Expectations for Iraq downshifting (C.S. Monitor)

[Up2Late]

USA > Foreign Policy
from the August 17, 2005 edition

Expectations for Iraq downshifting

Administration downplays missed deadline for Iraqi constitution, but political progress is coming slowly.

By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON – Twenty-eight months after US forces helped pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad's Firdos Square, the Bush administration is facing a hard reality: its vision for Iraq's immediate future may need to be scaled back.

For one thing, Baghdad isn't going to be the seat of a new Jeffersonian democracy anytime soon. The transitional government's struggles to draft a new constitution have revealed deep fissures among Iraq's Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites.

The nation's economy isn't soaring either. Estimates of unemployment range from 27 to 40 percent. Iraqi's security situation hardly needs elucidation. In the US, the media are full of conflicting reports of when American troop withdrawals may occur.

The United States itself, at its founding, took years to become politically stable. The bottom line is that it may be at least that long, if not longer, before it is apparent whether there is any historical equivalence between the Philadelphia of 1776 and the Baghdad of 2005.

<http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0817/p01s02-usfp.html>
(more at the link above)

[Postman]

1. Is this an excuse to never leave?

We all knew it wasn't about democracy or any of the other BS reasons they invaded Iraq.

Now they are "downgrading" their expectations as to what can be achieved in Iraq.

Yeah, right. And my name is Jesus Christ.

They are never leaving.

[saigon68]

6. Its Iraq-Nam we are in for the long haul 20 or 30 years

Just like the original Viet-Nam

Eventually we will be chased out by a crowd with pitchforks, torches and IEDs

[rodeodance]

2. lower expections for the rights of women also--huh bush?

[fishnfla]

3. so the high oil prices are sustaining Iraq's economy

very interesting

[Up2Late]

4. And...The Iraq War has push U.S. Oil consumption up in a BIG way!

2+2= Record Oil Company Profits, (Wink)(Wink);-)

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. "Downshifting" a new bullshit euphemism for FAILED PNAC WET DREAM

What other outcome did a thinking person expect out of this mess?

[Up2Late]

7. kick n/t

:kick: