This piece was written in July 2005 and published by “Thought Mechanicsâ€? – then a vigorous national blog. I have seen much more thorough analyses than this, but the end-point may still be the same. After a year-and-a-half, have any of the issues changed?
More on Shi’ite Iraq
This is what White House press secretary Scott McClellan said very recently when asked about the results of a new poll taken by the Pew Research Center “I think the American people understand the importance of completing the mission”…”Success in Iraq will help transform a dangerous region.” No doubt McClellan is speaking for President Bush and his entire administration. The PEW poll found that 43% said that the US would “win the warâ€? while 32% said the US “can’t win the war.â€? A more important question to address might be – “Is the region more dangerous today than before the war?â€? If the region is more dangerous today then one has to wonder what “winâ€? means. The statements by the Bush administration and the opinions of the polled public do little to reveal the severity of the situation in Iraq. It really doesn’t matter anymore if Bush lied about reasons for going to war, or whether or not we should back our troops. The real issue surrounding our presence in Iraq can be stated quite simply – what can we do to prevent Iran from taking over Iraq or, at least, the Shi’ite dominated, oil-rich provinces south of Baghdad?
I am not an expert on the Middle East. Perhaps naively, at this juncture I see Iran’s dominance of Iraq as the only issue of importance from here on. It seems unimaginable that our pre-war intelligence and the White House would not have considered this outcome as a risk to going to war. Yet I have not heard any commentary about this scenario in talk shows or by politicians on either side of the issue of the invasion of Iraq. Could it be that we invaded Iraq because intelligence indicated Iran’s intent to take over Iraq? In deed, it is commonly known that the US supported Iraq in its 8-year war with Iran (1980-88) because it became wary of the Tehran regime after the Iranian revolution. Then Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the US intervention, and subsequent sanctions against Iraq leading up to the US war in Iraq all but destroyed Iraq’s role in preserving military balance in the Middle East. Read the rest of this entry »
