The Iraq war is finally over. And it marks a complete neocon defeat

The Iraq war is finally over. And it marks a complete neocon defeat


Thanks to the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Iran's greatest enemy, Tehran's influence in Iraq is stronger than America's


But the neocons' biggest defeat is that, thanks to Bush's toppling of Saddam Hussein, Iran's greatest enemy, Tehran's influence in Iraq is much stronger today than is America's. Iran does not control Iraq but Tehran no longer has anything to fear from its western neighbour now that a Shia-dominated government sits in Baghdad, made up of parties whose leaders spent long years of exile in Iran under Saddam or, like Sadr, have lived there more recently.

The US Republicans are accusing Obama of giving in to Iran by pulling all US troops out. Their knee-jerk reaction is rich and only shows the bankruptcy of their slogans, since it was Bush who gave Tehran its strategic opening by invading Iraq, just as it was Bush in the dying weeks of his presidency who signed the agreement to withdraw all US troops by the end of 2011, which Obama was hoping to amend. But Senator John McCain was right when he said Obama's announcement would be viewed "as a strategic victory for our enemies in the Middle East, especially the Iranian regime, which has worked relentlessly to ensure a full withdrawal of US troops from Iraq". A pity that he did not pin the blame on Bush (and Tony Blair) who made it all possible.

The two former leaders' memoirs show they have learnt no lessons, even though their reputations in history will never be able to shake the disaster off.

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But the past is still with us. A key lesson from Iraq is that putting western boots on the ground in a foreign war, particularly in a Muslim country, is madness. That point seemed to have been learnt when US, British and French officials asked the UN security council in March to authorise its campaign in Libya. They promised there would be no ground troops or occupation

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MORE:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/23/us-withdrawal-iraq-defeat-bush-neocons

remember clinton waged a war against the iraqi people for years.

But the neocons are still firmly in charge of our foreign policy and military.

Iraq will implode and Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia will get involved. World War III is coming.

This is the ultimate neocon goal.

I fear that possibility as well. We may actually *need* tarp and duct tape, in time. The poor Iraqis have suffered enough with all our help. But at least our troops wont have to (glass 1/2 full?).

(Here, you can see Maliki and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad holding hands in brotherly affection.)

Even as then-president Bush worked to undermine the new neighborly relationship between Iraq and Iran, which produced economic agreements as well as pledges to ensure each other's security, the August 8th image of Maliki and the Iranian president emerging from their meeting holding hands was an undeniable refutation of whatever threat Bush claimed Iran posed to Iraqis.

There was even less solace for Bush in the normalization of economic ties between the two former enemies as Iran and Iraq inked a deal on an oil pipeline which would carry oil from Iraqi oil fields to refineries in Iran.

If we took Bush at his word . . . that, he was really concerned with Iran's influence in Iraq then he really blew it. There is nothing more responsible for, and enabling of, Iranian influence in Iraq than his destabilizing invasion and occupation. There was nothing more empowering of 'extremists' in Iran that both administrations worry out loud about than the reflexive response of the residents of the Middle East to Bush's threatening military expansionism. Nothing has encouraged support in the region for extremists bent on harming Americas and our interests more than Bush's strident, imperious coup in Iraq. Whatever political atmosphere now exists in Iran was first sparked by all of Bush's saber-rattling and threats against the primary spoke of his 'axis of evil'. If Bush and his conservative acolytes wanted a moderate Iran, they clearly didn't take the influence of his own pernicious militarism into account.

Besides, it was clear in 2007 that Iranian influence in Iraq was a done deal. Here's an article in the Jan. 2007 NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/world/middleeast/29iranians.html?bl=&_r=1&ei=5087%0A&en=6372625cfc929005&ex=1170392400&pagewanted=print

Iranian Reveals Plan to Expand Role in Iraq

Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad outlined an ambitious plan on Sunday to greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq — including an Iranian national bank branch in the heart of the capital — just as the Bush administration has been warning the Iranians to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs.

The ambassador, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, said Iran was prepared to offer Iraq government forces training, equipment and advisers for what he called “the security fight.” In the economic area, Mr. Qumi said, Iran was ready to assume major responsibility for Iraq reconstruction, an area of failure on the part of the United States since American-led forces overthrew Saddam Hussein nearly four years ago.

“We have experience of reconstruction after war,” Mr. Qumi said, referring to the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. “We are ready to transfer this experience in terms of reconstruction to the Iraqis.”


Later that year, Iran gave Maliki an aircraft as a gift: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1395918

Associated Press
July 21, 2007

BAGHDAD: A jetliner donated to the Iraqi government by Iran landed at Baghdad airport on Saturday, four months after it was first promised by Tehran, according to government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.

"The Iraqi government would like to thank the Islamic government of Iran for this present, which we hope will contribute to the development of relations and common interests between the two nations," al-Dabbagh told The Associated Press.


more . . .

Despite the distinct, and simple, assignations the U.S. government makes in official statements: Iraq=good; Iran=bad, relations between the three are not so simple. Iraq and Iran maintain important trade ties. Iraq is a large consumer of Iranian goods, and Iranian tourists trek in large numbers to visit important historical Shiite sites. In early January the two countries signed a new security agreement with each other . . . http://terrorism.about.com/od/usforeignpolicy/a/IranIraq.htm

mercenaries there. The military is just a facade to legitimate things. The war is still ongoing.

Alert the media!
:rofl:

The media airs one neocon propagandist after another and rarely points out the utter BushCo failures.
*let alone the criminality never investigated*

I give Obama huge props for his international work.
And I sure hope he's doing a rope-a-dope with all his betrayals here at home.

But I'm an optimist.

all they are really interested in is WAR PROFITEERING - so our sons and daughters will be maimed and die based on Republicon chickenhawk lies.