Once Again—How Does A Pro-Iranian Government in Iraq Make Me Safer?

[The Whiskey Priest]

Robert Dreyfuss, the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam," wrote the following in a piece for Tom Paine entitled: "Iraq: Game Over."

“The last hope for peace in Iraq was stomped to death this week. The victory of the Shiite religious coalition in the December 15 election hands power for the next four years to a fanatical band of fundamentalist Shiite parties backed by Iran, above all to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Quietly backed by His Malevolence, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, sustained by a 20,000-strong paramilitary force called the Badr Brigade, and with both overt and covert support from Iran's intelligence service and its Revolutionary Guard corps, SCIRI will create a theocratic bastion state in its southern Iraqi fiefdom and use its power in Baghdad to rule what's left of the Iraqi state by force.

The consequences of SCIRI's victory are manifold. But there is no silver lining, no chance for peace talks among Iraq's factions, no chance for international mediation. There is no centrist force that can bridge the factional or sectarian divides. Next stop: civil war.”

Should this be the case, the question is how will the Republicans, Bush and the neo-cons explain spending half-a-trillion dollars and the blood of over 19,000 American fighting men to accomplish a non-democratic, pro-Iranian government in Iraq?

So, please, please Mr. President, explain to me how I am safer now than I was before you went into Iraq?


http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051222/iraq_game_over.php

[Oversea Visitor]

1. Never safe to make enemies

Safer to make friends.

Want to be safe try be friendly.

[rfkrfk]

2. why would Iraqi leaders, give their influence away?

the natural leadership of the Shi'ia will
come from the leaders of the holiest shrines of the Shi'ia,
which are in Iraq

[The Whiskey Priest]

3. They can be aligned with Iran

and still provide internal leadership...I don't think incorporating Iraq into Iran is what is contemplated.

[rfkrfk]

6. why would an Iraqi leader, align himself with a competitor?

low level people have differnt motives

[IndyOp]

8. An Iraqi leader would align himself with Iran - so

Iran can help evict the US Occupiers and so Iran can lead the shift in the world's oil market from dollar to euro -- and Iraq can follow. Hussein wanted to make the shift from dollar to euro - and he was removed from power before he could do it. If the US launches rocket attacks on Iran from bases in Iraq soldiers from Iran will pour across the border to attack US forces and the Iraqi's will greet the Iranians as liberators. :(

[rfkrfk]

13. the leaders of the Karbala and Najaf shrines,

don't care about that.

those two shrines, except when suppresed by Saddam,
are lots more important than the shrines in Iran.

Nobody gives that away.

[guru_5685]

4. The region is the problem

The region that bush is attempting to deal with is very complex. It does appear however that no one on his staff has even read a book on the middle east.

The religious divides in the region can only be changed by unifing the entire islamic community under one nation state...not gonna happen....and the death of israel...not gonna happen-they got the bomb.

The region is in real trouble and has become more unstable since the removal of saddam. The one thing that the iraqi dictatorship did provide was stability in the region. Saddam could control the nutjobs in his own country. Now if he could have only kept his army in his own country we probably wouldnt be having this conversation.

The region needs stability and a new democracy is never stable.

[wakeme2008]

5. No the problem goes back to Bush the Senior and him telling Saddam it

was OK to invade Kuwait.

Had Saddam not invaded Kuwait, the middle east would have be stable and nobody would know Saddam's name.

[IndyOp]

9. They knew Hussein's name because he had

nationalized the Iraqi oil supply so that Euro/Am corporations could not make any money there and because Hussein wanted to make the Euro (rather than the dollar) the basis of oil trade -- which will cause the dollar's value to drop precipitously. Now Iran is leading the way to make the Euro the basis of the oil trade.

[NNN0LHI]

7. The USA has owned other pro-Iranian governments in the past

The Shah Of Iran immediately comes to mind. Whomever the USA allowed to run in the Iraqi "elections" may be pro-Iranian on the outside but they are still American puppets when it comes right down to it. Don't be fooled.

Don

[Senator Obama]

11. Make no mistake...

The pro-Iranian Iraqi Shiites that won in this election are not friends of the US. They are fundamentalists who want Sharia as the basis for their laws. Even Chalabi previously ran by distancing himself on an Anti-US platform to gain credibility to become a deputy prime minister. The government established by US intervention lead by the Shaw was overtly pro-West and was ultimately toppled for that reason. People blame Carter for that. I blame hubris. We overstayed our welcome and were too arrogant to see that. Democracy is not the best form of government for every country.

Sen. Obama

[NNN0LHI]

14. Yea sure n/t

[Marr]

10. Frankly, your safety is not one of their concerns. In fact, it'd actually

help the people in charge to make you less safe. They said as much in their own PNAC statements, when they explained that regular people need a 'catalyzing event, like another Pearl Harbor' if they were ever to accept fascism. They obviously have a real appreciation for terrorist tactics.

[TheBaldyMan]

12. Stop demonising Moslems

The word 'mujihadin' used to be synonymous with 'freedom fighter' while Reagan was President. They were fundamentalist Islamic groups fighting against the evil Godless empire of the soviet union. Al-Quaida had its roots in Afganistan at this time. Back in the good old days Osama Bin Laden was a stalwart against the red menace. We loved them so much there wasn't anyting the CIA, MI6 or the ISI wouldn't do for them. Cash, training, Stinger SAMs, you name it we gave supplied it.

Who would have thought that a couple of decades later the last remaining superpower would wet itself in fear at the mere mention of the words Taleban, Shia or boogeyman. OK I made the last one as a joke but Mr. Dreyfuss has a bloody nerve calling the Iraqi government 'undemocratic'. He lives in the USA for crying out loud! How dare he point the finger at anyone else.

In southern Iraq Al Sistani has contributed more to troops safety than anything the 'democratic' government of the US can boast of. Must we make a rod for our own backs yet again? Must the US be led down the wrong road by the same bunch of liars that got us into this mess in the first place? Remember that the media has been touting this boogeyman crap for years now.

These boards are replete with scandals, lies and outright fraud that nobody seems to have trouble comprehending yet words like Islamic and Taleban trigger a knee-jerk reaction and everybody starts buying the crap that the SAME scandal-ridden, lying fraudsters have been pushing.

OK the mujihadin were bastards back then and they're still bastards now. But we don't have a problem with them sitting in the Afghani parliment. To suppose that the Taleban, al Quaida or any other dodgy group will never sit down at the same table and enter negotiations is naif in the extreme.