Blitzer just aked Repug what happens if the Iraqis want an Ayatollah...

[NNN0LHI]

...to run their country? (Paraphrasing here) Repug said that is out of our control. If thats what they want then thats what they will have. Dem Senator Chris Dodd looked shook up and spilled his glass of water during the exchange. I thought it was hilarious. On the irony scale I would rate that moment a 10.

Don

[ewagner]

1. Innoculation yesterday also

A commentator asked an "expert" about an Ayotolla on CNN yesterday. He replied that it wouldn't be the same as the infamous "ayatolla Khumeihni (spelling) from Ira. That it would be essentially "okay" to have one in Iraq.

They are innoculating the public to put a happy face on what was just a few months ago identified by the Pentagon as a "totally unacceptable" outcome.

[wryter2000]

2. hahahahahahah

That's the question I've been asking the we're-liberating-the-Iraqis types since this started. "What if we have fair and honest elections and the Iraqi people decide they want a fundamentalist Muslim government with ties to terrorism?" Not a one of them could come up with an answer.

[Ilsa]

3. Just like it is "okay" that we don't get Osama Bin Laden

because he has "taken himself out of the picture" as one general put it.
Yep, they are prepping us for the inevitable since they screwed up on predicting the rest of the mess in Iraq.

Geez. When is someone going to call them on their BS?

[ComerPerro]

4. Lol

I wish I had seen that.

The repug is thinking: "Well, thats fine. We will support him and give him all kinds of deadly weapons. And then the second he pisses us off, we will take him out. Iraq War III, here we come!!!"

[arcane1]

5. indeed, it's almost a guarantee of future profits!

ca-ching!

[Minstrel Boy]

6. Brent Scowcroft in The New York Times, April 10, 2003:

"What's going to happen the first time we hold an election in Iraq and it turns out the radicals win? What do you do? We're surely not going to let them take over."

[Robin Hood]

7. So after there is no democracy or wmd in Iraq,

Will the American public begin to question what their young people fought and died for?

[MrPrax]

8. Why not...?

US foreign policy in the ME has consistently supported religious conservative regimes and works to overthrow populist, secular and nationalist movements...

Theocracies,'fake' monarchies and kleptocracies are always going to be preferable to a democracy in the ME...

I don' think people realize what impact having a benign, but democratic regime would have on, say, Israel for instance...one of the big planks of Israel 'exceptionalism' is the fact that the Arab World is mostly dictatorial.

A positive model of Arab development is a model to avoid at all costs...

[dansolo]

11. Otherwise they might turn out like Turkey

Turkey is a secular government, and as the Iraq war showed, completely capable of not supporting the U.S. positions, even with an exceptional amount of bribery. That is why we will never see true democracy in Iraq.

[Jacobin]

9. Ooooh...they're talking about it out loud now, are they?

Sweeeet!!!!

[NNN0LHI]

10. Here is the transcript

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0312/07/le.00.html

<snip>BLITZER: But what if they choose an ayatollah-led, fundamentalist regime?

HAGEL: Well, that is, to a certain extent, out of our control here. We can help mold and shape and get them to where they need to be for a legitimate, fair, free election.

Hence the point that Senator Dodd made, which I've been making and a number of us for long before we went into Iraq, the United Nations and the internationalization of this effort is absolutely critical to the outcome in the interest of all of us.

BLITZER: On that point, though, Senator Dodd -- and we'll get to your water in a second...

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