Stardate 20031202.1447

(On Screen via long range sensors): Tacitus asks seven questions of those he refers to as the "know-it-alls of the internet". I suspect he was mainly targeting those on the left who are full of criticism of what we're doing but rather silent about alternatives, rather than people like me. I have long since written about all of them on this site, but I thought I would try to answer his questions directly and briefly, just for the hell of it. (Briefly? Me? heheheheh...)

1) What is your primary value with regard to Iraq? Secondary? The primary goal is to eliminate the threat to my nation and my people from extremist and militant groups from that region, by inducing broad political reform and social liberalization. The secondary goal is to try to minimize casualties as much as possible, as long as that does not compromise achievement of the primary goal.

2) What sort of state and society do you prefer in Iraq if you leave? I want it to have a government which is secular and elective, with an independent judiciary, which guarantees religous freedom and the right of free expression.

3) What are you unwilling to do to achieve goals 1 and 2? There's very little which is off the slate. I would be unwilling to do things which I thought were counterproductive, making the goal harder to achieve, or outright impossible.

4) What immediate action would you take upon assumption of command? Actually, I think that what's going on right now is pretty much the best we can do, and I don't see any major changes needed.

5) What long-term action would you take? To make sure we stay on course and don't give up. Again, I think the long term course we're following is the right one, and my main concern now is that we'll veer off course to a different strategy much less likely to succeed.

6) At what point would you declare your plan a failure? There are a number of ways in which I might reach that point. For instance, if Iraq had divided along ethnic lines and there was rising violence between Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites, then the chance of democratic reform in Iraq working would be remote. If the Arab nations collectively became formally allied against us in opposition to the reforms we hope to sponsor, and began to formally support the militants against us (instead of doing so covertly, as is the case now), then even if we succeeded in sponsoring a functional democracy in Iraq there'd be little chance of those ideas spreading outward to induce reform and liberalization elsewhere. If there'd been strong and very broad support among Iraq's Shiites for establishment of an Iranian-style Islamic Republic, we'd have been in serious trouble.

And since the strategy we're following will take time to work, then if any of the most extreme governments in that region (especially Iran or Syria) get nuclear weapons and use them against us, or publicly threaten to do so, then we will no longer have the luxury of time and will have to switch to strategies which are more rapid, but also far more destructive and brutal.

7) How much time are you willing to allot to your occupation? I expect the US to keep a large military presence (50-70 thousand troops) in Iraq for 30 years.

So there you have it. (and less than 600 words!)