06 May 2008
Bottom-up Approach in Iraq
If the U.S. had adopted the bottom-up approach to building political order in Iraq from the beginning, as advocated by a State Department official on the 6 May 2008 “To the Point” KCRW radio program, we would have energetically supported sedition against the Saddam regime instead of invading the country. The terrible human suffering that this policy would have entailed would probably not have been any worse than was claimed as the justification for making the top-down intervention that took place in 2003. Shifting to this tack as part of the American exit strategy will also prolong the internecine conflict and bloodshed, although not as long as some have projected for successful counterinsurgency operations.
If the U.S. had adopted the bottom-up approach to building political order in Iraq from the beginning, as advocated by a State Department official on the 6 May 2008 “To the Point” KCRW radio program, we would have energetically supported sedition against the Saddam regime instead of invading the country. The terrible human suffering that this policy would have entailed would probably not have been any worse than was claimed as the justification for making the top-down intervention that took place in 2003. Shifting to this tack as part of the American exit strategy will also prolong the internecine conflict and bloodshed, although not as long as some have projected for successful counterinsurgency operations.
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