Wednesday, April 25

What if?

The Iraq war seems to have turned into a never ending story. What was meant to be a quick-fix-and-out-:), has become a quick-fix-and-out-?? I can imagine myself during my journalism days, of days when you just don't seem to see any story anywhere. With Iraq there would never have been a dearth of stories...experts' interviews, first hand experiences, Indian perspectives, changes in discussions in political science classrooms, probable changes in the international affairs/foreign policy syllabus to make Iraq and the war on terror a permanent feature of it, Iraq quizes for supplements, astrological advise for Iraq, Bush etc etc.

All these readings and discussions about Iraq got me wondering what if instead of sending in troops and actually invading Iraq, the US had conducted one of its covert operations in regime change? What if with their superior intelligence capacities, their secret agents and stuff they had tried to get rid of (read secretly killed) Saddam and his aides? What if they had managed a traditional coup? What if they had negotiated and flexed some muscles to contain Saddam's 'intentions'? I think I should just assume that after considering the various options, the better experienced and knowledgable US policymakers thought that direct intervention is their best bet. In fulfilling their duties towards their people and the world at large, they did their best. I wonder if anyone of them said, "War! karma majha!"



2 comments:

Sudipta Chatterjee said...

I really doubt if they did not try that out first before going on an all-out war.

Anonymous said...

I get what you're saying yaar...the shocking this wasnt that the war was a bad idea to begin with it's how incredibly bad we sucked at it...

ps-this is the funniest interview i've ever seen in my whole life.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8484603381982116769&q=karan+thapar