Sunday, July 30, 2006
Bizarro World
Did we hear correctly?
Are they now claiming the War in Iraq was a step in the battle against Iranian terrorism?
Invading Saddam Hussein's Iraq and leaving its infrastructure in shambles and its society just short of all-out civil war is now supposedly part of the struggle against Iran?
Welcome, Poor Readers, to Republican/Mainstream Media Bizarro World.
Hussein was a significant check against Iran; in fact he was our boy for the job for decades. After Iran's fundamentalist Islamists tossed out our puppet the Shah, Hussein became the primary check against any regional increase in Iran's influence. Removing him not only pulled the cork out of the bottle of sectarian violence in Iraq, it cleared the way for increased Iranian influence in Iraq and across the Middle East, leading directly to the dramatic escalation of activity by Hezbollah, radical Shia militias, and Hamas that we're now witnessing.
Invading Iraq was actually a step towards fighting Iran? Really? What happened to the "democratization" of Iraq? Or to the liberation of the Iraqi people?
Sadly, the next line of hooey will undoubtedly be that we intend to bring "democratization" and liberation to the Iranian people. Which will be even less effective there than it has in Iraq. Or Afghanistan.
The truth, of course, is much simpler, as it usually is: the Bush Administration's goal from the beginning in the Middle East was the intentional destabilization of Arab nations. Not democratization, not freedom, not economic salvation -- but crippling destabilization. On purpose.
No other explanation makes sense. No one, not even the neocons in the Bush Administration, could possibly have believed that the U.S. could bring stability and "democratization" to Iraq's disparate and warring factions after toppling Hussein. It certainly was not going to happen using the troop numbers with which Donald Rumsfeld undertook the operation, nor without the assistance of the U.N. In fact, it may not have been possible at all, even if Americans had been honestly made aware of the monumental effort it would take. Which they weren't.
Yet now we are to believe that they believe we have the means to invade and transform Iran? While still bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq? With a volunteer army of increasingly tired and disillusioned troops?
They can't possibly believe that. Well, George Bush might, but no one else -- not even Sean Hannity -- could. It's simply not possible.
The best we could hope to do is topple the Iranian government, leaving it and the country in the same state as Iraq: in lawless disarray. We surely do not have the means to control, let alone transform, Iran's society and government. We can't do it in Iraq, a country with a long secular tradition -- how could we possibly do it in a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy?
Saddam Hussein kept the "peace" in Iraq at the point of a gun; he was a brutal, murdering dictator who viciously suppressed any dissent or revolt. Americans -- at least most of us -- were never prepared to do that in Iraq. In fact, most Americans were never made aware, really, that we would be in the position of having to consider it. Though the Bush Adminiatration surely knew the reality of the place, no matter what they now claim they knew.
And if we were never prepared to do it in Iraq, a country with a significant moderate population, a country controlled by secular Sunni's (until we toppled Saddam, and the Iranian-influenced Shia majority took to the streets) how could we ever expect to control Iran, a Shia-controlled Islamic theocracy?
The answer is, we don't.
It's time for Americans to understand what the goal of the Bush Administration has been all along, and recognize what our government is doing in our name: it isn't to save, liberate, or uplift poor Arab nations living under totalitarianism in order to improve their condition and create a more modern and stable region around Israel: it's to cripple those nations and their people, utterly, and leave them in shambles, possibly forever.
No other explanation is possible.
This strategy may well succeed, and it may prove most profitable and advantageous for some.
But the rest of us need to consider what it will mean for everyone else. Because those of us who don't travel in bullet-proof limousines will be living in a world in which millions and millions and millions of people live in desperate, hopeless poverty and perpetual warfare -- and blame us for it.
[Note: We wrote this blog entry before reading Frank Rich in today's NY Times (subscription only). We're flattered to think we're on roughly the same page as Mr. Rich, though we stand by our assertion that the debacle in Iraq is intentional, and not, as he suggests, a matter of indifference and incompetence. Though we may be underestimating him, in that he leaves unclear what he calls the "grandiose political and ideological ambitions" of "the war's architects". ]
Are they now claiming the War in Iraq was a step in the battle against Iranian terrorism?
