If you have kids you must know how this is going to turn out.
You want your thirteen year old son to tidy up his room. First you wait for him to just recognise that it needs to be done and go ahead and sort it out. After a few days with no results you try just a gentle hint at breakfast time over porridge and tea. When that doesn't work you send his favourite uncle around to have a chat. By now his room resembles a toxic waste dump and you are worried that the council is about to send the environment officer round. It is time to get tough. You set a deadline for action and if nothing happens there will be consequences. No play station. No MTV. Home straight after school. (This is bound to work isn't it? I don't know - I haven't got kids.)
This is the approach that it appears that UK and American governments have decided to take to resolve the problems in Iraq. From this morning's Guardian:
You want your thirteen year old son to tidy up his room. First you wait for him to just recognise that it needs to be done and go ahead and sort it out. After a few days with no results you try just a gentle hint at breakfast time over porridge and tea. When that doesn't work you send his favourite uncle around to have a chat. By now his room resembles a toxic waste dump and you are worried that the council is about to send the environment officer round. It is time to get tough. You set a deadline for action and if nothing happens there will be consequences. No play station. No MTV. Home straight after school. (This is bound to work isn't it? I don't know - I haven't got kids.)
This is the approach that it appears that UK and American governments have decided to take to resolve the problems in Iraq. From this morning's Guardian:
Headline one - Blair gives Iraq 12 months to be ready for handover - that should do it don't you think? Blair is to meet the Iraqi deputy prime minister (does he have two Jags?), Barham Saleh, at Downing Street today. He plans to tell Mr. Saleh that Iraqi forces have less than a year to be able to take over from British forces.
Headline two - Disarm the militias and take control - White House issues demands to embattled PM - this story includes the suggestion that "if Iraq fails to meet the crucial milestones, then US officials hold open the possibility of sanctions". What are we going to do stop selling them guns? Ban the export of Coke? Shut the Pizza Huts and McDonalds?
Doesn't always seem that the simplest and best solutions to your problems are always right in front of you staring you in the face. It's a wonder we didn’t think of this two years ago.
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