Uh oh, Stratfor.com is worried about Iraq too

[Barney Gumble]

"The failure of the United States to achieve a decisive victory in Iraq can have a massive effect on the global war. The United States has now invaded two countries: Afghanistan and Iraq. In both, the regime has been displaced and the strategic threat to the United States eliminated.

Yet in neither case has the United States been able to impose a Pax Americanus. The inability to reach a completely satisfactory outcome undermines the perception the United States wanted to achieve -- relentless, irresistible power. U.S. officials knew they could do nothing about anti-Americanism in the Islamic world, so they moved to compensate by increasing fear of the United States.

The current situations in Afghanistan and Iraq are, from this standpoint, unsatisfactory; they undermine the intent of the war and represent a major crisis in U.S. global strategy. Therefore, the next few weeks and months are, in our mind, absolutely critical in defining the shape -- difficulty, length and outcome -- of not only the Iraq campaign but the global war as well. We are at a defining moment.

[expatriot]

1. wow, the ironies of history....

never before has so much ridden on an empire's ability to replace their own troops with cannon fodder rent-a-cop colonial soldiers from the empire's client states so that increasing casualties won't be US casualties.

[bemildred]

2. "In both, the regime has been displaced and the strategic

threat to the United States eliminated."

What strategic threat?
Neither of those countries were a strategic threat.
At least, if they were, we are in deep shit if anyone competent
gets pissed at us.

I gave up on stratfor some time ago. They suck up to the
government PR spin too much.

[teryang]

3. "What strategic threat?"

<The United States has now invaded two countries: Afghanistan and Iraq. In both, the regime has been displaced and the strategic threat to the United States eliminated.>

What are they smoking over there? Al Qaeda, Taliban, and Iraq were never strategic threats. No power projection capability, and no nukes equals no strategic threat. There is however a crazy neocon strategy to dominate the world, perhaps their plans to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq were considered strategic in this regard. This article implies that the diastrous policy choices of the neocon administration can be saved by a vaguely defined epiphany of some sort. This is nonsense. The policy is a failure from the start based upon fraud, ignorance and totally juvenile concept of strategic power.

The turning point was when these narrow minded unaccountable ideologues took the country over by fraud in Dec. 2000. It's been all downhill since. Anyone who conjectures otherwise doesn't have a clue about the situation. Persons in positions of power who rely upon deception, violence and fear to obtain influence rather than positive inducements are rather limited in their understanding of power. By pushing matters to the extreme in order to obtain their venal objectives, they only hasten the unfavorable outcomes that they fear the most.

Forcibly invading foreign cultures only reinforces the strength of the rejection. It enhances the appeal and effectiveness of asymmetric responses like guerilla war and terrorism. The assumption that billions of people living in other countries have no recourse to intimidation is absurd. I can't get my neighbors, acquaintences or relatives to change their minds about anything. Is it likely that one can force their will on the tens of millions of hardened people with deadly force and tricky schemes carried out by people who don't have a clue about the culture they are "intimidating." Not likely. In the process, we've undermined our Constitutional infrastructure, the system of international law, and the multinational institutions and alliances that we rely on to create an environment conducive to commerce and the consensual exercise of power in a relatively stable world.

Good luck taking advice from Stratfor. In the past I've noticed that the dumbest intelligence officers read Stratfor to make up for what they didn't learn in college. Consequently they are incapable of grasping what Stratfor invariably misses in an effort not to disturb their corporatist readership. This is another cover your ass piece by Statfor.

[Gloria]

4. Stratfor is based in Texas.....maybe that

explains the BS about the "strategic threat" offered by Afghanistan and Iraq.

Is it "loco weed" they smoke in TX??