The Rolling Stone has assembled a great cast of characters in their Iraq War Panel. According to The Stone,"those on the panel -- including diplomats, counterterror analysts and a former top military commander -- agree that President Bush's attempt to secure Baghdad will only succeed in dragging out the conflict, creating something far beyond any Vietnam-style "quagmire."
The surge won't bring an end to the
sectarian cleansing that has ravaged Iraq, as the newly empowered
Shiite majority seeks to settle scores built up during centuries of
oppressive rule by the Sunni minority. It will do nothing to defuse
the powder keg that an independence-minded Kurdistan, in Iraq's
northern provinces, poses to the governments of Turkey, Syria and
Iran, which have long brutalized their own Kurdish separatists. And
it will only worsen the global war on terror.
Among those who penned articles or shared opinions on how the Iraq war has already been lost and what that loss will mean:
- Zbigniew Brzezinski, National security adviser to President Carter
- Richard Clarke, Counterterrorism czar from 1992 to 2003
- Nir Rosen, Author of In the Belly of the Green Bird, about Iraqss spiral into civil war, speaking from Cairo, where he has been interviewing Iraqi refugees
- Gen. Tony McPeak (retired) Member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War
- Bob Graham, Former chair, Senate Intelligence Committee
- Chas Freeman, Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War; president of the Middle East Policy Council
- Paul Pillar, Former lead counterterrorism analyst for the CIA
- Michael Scheuer, Former chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit; author of Imperial Hubris
- Juan Cole, Professor of modern Middle East history at the University of Michigan