Invading Saddam Hussein's Iraq and leaving its infrastructure in shambles and its society just short of all-out civil war is now supposedly part of the struggle against Iran?
Welcome, Poor Readers, to Republican/Mainstream Media Bizarro World.
Hussein was a significant check against Iran; in fact he was our boy for the job for decades. After Iran's fundamentalist Islamists tossed out our puppet the Shah, Hussein became the primary check against any regional increase in Iran's influence. Removing him not only pulled the cork out of the bottle of sectarian violence in Iraq, it cleared the way for increased Iranian influence in Iraq and across the Middle East, leading directly to the dramatic escalation of activity by Hezbollah, radical Shia militias, and Hamas that we're now witnessing.
Invading Iraq was actually a step towards fighting Iran? Really? What happened to the "democratization" of Iraq? Or to the liberation of the Iraqi people?
Sadly, the next line of hooey will undoubtedly be that we intend to bring "democratization" and liberation to the Iranian people. Which will be even less effective there than it has in Iraq. Or Afghanistan.
The truth, of course, is much simpler, as it usually is: the Bush Administration's goal from the beginning in the Middle East was the intentional destabilization of Arab nations. Not democratization, not freedom, not economic salvation -- but crippling destabilization. On purpose.
No other explanation makes sense. No one, not even the neocons in the Bush Administration, could possibly have believed that the U.S. could bring stability and "democratization" to Iraq's disparate and warring factions after toppling Hussein. It certainly was not going to happen using the troop numbers with which Donald Rumsfeld undertook the operation, nor without the assistance of the U.N. In fact, it may not have been possible at all, even if Americans had been honestly made aware of the monumental effort it would take. Which they weren't.
Yet now we are to believe that they believe we have the means to invade and transform Iran? While still bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq? With a volunteer army of increasingly tired and disillusioned troops?
They can't possibly believe that. Well, George Bush might, but no one else -- not even Sean Hannity -- could. It's simply not possible.
The best we could hope to do is topple the Iranian government, leaving it and the country in the same state as Iraq: in lawless disarray. We surely do not have the means to control, let alone transform, Iran's society and government. We can't do it in Iraq, a country with a long secular tradition -- how could we possibly do it in a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy?
Saddam Hussein kept the "peace" in Iraq at the point of a gun; he was a brutal, murdering dictator who viciously suppressed any dissent or revolt. Americans -- at least most of us -- were never prepared to do that in Iraq. In fact, most Americans were never made aware, really, that we would be in the position of having to consider it. Though the Bush Adminiatration surely knew the reality of the place, no matter what they now claim they knew.
And if we were never prepared to do it in Iraq, a country with a significant moderate population, a country controlled by secular Sunni's (until we toppled Saddam, and the Iranian-influenced Shia majority took to the streets) how could we ever expect to control Iran, a Shia-controlled Islamic theocracy?
The answer is, we don't.
It's time for Americans to understand what the goal of the Bush Administration has been all along, and recognize what our government is doing in our name: it isn't to save, liberate, or uplift poor Arab nations living under totalitarianism in order to improve their condition and create a more modern and stable region around Israel: it's to cripple those nations and their people, utterly, and leave them in shambles, possibly forever.
No other explanation is possible.
This strategy may well succeed, and it may prove most profitable and advantageous for some.
But the rest of us need to consider what it will mean for everyone else. Because those of us who don't travel in bullet-proof limousines will be living in a world in which millions and millions and millions of people live in desperate, hopeless poverty and perpetual warfare -- and blame us for it.
[Note: We wrote this blog entry before reading Frank Rich in today's NY Times (subscription only). We're flattered to think we're on roughly the same page as Mr. Rich, though we stand by our assertion that the debacle in Iraq is intentional, and not, as he suggests, a matter of indifference and incompetence. Though we may be underestimating him, in that he leaves unclear what he calls the "grandiose political and ideological ambitions" of "the war's architects". ]
