Letter to Nancy Pelosi
I figure that Nancy Pelosi will soon become speaker, but there are lingering doubts about the majority leadership in the house. I don't like Emanuel, the elections chief who fumbled finding a candidate for my district #11. I personally like John Murtha, the ex-Marine representative because he would be a good combination with Pelosi toward bringing the troops home from Iraq. I also write here about my foreign policy, hoping that the ideas will bring some creative thinking to the situation in Iraq.
What to do about Murtha and Iraq
Dear Representative Pelosi,
Representative Emanuel probably feels that he has done a good job finding candidates at the national level, but this was a year of grassroots candidates, and often a time when the party seems to have stifled grassroots efforts some based upon a national view of the local campaign process. In my district #11 in California for example, where radical right Republican Richard Pombo dearly needs to be removed from office for the benefit of your district and all others in the Bay Area, one would have thought that this is certainly a year when such a corrupt land grabbing owner-developer in California could have been beat. But, the Democratic Party seemed to find ways to support the wrong candidate in the primary, and then seems disinterested in funding a solid fall campaign.
Naturally, I fully expect you to become Speaker, but I also expect that you will help select other leadership based on a pragmatic basis both inside and outside the house. So, from my perspective Emanuel let down the voters of San Joaquin County and district #11. Meanwhile, although I know you have the credentials yourself as a member involved in national security related committees, it seems that you could really use the military brass of John Murtha to counter those like John McCain, in the senate, other men who would like to claim military expertise. I am quite confident that you can enhance the prestige of the house, and that will lobby on behalf of Californian's to include in the next session of congress leadership in the majority Democratic party who can resolve once and for all this foreign adventure quagmire in Iraq.
I have heard you state on occasion that some kind of "time-table" or "phased withdrawal" from Iraq is important to prevent a chaotic collapse of the government there. It would be nice to make a smooth transition, but this doesn't seem likely. Having lived and studied in Saudi Arabia for two years between these gulf wars, I was against the war from the start for the reasons we see on the streets of Bagdad daily now, and I really am not confident that the CIA intelligence has this region any better understood now than they did when the American Embassy was taken by Iranian students a couple decades ago. I'm quite certain that if the blood must flow in civil war, as it did here in the USA, it might as well start sooner than later, and there is little the American military can do to stop it.
Again, you may know better, particularly since you have visited Bagdad, but my personal belief is that a rather quick withdrawal would serve America's interests well. With America gone, Bagdad will likely descend into a chaotic neighborhood mess similar to Beirut of the 1970's, but that this phase will not be so prolonged because the wide open geographical lay-out of the city won't allow so much bunker and trench building, but also because despite the present collapse government and institutions, the commercial value of Bagdad continues to rise. Bagdad will probably partition itself in the short run, but it's vital value as a commercial center between the oil of Kurdistan and the ports of Basra seems to require a relatively fast reconciliation.
While stabilizing forces from neighboring countries may become involved, these will be reluctant forces, and none of will be any more successful than has been the USA. After a military stalemate is achieved, a coalition of Shiite, Kurd, and Sunni factions will come to the bargaining table. Syrian efforts to help Sunni's will likely occur, Turkish incursions to discipline Kurdistan will be an abysmal failure, and Iran arms donations to Shiite militias will not be repaid in political benefits. Bagdad looms very large as a cultural center indeed, unique from its neighbors, and Iraqi politics will be much less susceptible to manipulation as were those of Beirut.
Iran now stages itself in the world limelight by its nuclear ambitions, but will probably put such efforts on relative hold as it become preoccupied financially and militarily with the problems of neighboring Iraq. Right now, the USA is the stabilizing force for Iran, but with ground troops removed, Iran becomes concerned with an opportunity to expand its territory, particularly along the waterways and marshland petrol fields in the disputed Persian gulf area. Naturally, Iran's interest in resuming trade and cultural relations with Iraq, means supporting the Shiite ambitions to take control of Bagdad. These concerns are unrelated to the desire to build a nuclear device, and so conventional military ground forces, small armaments, and short range missiles will rise in value for Iran's strategic efforts, as they had during the Hezbollah conflict with Israel. However, Iran's efforts to manipulate Iraqi politics will fail even more miserably than will Syria's. The 200,000 or so Farsi speaking Shiites are not enough to sway the Arabic speaking Iraqi nationalism of the Shiites of the south, much less the grand cultural center of Bagdad. The Shiites of Tehran are not the same as the Shiites of Bagdad! The notion that these dissimilar groups of Muslim committed forces would agree to work together smoothly defies any recent historical precedent.
While control of the airspace over Iraq by American forces, particularly over the Kurdish region may be desirable given United Nations approval, this rather quick withdrawal will provide an opportunity for quiet dialog with Iran and Syria to appease their real needs to be recognized as growing regional powers. Eventually, military conflict in Bagdad will quiet, and the nation of Iraq will ask for American investment and even cultural influences to return, another loss for Iran's Islamic world view in the long run.
With the Republican's marginalized into a minority that can be beaten by majority vote, this will be the time for Democratic leaders such as yourself to insist that President Bush stop his "state of denial", and bring some pragmatism into American foreign policy. These are likely politics that Representative John Murtha and you can work together to impose upon the Senate and President in public and in private.
