On the Sunnis, they make up about 30% of the population while the Shi'ites make up 60%. If the Sunnis are loyal to Saddam for power, who will stop the US from stealing their idea and granting them power when we topple Saddam? If a clan of mercenaries is the only thing between us and a stable government, we should consider ourselves lucky. "Loyalty" is one nuisance they would rather do without.
Not mercenaries, but senior bureaucrats, military leadership, and most importantly, leaders of the all-powerful intelligence agencies.
The Kurds have fought off Baghdad and now live in unrecognized autonomy. If they were able to achieve this without US military support against an army that was once the 4th largest in the world, think of what they could do with our training and weapons.
The opposite is true. The Kurdish opposition has had military sopport and training since the first Gulf War, and the only thing that keeps Saddam's troops out of the Kurdish area is that it is the "Northern No-Fly Zone."
The INC is based in London and is mainly an anti-Saddam coalition with no real military authority. Although it is dominated by Kurds, all groups are included. It was never meant to serve as the government of Iraq, rather it set a precedent to be followed.
The INC is dominated by Chalabi who is a Shi'a from an old Baghdad family of wealthy businessmen that was forced to flee Iraq in 1958 when the Baath party came to power. The two Kurdish groups and most of the other groups left the INC around the time of the 1995 uprising.
Is the post-Taliban government successful? You're asking me to judge a government based on 7 months of existence. What has happened so far is miraculous. On September 10th, who could have predicted that Zahir Shah would once again be the father of Afghanistan, and Hamid Karzai would be heading a government that represents all tribes? It has flaws, but for an ass-backwards nation they have done a damn good job.
Not a miracle. An extremely difficult task of nation building that is only in the beginning stages and is showing signs of failure. The central government has almost no authority outside of Kabul, and even inside Kabul he is under assault, as in the assassination of one of the vice presidents, Hajji Abdul Qadir, last month and aviation and tourism minister, Abdul Rahman in February. The only thing holding the warlords at bay is the presence of US Special Forces. If they are pulled away to Iraq, what's left of the fragile coalition of support around Karzai will fall apart.
On the nature of the Iraqi opposition and the politcal and bureaucratic structures in Iraq, I don't know where you're getting your information, but it's not good. We've agreed and disagreed on these international relations issues for a long time now, so hope you know I respect your opinions, but I'd like to see how your view of things are with better sources. I suggest you download the pdf of the trascripts of the Senate hearings held on July 31 and August 1. I put these in pdf form and created the bookmarks to the panels and subitted statements for a friend's organization, so it's easy to navigate. Read the submitted statement of Phebe Marr, from the National Defense Institute, and the Q&A for the fourth witness panel titled "The Day After". http://epic-usa.org/policywatch/senhearings01.pdf
On Afghanistan, there's a great article by a long-time expert on Afghanistan in the NYT on the current state of Afghanistan. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/28/magazine/28NATION.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
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This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 8-30-02 @ 5:01 PM