Bush's babble about Iran has taken on a darker tone of late. Just a couple of days ago, the president claimed with certainty that an elite Iranian unit had been supplying Shiite militias in Iraq with deadly weaponry.
He acknowledged a rare bit of uncertainty over whether the Iranian government had ordered the weapons transfer, but added this: "We do know that [Iranian weapons are] there and I intend to do something about it. And I've asked our commanders to do something about it."
Oh, dear. Sounds like the administration is cooking up a scheme to engage the Iranian military in hostilities. That makes zero sense.
I'm no expert on Iraq, but I do know this. The country is riven by at least two more or less distinct conflicts: the Shiia-Sunni civil war, and the anti-U.S. insurgency.
The latter is a largely Sunni phenomenon. With the 2003 invasion, the U.S. pushed the Sunnis out of power and "liberated" the Shiite majority, who now control the central government. The anti-U.S. resistance has been largely Sunni-led.
The question becomes, who is funding the Sunni insurgency? Probably not U.S. arch-enemy Iran; that nation is populated, and controlled, mainly by Shiites.
More likely, the money that's bolstering the resistance is coming from staunch U.S. ally Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government is Sunni-dominated and has already publicly announced its intention to fund Sunni militias if Bush can't bring the Shiite government to heel.
Moreover, according to Salon, "Many young Saudis have gone to Iraq to become martyrs in the fight against the United States and the Shiite-led Iraqi government."
It will be remembered, I hope, that Bush marketed the Iraq war as a response to the Sept. 11 attacks. He never explained why invading Iraq made sense as a response to a crime committed largely by a bunch of Saudis.
Now, he seems to be gearing up for a move to attack Iran, even though, again, the real problem seems to lie in Saudi Arabia.
It's hard to figure out what he hopes to achieve from such a move, beyond yet more chaos and killing.
Enough. It's time for Congress to defund the war, and demand a regional summit aimed at ending the Shiite-Sunni conflict that Bush seems bent on escalating.
Comments
View as Flat
sunflower Posted 8:43 am
16 Feb 2007
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- A bomb went off Friday night at a girls school in the southeastern Iranian border city of Zahedan, according to the semi-official FARS News Agency.
...
According to FARS, Iranian officials said the explosives used in that attack were manufactured in the United States.
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birdboy Posted 10:18 am
16 Feb 2007
-The Saudis have been close business associates with the Bush family oil business for many years. The Bush administration has consistantly protected them from blame or recourse for their actions.
-The Saudis receive billions of U.S. dollars every year for oil. They own 10% of this country's assets.
-The Saudis compete with Iran and Iraq for oil sales and for control over the region.
I cannot imagine the real motivations for this aggression- perhaps it is not logically motivated at all- but it becomes more and more clear that it has nothing to do with bringing 'peace' and 'security' to the region. Sadly, the fear and hatred generated by 911 and growing religious intolerance continues to blind much of our population to the obvious contraditions between the stated goals and actual results of our actions in the Middle East.
a liberal in redsville
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shadow7 Posted 12:56 am
17 Feb 2007
TvNewsLIES.org thought it would happen before the midterm election.
Last month, we set the warning along with the generals whose alarming concerns were never acknowledged by the corporate media....surprise, surprise.
Here's what we had to say only a few weeks ago:
STOP HIM BEFORE HE KILLS MORE!
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bkrell Posted 11:32 am
17 Feb 2007
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Tom Philpott Posted 12:11 pm
17 Feb 2007
As for your idea that the war has somehow been good for the enviro movement, I can also say this: what if some other country decided it had something similar to gain from invading the US? Somehow, I don't think your reaction would be quite as casual.
Victual Reality
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sunflower Posted 12:30 pm
17 Feb 2007
I do not believe anything Bush says. I do not believe Bush when he says there are no plans to attack Iran, "We are not going to attack Iran". Fuggeddaboutit.
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Roz Cummins Posted 11:47 pm
17 Feb 2007
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paulhue Posted 12:18 am
18 Feb 2007
Bush did explain why 911 justified invading Iraq and planting there a free market democracy: economyhttp://reformedleftist.blogspot.com/2006/10/bushs-iraq-in ...
Under what pretext would Bush have implemented such a plan on Saudi Arabia? That some of its citizens without government support had attacked the US?
Isn't Syria supporting the Sunni tyrants attacking US forces?
I also don't understand why the Shia tyrants are attacking the US forces who made their tyranny possible in the first place. But my friends serving over there are certain that the missles and other munitions coming out of Sadr city are (a) fired by Shia and (b) provided by Iran.
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William Frey Posted 3:35 am
18 Feb 2007
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wackatalpidae Posted 3:37 am
19 Feb 2007
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- At a ceremony honoring America's first president at his Mount Vernon estate, President Bush praised George Washington's leadership in the American Revolution and drew parallels between that war and the war in Iraq.
"Today we are fighting a new war to defend our liberty, our freedom and our way of life and as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world we remember that the father of our country believed the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone," Bush said.
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Well. Then Dubbya should display the same leadership as George Washington. I hope he might find the courage to ride his noble stallion, or at least travel in one of those humvees, along the front lines of combat, encouraging our troops to continue the fight.
But Dubbya is no George Washington. There are no similarities between the American Revolution or the War in Iraq. The founders of our nation had no intention of exporting freedom. Our nation was to serve as an example of the power of a free people, not emerge to replace the empire it freed itself from.
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