Good luck on Nov. 7th.
Respectfully yours,
Alan Tufft
What to do about Murtha and Iraq
Dear Representative Pelosi,
Representative Emanuel probably feels that he has done a good job finding candidates at the national level, but this was a year of grassroots candidates, and often a time when the party seems to have stifled grassroots efforts some based upon a national view of the local campaign process. In my district #11 in California for example, where radical right Republican Richard Pombo dearly needs to be removed from office for the benefit of your district and all others in the Bay Area, one would have thought that this is certainly a year when such a corrupt land grabbing owner-developer in California could have been beat. But, the Democratic Party seemed to find ways to support the wrong candidate in the primary, and then seems disinterested in funding a solid fall campaign.
Naturally, I fully expect you to become Speaker, but I also expect that you will help select other leadership based on a pragmatic basis both inside and outside the house. So, from my perspective Emanuel let down the voters of San Joaquin County and district #11. Meanwhile, although I know you have the credentials yourself as a member involved in national security related committees, it seems that you could really use the military brass of John Murtha to counter those like John McCain, in the senate, other men who would like to claim military expertise. I am quite confident that you can enhance the prestige of the house, and that will lobby on behalf of Californian's to include in the next session of congress leadership in the majority Democratic party who can resolve once and for all this foreign adventure quagmire in Iraq.
I have heard you state on occasion that some kind of "time-table" or "phased withdrawal" from Iraq is important to prevent a chaotic collapse of the government there. It would be nice to make a smooth transition, but this doesn't seem likely. Having lived and studied in Saudi Arabia for two years between these gulf wars, I was against the war from the start for the reasons we see on the streets of Bagdad daily now, and I really am not confident that the CIA intelligence has this region any better understood now than they did when the American Embassy was taken by Iranian students a couple decades ago. I'm quite certain that if the blood must flow in civil war, as it did here in the USA, it might as well start sooner than later, and there is little the American military can do to stop it.
Again, you may know better, particularly since you have visited Bagdad, but my personal belief is that a rather quick withdrawal would serve America's interests well. With America gone, Bagdad will likely descend into a chaotic neighborhood mess similar to Beirut of the 1970's, but that this phase will not be so prolonged because the wide open geographical lay-out of the city won't allow so much bunker and trench building, but also because despite the present collapse government and institutions, the commercial value of Bagdad continues to rise. Bagdad will probably partition itself in the short run, but it's vital value as a commercial center between the oil of Kurdistan and the ports of Basra seems to require a relatively fast reconciliation.
While stabilizing forces from neighboring countries may become involved, these will be reluctant forces, and none of will be any more successful than has been the USA. After a military stalemate is achieved, a coalition of Shiite, Kurd, and Sunni factions will come to the bargaining table. Syrian efforts to help Sunni's will likely occur, Turkish incursions to discipline Kurdistan will be an abysmal failure, and Iran arms donations to Shiite militias will not be repaid in political benefits. Bagdad looms very large as a cultural center indeed, unique from its neighbors, and Iraqi politics will be much less susceptible to manipulation as were those of Beirut.
Iran now stages itself in the world limelight by its nuclear ambitions, but will probably put such efforts on relative hold as it become preoccupied financially and militarily with the problems of neighboring Iraq. Right now, the USA is the stabilizing force for Iran, but with ground troops removed, Iran becomes concerned with an opportunity to expand its territory, particularly along the waterways and marshland petrol fields in the disputed Persian gulf area. Naturally, Iran's interest in resuming trade and cultural relations with Iraq, means supporting the Shiite ambitions to take control of Bagdad. These concerns are unrelated to the desire to build a nuclear device, and so conventional military ground forces, small armaments, and short range missiles will rise in value for Iran's strategic efforts, as they had during the Hezbollah conflict with Israel. However, Iran's efforts to manipulate Iraqi politics will fail even more miserably than will Syria's. The 200,000 or so Farsi speaking Shiites are not enough to sway the Arabic speaking Iraqi nationalism of the Shiites of the south, much less the grand cultural center of Bagdad. The Shiites of Tehran are not the same as the Shiites of Bagdad! The notion that these dissimilar groups of Muslim committed forces would agree to work together smoothly defies any recent historical precedent.
While control of the airspace over Iraq by American forces, particularly over the Kurdish region may be desirable given United Nations approval, this rather quick withdrawal will provide an opportunity for quiet dialog with Iran and Syria to appease their real needs to be recognized as growing regional powers. Eventually, military conflict in Bagdad will quiet, and the nation of Iraq will ask for American investment and even cultural influences to return, another loss for Iran's Islamic world view in the long run.
With the Republican's marginalized into a minority that can be beaten by majority vote, this will be the time for Democratic leaders such as yourself to insist that President Bush stop his "state of denial", and bring some pragmatism into American foreign policy. These are likely politics that Representative John Murtha and you can work together to impose upon the Senate and President in public and in private.
Good luck on Nov. 7th.
Respectfully yours,
Alan Tufft
