Berkeley Forum

-By Jacinda Chan
UC Berkeley

Does Obama really know what he is doing when it comes to Iraq? He wants to just pull out of Iraq and talk to Middle Eastern leaders, but do you really think that will work? Of course, pulling out in such a way will benefit American troops, but what about the Iraqi people who we pulled into this mess and have to live with the consequences? Let’s take a quick survey of two world examples of what happened when countries decide to pull quickly out of another’s mess, only this was our mess.

Let’s look at when Britain decided to leave India and Pakistan hastily. Obama wants to talk to the leaders of the Middle East just like Mountbatten tried to talk to Nehru, Jinnah, and Gandhi but to no avail. The British decided to leave anyways without a resolution, and India and Pakistan continue to have crisis to this day. As result of these crisis, India and Pakistan have a constant threat of nuclear war. I don’t think you want Iraq to pose such a threat.

The second example is Rwanda. As soon as all the U.N. troops left the camps they were guarding, the Tutsi had no more protection, which allowed the Hutu to sweep in and commit mass GENOCIDE. Same as now, the world just thought it was civil war. However, if we withdraw the way Obama wants to, we could witness more nuclear threats, or even worse,