What Happened to You!?!
Reader comment on item: Let Iraqis run Iraq

Submitted by Avraham (United States), Oct 17, 2003 at 00:00

Dr. Pipes, where to begin? This is without a doubt the worst analysis you have ever published. The problem that Coalition troops are now facing in Iraq is the same one that the Allies faced after World War I; we are meeting sharp and dedicated resistance to our efforts to reconstruct the Islamic world. Apparently, the violence against our troops has illicited the same shortsightedness from you that the first Intifada (1936) illicited from Winston Churchill: you favor placing a limited number of troops on air and desert bases and away from the population centers, and away from the real battle! If we do not take a proactive role in Iraq's reconstruction-at the level of long-term participation in reconstructing and militarily occupying Baghdad-then Iraq could become another Afghanistan, but with oil-power. Your cost-benefit analysis is way off. Your suggested policies would lose us an enormous amount of credibility in a Muslim world that hates infidels, but respects the use of force and hates cowards even more. Furthermore, our troops would be safer if we cut off the sources of terrorist/guerilla financing and sponsorship, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. A few more troops wouldn't hurt either. I hope you return to your usual logic and insight soon.

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