hussein was prepared to cut his losses further and withdraw his troops from Kuwait if granted immunity from attack and security. He made an offer to UN secretary-general de Cuellar but the die had been cast in the Western mind, hell bent on destroying Iraqi forces and bringing about a regime change. When asked in the Amman street, where he was quite popular, the feeling was that Saddam being Saddam would not withdraw his troops from Kuwait unilaterally , while retaining the disputed oil field and a Kuwaiti island which he coveted.( Until The British created the Emirate of Kuwait ,it was ruled by the Ottoman Pashas from Basra.) This was the nightmare scenario that US feared , because then the already assembled coalition force of a million troops around Iraq would have been difficult to keep together as even the Saudis appeared keen for a peaceful settlement.
It was believed that Saddam had become fatalistic by this time and believed that whatever concessions he made, Washington would go after him. The best outcome for him was to survive which he did, but at a tremendous cost to Iraq in the wake of the US - UK enforced sanctions because of which over half a million Iraqi children perished. This will remain another blot on the conscience of UNSC .But the misery and destruction heaped on that country and its hapless people continues.
If an act of mercy is twice blessed, then an act of illegal invasion and brutal occupation has since proved to be doubly cursed for the invaders as well. A hubris laden Washington, after the collapse the Soviet Union, to further spread its domination globally in line with the Neo-con project of a "New American century", now finds itself stuck in the Iraqi quagmire, from which like Saddam Hussein in Kuwait , President George Bush cannot withdraw . Won't the erstwhile hyperactive power lose face or the military industry complex , its bludgeoning profits! While Saddam listened to few advisers , Bush was a blank slate which the Neo-cons selected to 'make history ', as some claimed. Alas not as they had planned , with most of them now eased out of the decision making process but still making ugly noises ,except for some dead enders and Vice-President Dick Cheney with his malevolent influence on Bush and the US policy.
Remember George Bush had declared 'Mission accomplished' in 2003 itself , but now General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker define victory as 'sustainable security' in Iraq after the so-called 'success' of the 'Surge'. Nevertheless, both former Secretary of State Gen (Retd) Colin Powell and Gen Richard Cody ,US Army's vice chief of staff, said last week that current troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan are unsustainable and are damaging America's readiness to meet other security threats. In addition, that's not all that's unsustainable. An ailing economy can't keep floating the war's $3-billion-a-week cost. A Republican president intent on staying the Bush course will find his vetoes unsustainable after the Democrats increase their majorities in Congress in November. No war can be fought indefinitely if the public has irrevocably turned against it as the US polls indicate.
The greatest credit and speculative excess in US history.
Doug Noland of PrudentBear.com commented recently that Alan Greenspan was the undisputed governor, architect - the promulgator of what will be recognized as an epic failure in central banking. After all, he was for about 18 years the appointed guardian over a financial system that perpetrated the greatest credit and speculative excess in history. He dominated monetary policy like no other central banker in history. Chairman Greenspan not only negligently failed to act to reign in dangerous excesses, he became a vocal proponent for virtually all aspects of Wall Street finance.
Rapid Withdrawal Is Only Solution-Gen Odom tells US Senate In a testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 2 April 2008, Rtd Gen William .E.Odom declared that a rapid withdrawal was the only solution. Gen Odom had earlier told the Committee in January 2007, that the troop surge was only a new tactic to achieve the same old strategic aim, political stability, but it would not succeed .He said, "I see no reason to change my judgment now. The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for unity as the president claims."
"Last year, General Petraeus wisely declined to promise a military solution to this political problem, saying that he could lower the level of violence, allowing a limited time for the Iraqi leaders to strike a political deal. Violence has been temporarily reduced, but today there is credible evidence that the political situation is far more fragmented. Moreover, currently we see violence surge in Baghdad and Basra. In fact, it has also remained sporadic and significant in several other parts of Iraq over the past year, notwithstanding the notable drop in Baghdad and Anbar Province.
"More disturbing, Prime Minister Maliki has initiated military action and then dragged in US forces to help his own troops destroy his Shiite competitors. This is a political setback, not a political solution. Such is the result of the surge tactic.
"No less disturbing has been the steady violence in the Mosul area, and the tensions in Kirkuk between Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen. A showdown over control of the oil fields there surely awaits us. And the idea that some kind of a federal solution can cut this Gordian knot strikes me as a wild fantasy, wholly out of touch with Kurdish realities.
As for al Qaida ,Gen Odom said that the Sunnis welcomed anyone who would help them kill Americans, including al Qaida. " The Sunnis will soon destroy al Qaida if we leave Iraq. The Kurds do not allow them in their region, and the Shiites, like the Iranians, detest al Qaida." About the co-opted Sunni tribes, Gen Odom said, "that our new Sunni friends insist on being paid for their loyalty. I have heard, for example, a rough estimate that the cost in one area of about 100 square kilometers is $250,000 per day. And periodically they threaten to defect unless their fees are increased. -- Remember, we do not own these people. We merely rent them. And they can break the lease at any moment. At the same time, this deal protects them to some degree from the government's troops and police, hardly a sign of political reconciliation.
"--- the decline in violence reflects a dispersion of power to dozens of local strong men who distrust the government and occasionally fight among themselves. Thus, the basic military situation is far worse because of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who follow a proliferating number of political bosses. "This can hardly be called greater military stability, much less progress toward political consolidation, --At the same time, Prime Minister Maliki's military actions in Basra and Baghdad, indicate even wider political and military fragmentation. We are witnessing what is more accurately described as the road to the Balkanization of Iraq, that is, political fragmentation. We are being asked by the president to believe that this shift of so much power and finance to so many local chieftains is the road to political centralization. He describes the process as building the state from the bottom up.
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