Given that the US forces will not likely be able to leave Iraq any time soon, and given that the Pentagon (at least the military planners) must have understood this, and given America's close ties with Israel, my first question is, as posed in this article;

Is Tikrit the new West Bank?

Also, I would like to ask;

What impact do you think Israeli style tactics will have, IF employed in Iraq by the US military? Both in Iraq itself, and in the wider Muslim world...

And finally...

Do you think we in the west understand the Muslims well enough to anticipate their reactions?

I would say 'no' because the West Bank is a formally agreed area under PA control. The USA (I think) do not wish to start dividing Iraq up in such a manner. One Iraqi government is a lot easier to handle.



Well, what impact have Israeli style tactics had in Israel? Anti US sentiment would grow a hundredfold and the violence would continue. Israel takes a hardline stance that even the Bush administration has disagreed with on occasion. It's counterproductive.



Suprisingly, Muslims think in much the same way as everyone else - they react in the same way anyone else would in their situation.

Let me get this straight: first Iraq was Vietnam, now the Sunni Triangle is the New West Bank?

I see no evidence that the US is preparing to treat Tikrit (or the Sunni Triangle) similarly to the West Bank.

The US is trying to train and equip an Iraqi police force to provide security. These Iraqis (the theory goes) will have a better understanding of the risks and the motivations of any possible attackers.

I wasn't much in favor of going into Iraq in the first place, but now that we're there what would you suggest? If we leave before the situation is stabilized, Saddam will surely regain power and there'll be a bloodbath like the Middle East has never seen, similar to what the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia. Not acceptable IMHO, and I'd feel the same way, and much more passionately, if I were an Iraqi. And that's just the local consequence -- the world consequence is terrorists would be cheering a major victory and would redouble their efforts worldwide. No, Bush, is right about this much: we're committed to fighting them there. If we lose we'll be fighting them here instead, and I trust no one here wants that.

I think the best option is the one I expect Bush will choose: Proceed with building a strong Iraqi force to do the bulk of the peacekeeping, and at the same time keep a lean and mean US task force there to strike hard at remaining Saddam partisans and imported terrorists. Duplicating Israeli methods wholesale would be a big mistake, since the situation is very different, though there are things we can learn from them.

fear is the most effective weapon that opponents to this war ( WoT ) have.

by drawing the "Quagmire, Vietneam" analogy they try to paint a picture of open slaughter of americans in iraq ... we have over 100,000 troops in the iraqi theater ( 116k if i remember right ) we have lost just over 400 in the unseating of and policing of a foreign government. and even the highest civilian body count numbers are even today less than 10k NOONE thought that we could do that ... the smallest number i saw before the war was 50K and they ranged up to 500K

i think we have the tools and the talent to prevent this from becoming another vietnam, as well as preventing tirkrit from beoming another west bank

I don't think there is any comparison.
In the very first place if you ask most people in Iraq they realize the need for us to be there at this time. They want us to leave as soon a they can handle things themselves but not before as they know better than anyone in the world the anacharchy that would result.

Most of the detractors of our policy are just fools if they think a nation can be brought back from the condition SH placed Iraq in overnight. It has been less than 1 year. People who think things should be farther along than they are just do not have a grip on reality. Frankly, if the Iraq people have a gov of their choosing being policed largely by their own people and are building a military for their own defence at 2 years after the war ended I would think this a great accomplishment. For them as well as us. If they still needed a US presence for another year after that it would not change my opnion.

This is not a computer game.