Train wreck 2 (avalanche)

From Juan Cole "Guest Opinion:Iraq Avalanche Unstoppable"

"The Iraq Avalanche Cannot be Stopped"

by Alan Richards

University of California Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA
June 24, 2005

...There is a way, however, in which I am troubled by what I perceive as a tacit assumption--a very American assumption,--underlying most of the discussion. It seems to me that even "pessimists" are actually "optimists": they assume that there exists in Iraq and the Gulf some "solution", some course of action which can actually lead to an outcome other than widespread, prolonged violence, with devastating economic, political, and social consequences.

I regret to say that I think this is wrong. There is no "solution" to this mess; it is sometimes not possible to "fix" things which have been broken. I can see no course of action which will prevent widespread violence, regional social upheaval, and economic hammering administered by oil price shocks. This is why so many of us opposed the invasion of Iraq so strenuously in the first place! We thought that it would unleash irreversible adverse consequences for (conventionally defined) US interests in the region. I am very sorry to say that I still think we were right. ...

There is much more and this post, unsettling as it is, is worth following the link to Juan Cole's site and the few minutes it takes to read it.

The post ends with this paragraph:

So let me close where I began: I think it is delusional to imagine that there exists a "solution" to the mess in Iraq. From this perspective, the folly of Bush, Cheney and Company in invading Iraq is even worse than most informed observers of the region already think. Starting an avalanche is certainly criminal. It does not follow, however, that such a phenomenon can be stopped once it has begun.

Delusional to imagine there is a solution to the mess in Iraq and it is delusional to imagine there will be an easy way out of the consequences of our stupid reliance on oil. Rather than leading to a stable, imperial control of what oil remains in the ground, which is lot of the Bushista agenda, our actions in Iraq put our sources in greater jeopardy. Withdrawal from this addiction will not be pretty.