Repeating history?
History has been described as long lesson proving we never learn from the past.
Seymour Hersh recently wrote in the New Yorker that the U.S. military’s long-term plan is to replace some U.S. troops in Iraq with airpower.
The idea would be to bring a still-unspecified number of troops home and compensate for the reduced number of boots on the ground with precision air strikes. It would likely bring down the number of American causalities.
When I read it I was struck by the fact that this is exactly what occupying British forces considered after the 1920 revolt here, an insurgency at the time mostly led by Shiites.
The British were then also too facing an enormous domestic debate about the what Churchill called "the Mesopotamia entanglement" and its huge cost.
It struck me as odd that more than eight decades later we are once again having the same debate.
Campaign numerology
EMAIL THIS
advertisement
Slide Show
- Life beyond the violence
Suicide attacks and murders due to sectarian conflict continue around Iraq. See how residents live their lives amid the attacks.
Read the Nightly News blog
