posted
Rakeesh, I'm sorry that I annoyed you. If it helps, I didn't intend to say that you were one of these people. I tend not to name names because people can judge for themselves who my criticisms apply to. To be honest, even if I did think this about you, I don't see how it would really affect you, as it would be a result of my misunderstanding your position, and thus not a valid criticism anyway.
As to what I should want to see done, I really don't know. That's a large part of the problem. I have no competence towards foreign relations in Arab countries. It's far beyond my area of expertise. That's why I'm talking about the attitude towards these areas. I would love for somoeone in the government to tell me, based on this prestigous panel of people who have studied the area, what plans they are going to try an enact. However, I get the feeling that the people who are making these decisions know about as much as I do about the important factors in this region.
The only policy that I am sure that I'd like to be announced is that we're going to try to make sure that the oil revenues are going to be turned towards developing an economy in Iraq that could be self-sufficient even without the oil. That we still seem to be fostering a resource-exploitation economy, with the concentration rather than distribution of the profits that this entails, leads me to believe that we are either not thinking about or adverserial to a strong Iraqi economy and middle class.
edit: I really wasn't trying to be dismissive in that first paragraph. That's actually how I feel about it. I no doubt often misunderstand people's positions, so I tend to criticize ways of thinking rather than naming the person themselves. And, if I am mischaracterizing your way of thinking, I do hope that you realize that I'm thus not talking about you. I don't have a problem with people saying somtheing to the point of "But I don't think like that." especially if they then accept that I'm going to try to show why I thought that they did.
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