Okay, there’s a million-zillion things that could still go horribly, horribly wrong. But …<\/p>\n
The trickiest part of the Iraq war will be bringing it to a completion, and making sure that it completes in a controlled fashion.<\/p>\n
Turkey sending troops into the north? Bad sign.<\/p>\n
Accounts of negotiations between some Iraqi officials and third countries? Bad sign.<\/p>\n
The idea everyone’s sort of had is either a “Berlin Bunker” style of wrapping the war up, or else a “Strung Up in the Street” style of Saddam’s end, with the Iraqi army either destroyed or laying down its arms at that point. <\/p>\n
The more other parties deal themselves in en route to victory, the messier this all becomes. Imagine, for example, if France announced that it had reached an agreement with Tariq Aziz, acting for an incapacitated Saddam Hussein, to have Hussein shipped to a third party, and Aziz take over, with promises to disarm fully, if a cease-fire is declared — would the US coalition realistically be able (or, more important, willing) to say no?<\/p>\n
If there is a cease-fire before Baghdad is securied, it’s going to be 1991 all over again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Okay, there’s a million-zillion things that could still go horribly, horribly wrong. But … The trickiest part of the Iraq war will be bringing it to a completion, and making…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":444,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/14\/i_wonder_if_the.html","url_meta":{"origin":3846,"position":0},"title":"I wonder if they can get their medals back","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 14-Apr-03 9:32am","format":false,"excerpt":"No wonder Russia is having so much trouble in Chechnya. Last week it was disclosed that two retired three-star generals -- Vladislav Achalov (a former paratrooper and specialist in urban...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3466,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/11\/15\/out_of_the_mout.html","url_meta":{"origin":3846,"position":1},"title":"Out of the mouths of babes","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 15-Nov-02 6:59am","format":false,"excerpt":"Pre-School Kids Protest Possible War in Iraq. Though most students at the rally could not even name Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, many seemed certain the pending U.S. led war in...","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3775,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/30\/balance_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":3846,"position":2},"title":"Balance","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 30-Mar-03 8:52pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Amnesty International has presented Tony Blair with a petition demanding that the UK make sure that the Coalition forces abide by the Geneva Convention during the Iraq War. The various...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8948,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/03\/17\/iraq_then_and_n.html","url_meta":{"origin":3846,"position":3},"title":"Iraq, Then and Now","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 17-Mar-06 11:51am","format":false,"excerpt":"NBC journalist Richard Engel, who's been posted to Iraq pre-war and post-war, offers an assessement of life then vs. life now. Regarding Safety, for example: UNDER SADDAM Personal safety was...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3985,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/04\/eggs_in_one_bas.html","url_meta":{"origin":3846,"position":4},"title":"Eggs in one basket","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 4-Mar-03 11:34am","format":false,"excerpt":"Has Kim Jong Il offered Saddam Hussein asylum? Maybe. Maybe not. If he has, maybe he could give the Iraqi leader a personal tour of one of his nuclear weapons...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4286,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/09\/30\/mixed_blessings.html","url_meta":{"origin":3846,"position":5},"title":"Mixed blessings","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 30-Sep-03 7:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The White House is having an uphill climb with its request for reconstruction funds for Iraq. Everyone on Capitol Hill seems pleased as punch to spend $60-odd billion on military...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}