Don’t Look Now
28 November 2006 6:00 am by Taylor Marsh
Don't Look Now
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This
does not come as news to me. Why wouldn't Hezbollah help the militias in Iraq?
Why wouldn't Iran want them to? Syria's role, though not clear, isn't at all
shocking if they'd want in, too. But what do we really know? You can't trust
Mr. Bush to tell us the truth about anything. We've learned that much.
The collective
contagion of Iraq civil war cries is also not very impressive. I mean, seriously,
could it get any more obvious? Actually, some are also saying it's worse than
civil war, because no one knows whose playing for whose team.
It's tantamount to foreign policy truth and consequences. Welcome to gut check
time.
NBC's Richard Engel called Anbar province “Jihadistan” long before
the November election. Well, it looks like we need a new word and we can't use
hell, because that's already taken.
The Marines' August memo, a copy of which was shared with The Washington
Post, is far bleaker than some officials suggested when they described it
in late summer. The report describes Iraq's Sunni minority as “embroiled
in a daily fight for survival,” fearful of “pogroms” by the
Shiite majority and increasingly dependent on al-Qaeda in Iraq as its only
hope against growing Iranian dominance across the capital.True or not, the memo says, “from the Sunni perspective, their greatest
fears have been realized: Iran controls Baghdad and Anbaris have been marginalized.”
Moreover, most Sunnis now believe it would be unwise to count on or help U.S.
forces because they are seen as likely to leave the country before imposing
stability.Between al-Qaeda's violence, Iran's influence and an expected U.S. drawdown,
“the social and political situation has deteriorated to a point”
that U.S. and Iraqi troops “are no longer capable of militarily defeating
the insurgency in al-Anbar,” the assessment found. In Anbar province
alone, at least 90 U.S. troops have died since Sept. 1. …
Everyone better get a grip, because what we're going to hear coming out of
Iraq is only going to get worse.
The rub is that we're now hearing more and more about Iran's influence in Iraq.
Mr. Bush's bungling has made Iran's power explode across the region, because they have natural allies everywhere, which we do not. That wasn't always the case. In fact, Iran could be our allies, if only of convenience, but there's no room in Bush's brain for something that conflicting to the neocon strategery. Everyone knows what position we're in and that the American people, having been
unprepared from the beginning because our leaders never brought us along on
their merry preemption ride, won't hang on much longer.
But Mr. Bush and his bunch have no intention of paying any attention whatsoever
to we the people. Haven't they made that clear by now? If they can throw in
some wild ass threat about Iran setting up everything in Iraq, they'll be locked
and loaded for the next phase of their lunacy.
Remember that Colson cartoon caption from “All the President's Men”?
“When you've got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”
Well, Mr. Bush has lost our hearts and minds, so now he's working on America's very soul. The latest news out of al-Anbar sounds like slaughter, ethnic cleansing, whatever else you want to name it. How many people in positions of authority in D.C. do you think are going to back away from that picture? And if we don't, will our soldiers get out with our lives when the time comes? Or will they become the hunted? Will we bankrupt this nation in the process?
I've got a very eerie feeling that this is a long way from over. I really hope
I'm wrong.
