Monday, May 7, 2007

Who 'won' in Iraq?

Today's 'must read', from AlterNet:

From the enormous advantage gained by Iran via our invasion of Iraq, you would think that Dick Chaney(sic) is a mole for the Ayatollah.

[...] In fact, Iran wins so big in this war I think that Dick Cheney's DNA should be checked out by a reputable lab, because he has to be a Persian mole. My theory is that they took a fiery young Revolutionary Guard from the slums of Tehran, dipped him in a vat of lye to get that pale, pasty Anglo skin, zapped his scalp for that authentic bald CEO look, squirted a quart of cholesterol into his arteries so he'd develop classic American cardiac disease, and parachuted him into the outskirts of some Wyoming town.

All these claims that Iran is helping the insurgents really make my head spin. Of course they're helping. They'd be insane if they weren't. If somebody invades the country next door, any state worth mentioning has to act. If Mexico got invaded by China, you better believe the U.S. would react. We'd lynch any president who didn't.

[...] They want us there as long as possible, stoking the feuds and making sure nobody wins. That's what we just did under Bush's new Iraq commander, Gen. Petraeus: switched sides, Shia to Sunni, because the Shia were getting too strong. Yeah, God forbid we should be unfair to the Sunnis, God forbid we should do anything to let somebody win. Let's just make Tehran happy by keeping the feud going another few centuries.

So the likely winner of a war like this is an up-n-coming world economic power that has been investing in its own economy while we blow a trillion -- yep, a trillion -- dollars on nothing. Not hard to figure out who the likely suspects are here.

What's worst is that the war has made us dumber. When Sen. Graham asked his question, "Who won Iraq?" he thought he was being clever. He thought we're too dumb and soft to face that question and its answers. Because there are answers, pretty grim ones. I just hope people are tough enough to start thinking about them.

Anyway, for those of you collecting guidelines, here's what I think are some general rules for "Who wins wars?"

That oughta set the hook! Here endeth my post.

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