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The biggest winner in the U.S. election last night was, without a doubt, the fundamentalist regime in Iran who flushed with the pride of their newly acquired international trump card, nuclear weapons, now stand ready to help George W. Bush solve his dilemma by taking control of Iraq. And they will take control without ever using their miltary divisions now perched on the Iraqi border because George W. Bush will help them.
Iran now holds every card in Iraq. Indeed every "solution" to preventing chaos and civil war there involves cutting some deal that turns control of the former Iraq (65% Shi'a) over to Iran (89% Shi'a). There are, of course, many ways for this inevitable outcome to play out, but whether it comes through the election of a Shi'a government in the proposed Iraqi elections next year or by another avenue, it will happen.
George Bush and Dick Cheney, with their failed military excursion into the former, non-secular Iraq --- which was once most effectively contained by economic sanctions, military no-fly zones and U.N. inspections --- have now left themselves and the world with the deplorable option of swapping most, if not all, of territorial Iraq for a phony peace arrangement which will allow the Bush Administration to save face, pull our troops out of Iraq "with honor" and declare a victory for "democracy".
And, of course, there will be a psyche-soothing and great national celebration at home here in the U.S. in celebration of our great military "victory" complete with a ticker tape parade in Manhattan with Fox News and the Corporate Media dutifully beaming it to us with the fine touch of Lee Greenwood howling, "God Bless the U.S.A.". Americans will be encouraged to congratulate themselves and stroke themselves with pride how we took democracy to the Middle East.
And the newly structured Greater Iran will then control 20-25% of all the known oil reserves in the world and over 35% of all oil exported from the Persian Gulf.
Consider the sobering irony of Bush II turning over Iraq (of course, it must never be called a "turn over") to Iran when it was Bush I and Ronald Reagan who had empowered Saddam Hussein in the 1980's with billions of dollars of support and weapons to make war with Iran. If Bush II turns over Iraq to Iran, one must ask how many billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars were pissed away during the Iraq/Iran War in the 1980's along with the nearly $200 Billion in the current "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and its aftermath? How many lives, civilian and military, were lost between 1980 and today in first propping up Saddam Hussein to fight Iran only to later topple him from power and turn Iraq over to Iran?
There will, of course, be voices from within the Neocon circles that have GW Bush's ear encouraging him to invade Iran. And it won't be just the Neocons. Ariel Sharon in an unholy alliance with the Sunni Saudis "Royals", who will mutually (and correctly) fear the rise of Greater Iran, will also weigh in heavily for taking action against Iran, but it won't happen.
It won't happen because even Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld know that our military could not win in such a scenario and that the consequences would be catastrophic and unthinkable. No, our current president will look to the example that his father left him during the Persian Gulf War in the 1980's: pull out and declare a great victory.
The better solution would have been to divide Iraq quickly (after the inexcusable and unplanned invasion) into self-governing entities with the Kurds and Sunnis as players which would have prevented civil war and had some modicum of fairness. But that day is done.
The Iranians have been playing American presidents for fools for years now and doing so brilliantly. Just ask Ahmed Chalabi or Oliver North if you have any doubts.
So, the big winner in the U.S. election was the current Iranian government. It certainly wasn't the American taxpayer or its soldiers.
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