Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: L'ultimo inganno

The Last Deception
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: September 21, 2004, New York Times
It's Ayad Allawi week. President Bush, starting with his address at the U.N.
today, will try to present Mr. Allawi - a former Baathist who the BBC
reports was chosen as prime minister because he was "equally mistrusted by
everyone" - as the leader of a sovereign nation on the path to democracy. If
the media play along, Mr. Bush may be able to keep the Iraq disaster under
wraps for a few more weeks.
It may well work. In June, when the United States formally transferred
sovereignty to Mr. Allawi's government, the media acted as if this empty
gesture marked the end of the war. Even though American casualties continued
to rise, stories about Iraq dropped off the evening news and the front
pages. This gave the public the impression that things were improving and
helped Mr. Bush recover in the polls.
Now Mr. Bush hopes that by pretending that Mr. Allawi is a real leader of a
real government, he can conceal the fact that he has led America into a
major strategic defeat.
That's a stark statement, but it's a view shared by almost all independent
military and intelligence experts. Put it this way: it's hard to identify
any major urban areas outside Kurdistan where the U.S. and its allies
exercise effective control. Insurgents operate freely, even in the heart of
Baghdad, while coalition forces, however many battles they win, rule only
whatever ground they happen to stand on. And efforts to put an Iraqi face on
the occupation are self-defeating: as the example of Mr. Allawi shows, any
leader who is too closely associated with America becomes tainted in the
eyes of the Iraqi public.
Mr. Bush's insistence that he is nonetheless "pleased with the progress" in
Iraq - when his own National Intelligence Estimate echoes the grim views of
independent experts - would be funny if the reality weren't so grim.
Unfortunately, this is no joke: to the delight of Al Qaeda, America's
overstretched armed forces are gradually getting chewed up in a losing
struggle.
So what's the answer?
The Bush administration fostered the Iraq insurgency by botching the
essential tasks of enlisting allies, rebuilding infrastructure, training and
equipping local security forces, and preparing for elections. It's
understandable, then, that John Kerry - whose speech yesterday was deadly
accurate in its description of Mr. Bush's mistakes - proposes going back and
doing the job right.
But I hope that Mr. Kerry won't allow himself to be trapped into trying to
fulfill neocon fantasies. If there ever was a chance to turn Iraq into a
pro-American beacon of democracy, that chance perished a long time ago.
Can the insurgency be crushed? It's widely believed that in November, a few
days after the election, the Bush administration will launch an all-out
offensive against insurgent-controlled areas. Such an offensive will, for
all practical purposes, be an attempt to conquer Iraq all over again. But
unlike Saddam's hapless commanders, the insurgents won't oblige us by taking
up positions in the countryside, where they can be blasted by U.S. air
power. And grinding urban warfare that leads to heavy American casualties
and the death of large numbers of innocent civilians will simply enlarge the
ranks of our enemies.
But if the chance to install a pro-American government has been lost, what's
the alternative? Scaling back our aims. This means accepting the fact that
an Iraqi leader, to have legitimacy, must be able to deliver an end to
America's military presence. Unless we want this war to go on forever, we
will have to abandon the 14 "enduring bases" the Bush administration has
been building.
It also means accepting the likelihood that Iraq will not have a strong
central government - and that local leaders will end up with a lot of
autonomy. This doesn't have to mean creating havens for hostile forces:
remember that for a year after Saddam's fall, moderate Shiite clerics
effectively governed large areas of Iraq and kept them relatively peaceful.
It was the continuing irritant of the U.S. occupation that empowered
radicals like Moktada al-Sadr.
The point is that by winding down America's military presence, while
promising aid to those who don't harbor anti-American terrorists and
retaliation against those who do, the U.S. can probably leave behind an Iraq
that isn't an American ally, but isn't a threat either. And that, at this
point, is probably the best we can hope for.

independent military and intelligence experts.
*ROTFL*
Peccato che Paul Krugman sia un esperto di economia e che del resto
capisca ben poco, seppure si ostini a parlare di tutto tranne che del
suo campo quando scrive i suoi "articoli" :)
 
-Stefano