Iraq, Iran, and the World's Going to Hell

I've always had a little soft-spot in my heart for the neo-con justification for the Iraq war. The idea that we can reshape the middle east by establishing a stable democracy. The idea that Iraq's population was more "secular" and educated than the other possibilities in the region. That their infrastructure and potential for oil revenue is much better than the other countries in the area. That their populace, after 30 years of brutal repression, was ready to take out Saddam Hussein and try something different. However, the Bush administration did not use that rationale to sell the war. They used WMD's and the idea that Saddam was a threat, and that he aided terrorist. OK, they fucked up. Whatever.



I also thought that maybe Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush are taking a page out of the Nixon on China playbook. The "madman" play. They thought that they would make Bush look like a crazy cowboy with this war, and scare the pants off the ayatollah's in Iran and Lil' Kim in North Korea. Make them think that we could win a war with 150,000 troops, so we can easily go after them as well. Well, that didn't work either. Check this out, again from Rumor Control, one of my new favorite sites. How about this:

Iran's Supreme National Security Council Secretary, Hassan Rowhani, said, "I

think the experience of Iraq would be sufficient for the Americans for years to

come not to think of invasion against any other country."

So, how close are we to a nuclear Iran? Well, they are currently testing ballistic missiles that can reach Israel. Awesome. I remember just a year ago reading about how much the people of Iran like America, and how much they want to overthrow their corrupt mullahs. Doesn't look like that's very true anymore.

So, lets look at everything that has happened in the past week. We have new major terror alerts, we have absolute bungling in the Khan affair, we have Iran and Israel testing rockets, we have Iran telling Europe to call off the IAEA, they're making a bomb and the world has to deal with it, we are now unofficially at war with Iran, we lost any possibilities for peace with the Shi'a, we are seeing a major battle centered in Najaf, and a simmering insurgency across the entire country.

How about that Bush administration keeping us safe? Winning that war on terror, huh? Great job.