Iranian troops will shortly enter Iraq in order to "help train the Iraqi army". The current Iraqi government, which is heavily Iranian-influenced (their Prime Minister's election campaign was funded with Iranian money) undoubtedly has other plans for using the Iranian Army to help retain power. We've managed to take a secular nation with no terrorists and turn it into a Shiite theocracy that will basically function as Iran West once we leave.
And we *will* leave, the American people will not tolerate occupying Iraq forever in order to make sure our puppet government does our bidding. The longest the American people have ever tolerated such doings is eight years during the post-civil-war Reconstruction era, and that was after the bloodiest war in U.S. history (as a percentage of population), where 25% of all able-bodied men of military age in the South ended up dead or disabled and an equal number (but smaller percentage) in the North similarly ended up dead or disabled. The American Civil War was 10,000,000 WTC attacks. And produced a military occupation that only lasted eight years before the American public, tired of the costs of military occupation, decided to let the American South go back to Confederate rule (as long as the former Confederates pretended to be part of the United States and pretended to not have slavery).
All of this could have been predicted. Hell, George H.W. Bush's own Secretary of Defense predicted this in 1991, when justifying why we didn't topple Saddam then, saying that the Shiite majority would have ended up imposing an Iranian-style theocracy which was a Bad Idea. Oh, the name of that Secretary of Defense? A guy by the name of Dick Cheney. Hmm.... so what changed, in the ten years since? Oh, that's right, the Bigus Dickus's company (Halliburton) was going bankrupt, which would have cut off his deferred compensation, so we had to invade a sovereign nation in order to hand it to Iran on a platter so that Halliburton could get those big juicy contracts that have once again made it profitable. Okay, then!
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Iraqis relying on Iran to help them stand on their own two feet -- talk about a slap in our collective face!
ReplyDeleteThat pretty much shoots down the Reagan-era policy of arming Iraq to fend off Iran, doesn't it? I mean, why the hell did they bother? What does that look like if you're Rumsfeld or Cheney? Pretty humiliating, I'd say -- it doesn't matter what either of them say (or don't say) for the record, they're both going down as world-class putzes. Too bad.
Of course, they can always blame it on Chalabi. After all, it's never thier own fault...
Of course, they can always blame it on Chalabi. After all, it's never thier own fault...
ReplyDeleteYou're half right. Yes, it's never their own fault. No, they won't blame it on Chalabi. They'll blame it on liberals, just like they blame everything else bad under the sun on liberals.
I worry, though, about what will happen to the Iranians. Next thing you know, we'll be hearing allegations about them doing this or that, trumped up reasons that we will use to attack them. our military is right there, ready to go, right? I hope I'm wrong, but with this admin, you have to think worse.
ReplyDeleteAttack Iran *with what military*?! The National Guard and Reserves are in the process of disintegrating. The Army and Marines are not far behind. For the first time since the Vietnam era, the Marines are not meeting their recruiting quota. In addition there is a shortage of front-line battle equipment in working condition. Iraq has turned most of it into sandblasted scrap metal that needs heavy overhaul to be operational again, and in some cases components aren't even available anymore (*NOBODY* makes turbine engines for the M1 tanks anymore... amazing!). If the Bush Administration had been in charge of WWII, it would be 2 years after Pearl Harbor and they'd still be debating in Congress as to whether they should raise taxes to build more aircraft carriers and raise the battleships that had been sunk at Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese would be invading Australia. In actuality, after 2 years of WWII we had built 30 aircraft carriers, over 50,000 aircraft, over 35,000 tanks... but Iraq is not being treated like a war, but as far as the equipment is concerned it *is* a war, and we're not doing what we'd do if it really *was* a war -- ramp up our industries to churn out lots of replacement equipment.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason our military isn't walking right now is because we're chewing down through a surplus of equipment left over from the Cold War era military (which was twice the size of the current one) and, even further back, Vietnam (most of the National Guard deployed to Iraq is deployed with Vietnam-era equipment -- even their M-16 rifles are Vietnam-era equipment!). Once that surplus is gone -- which it pretty much is, now -- well, we don't have the capability to invade Liechenstein right now, I suspect.
- Badtux the Military Penguin