Kenneth Pollack
Kenneth Pollack
Kenneth Michael "Ken" Pollack, PhD, is a noted former CIA intelligence analyst and expert on Middle East politics and military affairs. He has served on the National Security Council staff and has written several articles and books on international relations...
history responds saddam taught
If our history with Saddam has taught us anything, it has taught us that the only thing that he responds to is the use of force.
arms backing civil continued either failures fix generating government iraqi iraqis likely problems propel starts
Either the new Iraqi government with U.S. backing starts to fix Iraq's problems or continued failures will propel Iraqis in to the arms of the militias, likely generating a full-blown civil war.
antidote democracy gets ground insurgency theory
The theory that democracy is the antidote to insurgency gets disproved on the ground every day.
against allow constantly fight forget iraq itself sanctions simply zones
It's a way of demonstrating to the world that you can't forget about Iraq, ... That Iraq will not allow itself to be forgotten, that Iraq will never allow the sanctions and the no-fly zones and all these other restrictions to simply exist. They will constantly fight against them.
eu russians serious
As long as the EU and the U.S. are serious about Iran, the Russians will be serious too.
against assume direction fighting iranians itself likely military move moving paranoid provoke start
This is a paranoid regime. Even if the development of the Caucasus airfields à even if it weren't about them, they would assume it was about them. So that in and of itself will likely provoke a response. The Iranians are not inert targets! If they started to think we were moving in the direction of a military move against them, they would start fighting us right away.
bush came carter choose clinton deeply east himself involve involved middle office peace personally president spent unlikely
I think it's unlikely that President Bush will choose to involve himself as deeply in Middle East peace negotiations as say President Clinton or President Carter did before him. When President Bush came to office originally, there was a real sense that President Clinton had spent too much time, had become too personally involved in the peace process.
constitution far good immediate
Having a good constitution is far more important than having an immediate constitution.
five iran nuclear
Iran is at least five years away from having a working nuclear weapon.