Bush's new plan
It's not out yet, but taking shape. Looks like the following will be factors:
1) New Deal type jobs program.
2) Troop surge to deal with ethnic cleansing in Baghdad.
Color me skeptical. The New Deal didn't have armed thugs waiting to kill anyone who is helping to move the country forward. The troop surge will likely be too little, too late (see the Slate article referenced below this post). A recent article in the houston chronicle (not linkable, alas) by two retired generals mentions that the troops required will be 30,000 and lasting for 1.5 years, that's just in baghdad.
I think that the ethnic cleansing has completely consumed the worlds attention, and prevented work in other parts of the country from carrying out (that plus the usual graft and greed). Really i think it's pretty much a shithole which isn't going to change any time soon; the ethnic tentions, the tribal tensions, the manipulation by Syria and Iran, the flight/murder of intellectuals; all this points to a country that will be mired in the third world for decades to come.
1) New Deal type jobs program.
2) Troop surge to deal with ethnic cleansing in Baghdad.
Color me skeptical. The New Deal didn't have armed thugs waiting to kill anyone who is helping to move the country forward. The troop surge will likely be too little, too late (see the Slate article referenced below this post). A recent article in the houston chronicle (not linkable, alas) by two retired generals mentions that the troops required will be 30,000 and lasting for 1.5 years, that's just in baghdad.
I think that the ethnic cleansing has completely consumed the worlds attention, and prevented work in other parts of the country from carrying out (that plus the usual graft and greed). Really i think it's pretty much a shithole which isn't going to change any time soon; the ethnic tentions, the tribal tensions, the manipulation by Syria and Iran, the flight/murder of intellectuals; all this points to a country that will be mired in the third world for decades to come.
Any comments welcome, and may be edited/removed at any time without notification.
