Letters to the Editor
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Greenwald should stop whining about Iraq
Greenwald should stop whining so much about "ending the war in Iraq". He is now the equivalent of a Democratic "noise machine". The main events are Iran and US long-term interests in the region. He should be devoting his energy on those topics rather than worrying about what Gen. Petreaus' report this week will say. Everybody with a brain knows how this is going down and both Dems and Repugs will fall in line behind Bush/Patreaus. Why? Because the real unspoken purpose of the Iraq war was to build permanent US or firiendly bases in the Middle East to protect our oil interests and act as a counterweight to Iran and al-Qaeda. And on that account, we will likely be successful. It seems to me, that the base in Anbar where Bush visited will become a permanent US forward base for many, many years to come. On this point, Greenwald continously misses one of the long-term objective of this war which was to extend US MILITARY influence into the heart of the Middle East.
1. Greenwald should not be implying that the withdrawal of US from Iraq will "end the war" which is just as intellectually dishonest as thinking that we could actually "win the war".
2. Diplomacy is useless in Iraq because the Shia, Iran in particular, think they will eventually prevail at least in Shia territories so why negotiate. They would negotiate for only a tactical advantage, ie, let the US withdrawal "with honor" and then all hell breaks loose.
3. I am sure there is "an understanding" with the Saudis that the US will not leave the Sunnis totally exposed to the Shia unless the US wants to pay 10x for oil. The Saudis would be very happy with the US parked in western Iraq as opposed to Saudi territory.
4. Eventually the US will find a location or two in Iraq where we can coexist with the local population and not be perceived as occupiers or Crusaders or whatever. We do this all over the world in places such as South Korea, Japan, Germany, Philippines (no more), etc. etc.
5. In the event there is a negotiated settlement, I guarantee that it will not include a complete US withdrawal from Iraq because that does not meet our minimalist requirements for "withdrawal".
6. Iraq will be broken up but so what: lots of countries have been broken up in past 20 years.
6. Of course, the lefties like Greenwald, will go berserk because this smacks of classic "imperialism", but I believe the pragmatists like Hillary, Biden, and 80% of the American people will see this as the best deal we can cut and it will prevail.