You Broke it , You Fix it

There has been talk recently about the US looking for a viable exit strategy from Iraq. It would have been hilarious if it wasnt such a sick joke - you go into a secular ( yes , Iraq was secular under Saddam ) country , depose an elected govt ( hell Saddam's 99% votes compared favourably with Musharraf's 99.9% votes ), install a puppet Islamic govt there , leave the country on the brink of Civil War ( Sunnis and Shias, with the Kurds joining in wherever they can ) , and then catch the next flight home.

When the US invaded Iraq, their reasons were clear to Bush and the majority of Americans - Saddam was somehow behind the 9/11 attacks. Of course the fact that Iraqi agents had been arrested for trying to assassinate George Bush Sr. had nothing to do with it. The President of the US could be expected to rise above such base nepotic considerations. Of course , there was not a shred of evidence to connect Saddam to Osama. But so what , we had Dubya's word didnt we?

As the hysteria mounted , the US came out with a backup theory for the Iraq invasion. Saddam was developing chemical weapons, it was claimed. Colin Powell did a presentation before the UN , in which he showed pictures of mobile missile launchers. There were reports of Saddam trying to procure nuclear material from Niger ( which was found to be totally baseless by a US official - by a strange coincidence within days of him debunking the nuclear claim , his wife's identity as a CIA undercover operative was outed. So much for getting on Dubya's wrong side. The trial for this case is still going on - in the US , divulging a CIA operative's identity is a criminal offence ).

But all these were mere distractions to the main plot. Ignoring world opinion , the US went ahead with their 'Shock and Awe' campaign. Imagine Dubya's mortification , when the invasion exposed all his claims and charges for what they were - a pack of lies. So what ? Like a trained conjurer , Dubya pulled out the trump rabbit from his hat. We are in Iraq to bring Democracy here. The New Iraq will be a beacon of light and hope for the entire Middle East. After years of playing with Coke and Pepsi , the Americans, it seemed had now decided to export Democracy.

Of course , the fallout is now clear. There are more terrorists in Iraq now than there ever were ( if any at all ) under Saddam. The presence of nearly two lakh American soldiers in Iraq can be only an attraction for them. And we will be paying the price for this. In the 1980s , the CIA trained Mujahideen to take on USSR in Afghanistan. Once the Russians withdrew, these out of work valiants turned their attention to other areas - Kashmir among them.

I just finished reading an article about Bush admitting parallels between Iraq and Vietnam. America messed up in Vietnam. But all that did was deflate American ego. Iraq is a different cup of tea. We ( The rest of the World ) will be paying the price in the years to come for Dubya's misadventure in Iraq. Colin Powell is reported to have told George W Bush before the invasion , "We Break it , We own it". The US invasion of Iraq was one of the blunders of this century. Leaving the country now in this mess, will only compound the issue.