:: The Rational Radical Blog ::

Friday, August 26, 2005

DumbAss Neocons Get Conned

Anyone who still believes that the U.S. neo-conservatives who led the drive to war in Iraq are diabolically clever geo-strategic masterminds should now consider Iran's vastly improved position vis-a-vis its U.S.-occupied neighbour.

Not only did Washington knock off Tehran's arch-foe, Saddam Hussein, as well as the anti-Iranian Taliban in Afghanistan, but, with this week's completion of a new constitution that would guarantee a weak central government and substantial autonomy to much of the Shiite south, it also appears that Iran's influence in Iraq -- already on the rise after last spring's inauguration of a pro-Iranian interim government -- is set to grow further.

"The new constitution will strengthen the hand of the provincial forces in the South which are pro-Iranian," according to University of Michigan Iraq expert Juan Cole, who notes that the state structure authorised by the draft charter would amount more to a confederation than a federal system.

Moreover, Cole told IPS, the constitutional ban on any law that contravenes Islamic law will likely give Shiite clerics significant power over the state, moving Iraq much closer to the Iranian model.

To sum it all up:

In a recent colloquium for The Nation magazine, Shibley Telhami, a Middle East specialist at the Brookings Institution, noted that, 'No one in Washington would have imagined that with all the human and financial costs of the war, the United States would find itself supporting a government ... (with) close ties to Iran and that would conclude a military agreement with Tehran for the training of Iraq forces, even as nearly 140,000 U.S. troops remained on Iraq soil.'

How is this all going to turn out? Will the Bushians pull a rabbit out of their hat? Or will Bush go down in history as one of our worst presidents ever?

Jack Clark 7:46 PM [+]   
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