Says Joe Conason of Salon.com
If the neoconservatives were not so adept at claiming the patriotic high ground for themselves -- and convincing the nation that they are interested only in advancing the security of America and Israel and the cause of democracy -- it might be time to start asking which of them are actually agents of Iran. The question is pertinent because "objectively," as they like to say, neoconservative policy has resulted in enormous profit to the Iranian mullahs, at grave cost to the United States and with little or no benefit to Israel.
The most obvious example, of course, is the American invasion and occupation of Iraq, which has conveniently eliminated Iran's chief military rival in the region, and replaced Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime with a weak government dominated by Shiite Islamist parties friendly to Tehran. The only certain outcome of our misbegotten effort is that the Iranians have finally gotten what they could not achieve during eight years of war with Iraq, despite the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of millions of dollars. And we delivered the prize to them at no cost -- except what we have lost in thousands of dead and wounded U.S. troops and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Oddly enough, they don't seem any more grateful than the Iraqis.
The most obvious example, of course, is the American invasion and occupation of Iraq, which has conveniently eliminated Iran's chief military rival in the region, and replaced Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime with a weak government dominated by Shiite Islamist parties friendly to Tehran. The only certain outcome of our misbegotten effort is that the Iranians have finally gotten what they could not achieve during eight years of war with Iraq, despite the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of millions of dollars. And we delivered the prize to them at no cost -- except what we have lost in thousands of dead and wounded U.S. troops and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Oddly enough, they don't seem any more grateful than the Iraqis.
posted by Joolya at
6:47 PM
2 Comments:
Sounds about right.
Haha, very clever. Probably true too. But then [shock horror] are we accusing the neoconservatives and Bushites of acting ethically - in the sense that they went to war in Iraq on an ethical imperative, however naive?
The crappy thing about this is that now no one wants to engage in proper liberal interventionism - against the Janjaweed militias or against Afghani rapists and murderers (or maybe against Iranian attempts to get a nuclear bomb, a truly frightening prospect). And the UN is going to remain unreformed and unable to deal properly with human rights abuses and murderous states. And the EU is going to carry on doing nothing to confront US hegemony because then it will have to deal with it.
Urgh, it's more and more apparent that Iraq is the biggest blunder since, er, Vietnam. And probably worse, vis a vis long-term repercussions.
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