Letters to the Editor
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If the Republicans really want to keep their party
We have invaded and occupied Iraq for so many different reasons that I'm having trouble remembering them all.
9/11 was Osama bin Laden's and Al-Qaeda's fault and had absolutely nothing to do with Saudi Arabia (even though that's where most of the hijackers came from). Since Al-Qaeda was supported by the Taliban, we went to Afghanistan, deposed the Taliban and put a new government in its place. Somehow, in the process, Osama got away and went to Pakistan, where, for all we know, he still lives.
Then we went looking for terrorists in Iraq because Saddam Hussein was building WMDs like:
1. Nukes
2. Biological weapons
that he would give the terrorists to use against us. (On the other hand, nobody seemed to mind that Pakistan was the center of a huge black market in nuclear technology, since, like the Saudis, they are also our friends. As for the evidence of Pakistan's misbehavior, all we have are things like, oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that in February 2004, Dr. Abdul Khan admitted that he had transferred nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea. Who the heck is Dr. Khan, you ask? He's the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. He's a guy who will tell you, for cash, how to make a centrifuge just like the centrifuge Iran uses in their nuclear programs.)
So we invaded Iraq.
We couldn't find any WMDs, but we stayed anyway to help them form a new government, at which point it was not about WMDs but about overthrowing Saddam and bringing them democracy.
One thing led to another.
The Kurds went north and pretty much kept to themselves with the possible exception of reclaiming oil rich Kirkuk which will give them nearly everything they need to create their own country. That, combined with the fact that about 10 million Kurds live in neighboring Turkey, something that keeps Turkey up at night, means that, for the Kurds, things are going as well as can be expected.
The rest of Iraq has gone to hell. There is a battle to the death for control of Iraq between the Shiite majority, one sect of Islam, and the Sunni minority, another sect of Islam. This disagreement is in some ways the continuing result of a church split (something Baptists are all too familiar with), that occurred around 1400 years ago. There are many other reasons for the Shiite-Sunni fighting: economic, nationalistic, geo-political, etc.
Some say it a low-grade civil war. Others say it is not so low-grade. Almost everyone agrees that the U.S. has assumed the role of occupier as opposed to democracy bringer.
Iran is Shiite. Saudi Arabia is Sunni. There's the rub. The Saudis are our friends. Iran is still mad at us over the Shah and the fact that we helped Iraq out quite a bit during the Iran-Iraq war (while Regan was President and Saddam was dictator).
Where was I?
Oh, yeah.
If the Republicans really want to keep their party intact they should probably get on board and impeach or at least put on trial one of the execs in or near the White House. It probably won't be the President, but nobody would really mind if they took the VP or Karl Rove to court on criminal charges. That simple act could make the difference between 8-12 years of Republican minority status and, potentially, 20-40 years of Republican minority status. I say 20-40 years because, if this administration gets what I think it wants, that is, to bomb and possibly nuke Iran, I don't think there will be any coming back from that, not no way, not no how, where the Republican party is concerned.
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An Unspoken Strategy?
If there is a strategy in Iraq, it may be "suppress the Shia". I agree with other commenters that the surge isn't a strategy but a tactic. Is the goal of the tactic to earn time for the Iraqi Congress, or is it to suppress one of Sadr's power bases (Bagdad). Sadr certainly seemed to see it as aimed at him, got the hell out of Dodge, apparently as an attempt to rope-a-dope the americans, or in other words wait them out. But the americans and Sunni have been hammering so hard on the Shia since that time that he now appears to be mobilizing again, and offering resistance.
Ironically, "supressing the Shia" was Saddam's strategy too (Saddam, I believe, killed Sadr's father), and before him the British. A tried and true and infamous mission. No wonder we don't vocalize the 'strategy'. But, as our troops inhabit Saddam's palaces and our prisoners are in his jails, maybe it all goes without saying.
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General Zinni: "surge" a tactic, not a strategy.
An excerpt from yesterday's MTP interview with former CENTCOM Commander, General Zinn:
What has disappointed me is there hasn’t been this debate on the strategy, on the policy, a regional strategy on policy, let alone an Iraq policy. We’re, we’re debating the tactics. The, the surge is a tactic. In what context is the surge? You can make an argument for a surge if you were going to withdraw, to cover the withdrawal, for example, or to contain, to reposition forces or to re-engage in a different way or a stronger way. And why we got caught up in the tactical debate, in my mind, is an indication that we don’t understand what we want to do. What should our Middle East policy be? What should our policy be in terms of Iraq and, and the war against the extremists out there or the conflict against extremists? We seem to be strategically adrift, in my view.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18094428/
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LWM
I'm not sure I meant the dual objectives in the way you think. I'm just talking about the Iraq situation, not general domestic or international dominance. Of course, they sought dominance all along, as it is in their nature not just to win and succeed, but to eradicate opposition completely.
However, I think it's pretty clear to most people, perhaps even to the most dutiful Bush followers, that their dream of "permanent" GOP majorities and total destruction of the vestiges of New Deal liberalism has been crushed (or at least postponed for a significant amount of time).