Interviewer: Some of these people you’re talking about. One of the questions they had in the chat room was, uh, if we pull out now…
Clark: (Could not hear what General Clark said but it drew a chuckle from the interviewer.)
Interviewer: We start the phased withdrawal now, how do we do that effectively and how do we do that so that…what’s left in Iraq once we leave?
Clark: You can’t…it not a mechanical process. You’ve got to have the diplomacy. You’ve got to go to the Iranians. And
you’ve got to say to the Iranians, look, you know we don’t want to be here. We don’t have any purpose in, we don’t want to be here. But we’re not going to leave a mess. And we need to work together on this thing, You don’t want a mess. Of course, they want what they want. It’s not what we want. But part of its what we want. Neither of us wants violence in there. We have to bring in the neighbors. We have to work agreements. We have to try to leave behind something that gives some assurance to the people of Iraq and the nations in the region, that this is not just going to devolve into a deep, immediate, irresolvable conflict that’s only settled by force. Maybe that’s impossible but right now it hasn’t been tried. Because the administration won’t have a serious engagement with Iraq’s neighbors.
So, what I’m trying to say is…it’s always taken diplomacy, politics and the military in Iraq. The administration…all they want to talk about is the military. And then when you criticize it, they say you’re not being patriotic because you’re criticizing the men and women in uniform. When, in reality, the men and women in uniform are doing what they’re told to do by the White House.
I’m not criticizing the men and women in uniform, I’m criticizing the White House. They’ve let our troops down. Interviewer: Yeah, and I don’t know what we could have done different militarily but why do you think the Iraqi government, why, why are they just not stepping up? What’s going on? Is it just the administrations fault or do you think some of the burden is on the people there.
Clark: Well, partly it’s the structure, but partly the structure reflects the fundamental underlying forces at play in Iraq. Long time repression of the Shia population, Iranian concerns and influence. They want their voice to be reflected in Iraq’s policies. If the United States had been invaded by Canada and we’d lost 3 million American’s in combat fifteen years ago and there was enormous turmoil in Canada, well, we’d be pretty interested in what was happening north of the border. The Iranian’s… anybody can understand why the Iranians would have an interest. Now that interest could be legitimate but it also might be improper interest if they are trying to takeover Iraq, that’s not right. If they’re trying to use Iraq to further their strategic aims at the expense of other states, that’s an improper interest. But we’re not going to be able to sort through those things or change them without an engagement and dialog. And so, that needed to have started several years ago. Had it, we might be in a very different position today. And it’s very hard when you’re in the military to, when you’re out there working to be able to wrestle with your media task and try to keep an eye on national policy. But,
Iraq is part of that region and the war is not isolatable because you can’t isolate Iraq from the region. There’s probably a million Iraqi’s who’ve lived in Iran at one point or another during the time of Saddam Hussein. Some of them have come back, probably a lot of the them have come back. They’ve got friends and relatives, they’re influencing people. There’s inter-marriages across those borders. There’s business relationships, there’s trade established, there’s people going to Tehran for hospital care. There’s probably people being sent to Iranian universities and so forth. People being sent there are probably being recruited by Iranian intelligence organizations. Who knows? We don’t know. But the point is, Iraq is not isolated from its neighbors and you can’t solve Iraq with military force. And you can’t simply pulls the troops out and wash your hands of it because we have too many interests in the area. So, it’s a deep, deep problem for the United States. I wish we had never invaded. I recommended against it but you know, now that we’re there, we’ve got a lot of work to do.
http://securingamerica.com/ccn/node/12921
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
