> On 10/1/06, Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
>>...Of course, you can also say the Iranians, North
>> Koreans, and Latin Americans have similarly benefited from the US
>> being tied down in Iraq.
>
> It's clear that, ever since the US military got tied down in Iraq, a
> campaign against Iran _rapidly escalated_, with cooperation of
> Democrats, which is the opposite of what you would expect, if the
> power elite and ruling class were divided and demoralized.
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What do you think would have happened if the US hadn't gotten tied down in
Iraq? What if it could have been able to quickly install a puppet regime
under Chalabi and withdraw it's new, more mobile, streamlined army that
Rumsfeld boasted of? After Afghanistan, that would have been two down, and
two more to go (Iran and North Korea) and who then beyond that - Venezuela
and Cuba? It was probably banking on the fact that America's massive display
of "shock and awe" would by this time have cowed all of its opponents into
submission. But, if not, Rumsfeld's army could have been sent on another
blitzkrieg. The bigger fish from the beginning may have been Iran, anyway.
We'll have to see how things develop in Iran. But I don't think the Bush administration envisaged when it seized upon 9/11 to implement the "new American century" that four years later its campaign against Iran would have to be conducted by proxy diplomacy through the French and Germans and such uncertain allies as the Russians and Chinese, with the Iranians - led, most notably, by Ahmadinejad - thumbing their noses at American threats of military escalation.
I do think the Iranians, NK's, Venezuelans, Cubans, Russians, Chinese, and all peoples who have felt themselves threatened by the early arrogant bellicosity of the Bush administration have been happy to see it humbled in Iraq - given the alternative.
And this is also precisely why the bipartisan US defence and foreign policy establishment is so unhappy with this administration.