Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Future of Iraq could be like that of South Korea

The trouble is that federal agencies, including the military, are bloated, bureaucratic and inefficient monsters. The immediate problem of security is a result of the government bureaucracy being unable to quickly and efficiently train Iraqi security forces. A phased withdrawal will encounter the same problems of bureaucracy and will be at least as much as a disaster because it will remove soldiers due solely to a schedule instead of actual circumstances which will open a greater vacuum for nefarious elements to fill. Anyone thinking there is a clean solution is only fooling themselves. In the end, the success of Iraq doesn't lie with the USA but with the Iraqi people. We can only persevere to build and refine the security forces while the Iraqi people get the kinks out of their government. Will this succeed? Yes, we have done this before. South Korea is an example where the USA set up a defective democracy and security forces that ended up being used to repress the people, kill demonstrators, and make opponents "disappear". Despite its numerous mistakes, the USA stayed and did what it could. Eventually the South Korean people made democracy a reality and is now one of the USA's most important partners economically, politically and militarily. If we give up on Iraq like Americans raised on action movies with a clean ending in less tha two hours, we will not have another success story like South Korea. We must have faith and realize that it won't be easy and it won't happen quickly.

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