Comments on: Analogy Alert: Iraq/Korea

By: Frog in a Well - The Korea History Group Blog

Frog in a Well - The Korea History Group Blog — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 19:58:52 +0000

[...] Middle East policies, especially Iraq. The comparison of Bush to Truman is nothing new, nor is the analogy of Iraq and Korea. But this particular one is quite egregious, and I can’t let it pass without comment. [...]

By: Frog in a Well - The Korea History Group Blog

Frog in a Well - The Korea History Group Blog — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 07:11:58 +0000

[...] a great month for historical analogies to recent wars in Asia, naturally. The big headline was the “Korea Model” for post-war occupation and security, which prompted a lot of people to start remembering the [...]

By: kotaji 거타지 :: Koreanising Iraq :: June :: 2007

kotaji 거타지 :: Koreanising Iraq :: June :: 2007 — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 16:52:21 +0000

[...] Over at Frog in a Well Korea Jonathan Dresner has brought up George Bush’s recent analogy between the US involvement in present-day Iraq and the country’s historical involvement in Korea. This seems to have become quite a hot internet topic already and has been dealt with by Juan Cole at his blog and by Robert Koehler of Marmot’s Hole fame as well as Fred Kaplan at Salon.com. Here’s the comment I left at Juan Cole’s blog: I think what Bush is saying is that in their fantasies he and Cheney would very much like Iraq to turn out like the South Korea of the, say, 1960s and 1970s. That is, ruled by a dictatorial military strongman; politically and economically subordinate to the US (and Japan maybe); and with a number of massive, strategically important US bases protecting US interests in the area and projecting power toward the big enemies (Russia/China). But of course fantasies are only fantasies. [...]

By: Owen

Owen — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 16:34:06 +0000

I do honestly find it hard to know where to start with this one since there are so many possible angles from which to approach it. Having said that, I personally think that all the people saying that Iraq is nothing like Korea are missing the point. The point is that Bush et al want it to be something like Korea. Here’s what I wrote in the comments at Juan Cole’s blog:

I think what Bush is saying is that in their fantasies he and Cheney would very much like Iraq to turn out like the South Korea of the, say, 1960s and 1970s. That is, ruled by a dictatorial military strongman; politically and economically subordinate to the US (and Japan maybe); and with a number of massive, strategically important US bases protecting US interests in the area and projecting power toward the big enemies (Russia/China). But of course fantasies are only fantasies.

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Thu, 31 May 2007 18:48:56 +0000

It’s not really hard to work up a critique of the analogy, no. I really just wanted our Korean studies audience to be aware that they might be getting more dumb questions than usual.

Might be a good week to call the History News Service or History News Network about a quick op-ed….