End the Bush Iraq/Afghanistan machinations that put US in the middle

[danielet]

Afghanistan 9/11 is put forward as the reason for our war on two fronts, both of which are seem open-ended commitments with no victory in sight. 9/11 is due to our own negligence in that it never would have happened if we had obeyed the law and kept the pilot's cabin impenetrable on airliners as decreed in the 1970s during a spate of skyjacks. Perhaps then, if we now better secure our shores and invest in energy independence instead of an anti-Islam "crusade," we might now realize that there are no dividends for us in Afghanistan where we are played by India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers that don't mind Iran joining the club-- all three connected to the Moscow-run Shanghai Security Accord. Let us leave the region to its inhabitants instead of exsanguniating our army as we did in Vietnam tracking Viet Cong. Iraq In 2002 I came to suspect that the Bush Administration-- through Sec. State Powell-- came to a quid-pro-quo with Iran over Iraq, suggested by the presence of Dr. Jafari of the Da'awa Party at the London Conference of Iraqi expatriates and Ayatollah Khoie, both Iranian front men. The US would remove Saddam and Iran could come to dominate the Southeast of Iraq through the Shias and the North through the Kurds. But what intel blind neocons underestimated is Iraqi nationalism, both Shia and Sunni. The Saudis, Jordanians and Kuwaitis, it was assumed would absorb the Sunnis as if they had no sense of Iraq as a nation. Iran would then drop out from the "axis of evil" by signing a more intrusive version of the non-proliferation treaty, abandon nuclear arms development so that Wash DC and Tehran could normalize relations. This notion was reinforced by Hakim's SCIRI and the Badr Corps moving into US occupied Baghdad and Basra.

Things, however, do not seem to have worked out as expected. The Iranians double-crossed Bush, the Kuwaitis and Saudis supported a Ba'athist/Sunni Revolt because they feared the US-Israel alliance with Iran. And Sadr's nationalist Shia Movement proved to be the strongest force in Iraq.

Given the inadequacy of the US force and the seeming defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Iran felt that US forces in Iraq, much as in South Korea, were sitting ducks and so the US would never turn on Iran for fear of devastating retaliation against the relatively small US force in Iraq. That North Korea check-mate of the American threat with Chinese connivance by holding US forces on the North-South border under their guns convinced Iran that it could do the same to US forces in Iraq with Russian cooperation, dominating both Southeast Iraq while developing nuclear arms.

Once again, though bound to the Arabs by need for their oil, the US was drawn into a pact with Iran by the Israelis. Israel had never ceased to workout deals of convenience with Iran in the hope that it might accept Israeli domination of Lebanon, as so well accounted in Parisi's study:
http://www.amazon.com/Treacherous-Alliance-Secret-Dealings-Israel/dp/0300143117/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222816966&sr=1-1

The neocons on behalf of the Likud leadership drew the US into a pact with Iran for the dismemberment of Iraq. Though Reagan heeded Amb. Habib's view of Gen. Sharon as a "murderer" and a "liar," GW Bush failed to heed the same lessons from the past. Out of his league, Bush was duped by both Sharon and the Ayatollahs and cleaned the neocons out of his administration much too late. To avoid exposure of his failure, he "doubled down" on his show of force policy when Iran broke its deal. That is why Bush is stuck in Irag-- because should he pull out, Iran wins in all aspects. The "surge"-- much like the flotilla in the Gulf-- is a bluff, for Iran can clearly read the American military and political limitations, much as can North Korea. The sole purpose of the surge is to have a US military presence in force, just in case the Sunni "Awakening" decides to move against the Maliki Govt in coalition with the Mahdi Army. But thanks to American efforts to eliminate
the Sadr Movement, Sadr has now become a creature of Tehran and the Sunnis have nowhere else to go for an Iraqi nationalist coalition but to the Maliki Govt. For his part, Maliki, like all the Middle East Arabs and the Gulf states, wants the US out, preferring to work out an "entre nous Irakains" deal along with the states in the region. Step one in the minds of all governments in the region of any rapprochement between them all is US out of Iraq. Yet, GW Bush is obsessed about his legacy and fears that his neocon-led deal with Iran may devastate his legacy, especially if things collapse on his watch. As a result, because he refuses to submit his forces to Iraqi sovereignty, Bush has obtained no SOFA accord and only wants to dump the whole mess onto the lap of his successor.

With the US crippled and stalemated by Iran and in exit-mode by Maliki's demand, Israel fears facing an Arab-Persian Accord, leaving it exposed as never before.

I left out all the factors that drove me to stringing out this sketch. I would much rather hear what think others on this august list. Perhaps if we get a good debate going I might bring to bear all the suggestive evidence. But let me repeat, none of what I write is "THIS IS IT," it is all presumptive looking through the Bush fog. Still, it does, I think, deserve discussion.