Gary,

I've updated the essay to deal specifically with the Shia-Iran point, although it was because John Quiggin raised it - it was before I saw your piece. However, I don't think your essay raises any additional issues. Nevertheless, on your approach, America would have left Europe enslaved to the Nazis because the post-war situation was unknowable and possibly dangerous, and might advantage the USSR. Well, of course, it did! But would you really say we should have left the Nazis in place? Or don't you think Saddam is as bad?

Ken,

Re natonal building in Europe. That was 60 years ago in the context of the USSR as a superpower. It is very different today when the world of nation states is structured by a US hegemon or empire. Why cannot we take Afghanistan now as a reference point rather than 1945 post war Europe?

The bit about Saddam is a cheap shot. C'mon Ken. Where in my weblogs do I indicate that the current Iraqi regime is anything other than oppressive,is totalitarian, has a history of volence towards different ethnic groups(Kurds and Shi'ites) and a policy of extermination towards its opponents.

Who is saying that Saddam should be left in place? Not me. See previous post--good journalism & some realism.

I have argued for a defence of working thrrough the UN as the best hope for global security. This is what a majority of public opinion wants in Australia--checks and balances on the US throwing its weight around the world under the neocon hawks who want absolute freedom.

My argument is that empire concerns will dominate in the Middle East. On my scenario the fallout from the war means that things will be more more unpredictable than the rosy scenario suggests.

My argument is two fold. It says that the new Iraqi regime will be more liberal than democratic, since its primary job as a client state is to protect US global interests in the region against Islamic states---primarily to contain Iran.

Secondly such a liberal regime backed by US military muscle will fire up anti-Western anger in Indonesia and so affect Australia's strategic regional interests.

What I am introducing against the rosy liberal enlightement picture of evolutionary progress is the clash of civilizations scenario.

That alternative scenario is what should be criticised, rather than firing of cheap shots. The alternative scenario could well be wrong as it has been introduced as a worst case one.

Gary,

I'm trying to move the debate on from talking about whether military action should or should not take place (as my essay states). What I'm interested in for present purposes is to try to analyse what the geopolitical scenarios might be after the war, not to continue the endless debate about whether war should occur or whether an ongoing inspection/containment regime is preferable. I know what you think about that, and you know what I think; there is nothing more to say.

In that context, I'm suggesting it isn't enough just to assert that the post-war situation wil be uncertain and there will be dangers. Of course there will. What we need to do is assess the nature and magnitude of the dangers, and what policies and strategies might be adopted to deal with them. Thus, I suggest that there are ways of dealing with the danger of a pro-Iran Shia party developing, just as there are ways of dealing with the Kurdish issue.

In fact, current experience suggests the Kurdish issue is somewhat exaggerated. The Iraqi Kurds have been an effectively completely autonomous region ever since the no-fly zone was imposed. They haven't shown a propensity to foment rebellion among the Turkish Kurds, and Turkey doesn't appear to have been destabilised as a result. No doubt that's why Turkey seems no longer concerned about the Kurds as such. It's just interested in squeezing the Americans for as much money as possible as the price of allowing them to use Turkish soil as a staging post for an assault on Iraq from the north.

I suggest your doomsday scenario of unmanageable post-war problems is very exaggerated. I also suggest that an analogous situation would be one somewhere between post-war Germany and current Afghanistan. Iraq is nowhere near as united and cohesive as Germany was, with a relatively long history as a unified nation state with an advanced system of government. But nor does it consist of a completely disunited group of feudal warlords with a history of almost continual warfare going back centuries. It is a relatively advanced country with an educated governing elite, but some potential ethnic tensions and rivalries that could cause problems unless handled carefully. There is every reason to believe that it can be turned into an advanced liberal democracy with intelligent, careful nation-building strategies. Whether the Bush Administration has the capacity to deliver those strategies is another question.

>>"No doubt that's why Turkey seems no longer concerned about the Kurds as such." -- The U.S. told the P.U.K. on the weekend they had to down arms and let the Turks take over Nth Iraq, to which they said, understandably, feck off. Given Turkey's ancient claims to Kirkuk (world's great oil prize), armed presence of all major ethnic groupings as well as Iran, the U.S. is going to have to fork over billions and billions to keep people bribed and pacified. www.puk.org for more info

Ken,
I concur.. .Both of us want to move the debate on from the 'going to war' issue. I havce very little to add to what I have said--and have no interest in polemics on this.

AFrom what I can see we are both trying to explore what will happen after the war. Both have also tried to assess the nature of the dangers (Australia for me) and the possible strategic responses to these dangers. It strikes me that we are doing something similar here, but we have different ways of going about it.

I don't doubt what you say about the possibilities of Iraq becoming a modern liberal democratic state.I really do hope the Iraqi's can pull it of. But it is not Australia's fight--apart from providing sanctuary for the refugees from the fallout of regime change.

My pessimism is a deliberate counterpoint to liberal optimism. Butit is underpined by an argument with two strands. First I do not think that the Bush administration is deeply committed to this --empire concerns dominate. Both of us are sceptical on this one. Me more so, cos I fear that the Iraqi people will be sold down the river on democracy.

Secondly, a successive nation state requires some sort of national cohesion to hold it together. I do not see any attempt to think through a future Iraq as a multinational state consisting of Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shi'ites Arabs.

What I sense is an ongoing repression of ethnic difference--of Kurds and Shi'ites through the continuation of the mechanisms and personnel of the current Iraqi regime. The concerns of state rides over all because it has to maintain stability in the region and act to contain Iran.

>>What I sense is an ongoing repression of ethnic difference--of Kurds and Shi'ites through the continuation of the mechanisms and personnel of the current Iraqi regime. Isn't this -- the fear that the colonialist, artificial boundaries of Iraq, imposed by the West on the Middle East in such a way that people like the Kurds and Palestinians remain seemingly permanently disenfranchised and unfree? The big reason why Bush Sr. didn't take down Saddam the first time was because it was not in the self interest of the USA. That's why they can continue to blithly deny the human rights of Kurds. Why warbloggers aplenty, such as the current visitor to these boards, can continue to callously ignore them in his analysis. As for the Arab "Street" and the removal of Saddam -- The neighbouring states of Iraq (ie Saudia Arabia, Jordan)nominally allies of the U.S.A., believed such a move would also be highly destablising to their own regimes, by encouraging wahabbists of the extremist variety to exploit the chaos and fog of war to accomplish similiar to them in a no-holds bar war that starts with Iraq and finishes in Riyad and East Jerusalem. Indeed this is the advice of the pro-arabists inside the CIA like that Pelletierer chappie, who continually have been at War under Shrub with the pro Israeli "dual loyalties" crowd in the Pentagon -- you know, the people who plan to trigger the return of Jebus. They explicity do not want a peaceful settlement with anyone, until they have recaptured the Temple Mount for the Israeli state. These people are now in government in Israel with Sharon, and 33 palestinians were killed last week, along with several Israelis. Countless millions are now at dire risk of a nuclear, chemical or biological catastrophe, yet we sit as stunned mullets and deny what is happening all around us.

PS I am off the throw "peace balls" at the Big Pineapple at Parliament House with the Green Party.

*er, "to throw"