“Decades of Hostility” – Moon of Alabama

March 14, 2006

“Decades of Hostility”

Nir Rosen, who did some decent reporting from Iraq, is interviewed by Foreign Policy. I recommend to read it all – it`s short. The major point is that in some years, when the rising and already bloody civil war has exhausted itself, Al Sadr may be the only one to put the pieces back together.

Then there this:

FP: How will the Iraq war impact geopolitics in the long term?

NR: I think we are going to see decades of hostility between the West and the Middle East now. Very well-trained fighters who have gained experience in Iraq can now go to Europe and elsewhere in the Middle East. […]

Throughout the Muslim world, people actually believe that America is the enemy of Islam and even if this might not be true, they have Abu Ghraib and the destruction of Iraq to point to. We’ve also given reform and democracy a bad name. Suddenly, the dictatorships in the Arab world don’t look so bad, in comparison to Iraq, and people are more suspicious of change.

The best way to solve this is stay out. What has the West to struggle with the Middle East? They want to sell their oil, we want to buy it. They want to buy our goods and we want to sell them. Why do we need weapons for that?

Posted by b on March 14, 2006 at 19:53 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Two links:
The original plans of the State Department that were shredded by the DoD are here. Only read they oil part summary – suprise conclusion: PRIVATIZE!
Guardian: US postwar Iraq strategy a mess, Blair was told. He didn´t care.

Posted by: b | Mar 14 2006 20:44 utc | 1

Juan Cole has a really good piece on Iran:
Fishing for a Pretext in Iran

The nuclear issue is for the most part a pretext for the Americans to exert pressure on the regime in Tehran. This is not to say that proliferation is not a worrisome issue, or that it can be ruled out that Iran wants a bomb. It is to say that the situation simply has not reached the point of crisis, and therefore other motivations must be sought for the Bush administration’s breathless rhetoric.
President Ahmadinejad, it should be freely admitted, has, through his lack of diplomatic skills and his maladroitness, given his enemies important propaganda tools. Unlike his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier. He went to an anti-Zionist conference and quoted Ayatollah Khomeini, saying that the “Occupation regime” must “vanish.” This statement about Israel does not necessarily imply violence. After all, Ariel Sharon made the occupation regime in the Gaza Strip vanish. The quote was translated in the international press, however, as a wish that “Israel be wiped off the map,” and this inaccurate translation has now become a tag line for all newspaper articles written about Iran in Western newspapers.
In another speech, Ahmadinejad argued that Germans rather than Palestinians should have suffered a loss of territory for the establishment of a Jewish state, if the Germans perpetrated the Holocaust. This argument is an old one in the Middle East, but it was immediately alleged that Ahmadinejad was advocating the shipping of Israelis to Europe. That was not what he said.

Posted by: b | Mar 14 2006 21:38 utc | 2

Some more reason for “Decades of Hostility”: Salon has now published 279 photographs and 19 videos from Abu Graibh.

Posted by: b | Mar 14 2006 21:41 utc | 3

I read Cole everyday, but I think he may be wrong on this one. I think the Iranians may be developing nukes – and why not. I posted a link to the Israeli military historian, van Creveld on a previous thread. He said that the Iranians would “crazy” if they are not developing nukes.
An interesting piece on Anti War.com by Alan Bock argues following Kenneth Waltz, a scholar from the “realist” school, that the proliferation of nukes actually creates the conditions for a more stable peace.
Of course, they also rule out the possibility of external “regime change” and the imperial designs of the U.S. and its lackeys.
In the current climate, self-defense is seen as “aggression”. Amazing, that the countries who actually are aggressors and colonizers can, with a straight face, view countries who wish to retain their sovereignty and defend their own borders as “threats”. Surely an index of how far we are down the “rabbit hole”.
By the way Cole argues that the Iranian president’s remark about Israel is a mistranslation. More accurate would be “Israel should vanish”. Somehow, I don’t think the new translation is going to get any traction – no mileage in that translation for the Zionists.
You are posting great stuff B. Thanks.

Posted by: tgs | Mar 15 2006 1:03 utc | 4

All the more reason for Europe to get the hell out and stay out of Middle East. And Afghanistan. One of our local politicians has been proposing surveilling the citizens using Swedens 150 men presence in Afghanistan. “What if they catch Usama bin Laden? Then Al Queda is gonna come for Sweden. Start surveilliance of muslem school children NOW!”
Somehow I think the swedish population would rather have those 150 brought home then new surveilliance powers for the police. Particulary since there was no debate at all when sending them.
Ah well, for those who have missed it: I have joined the Swedish Pirate Party and we will end this surveilliance nonsence. Read more about it. Yes we will.
Just gotta win that election first. Should be easy as soon as my cold wears of. Aaatchooo!

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Mar 15 2006 1:08 utc | 5

Answers to your questions
We don’t want to buy their oil.
We want to SELL their oil, especially since world demand for oil is rapidly increasing and world supply of oil is decreasing. The transnational oil companies have hijacked the firepower of the United States and its puppet government [and likewise UK firepower and puppets] in order to serve and enforce their financial interests.
Some might even say that there was no “hijacking”, that it has always been this way. Yes, violent abuse of power for financial gain: throughout all time, by every nation/ruler on earth.

Posted by: gylangirl | Mar 15 2006 2:04 utc | 6

Good NR interview, thanks b. Seems about right gylangirl.

Posted by: ben | Mar 15 2006 4:22 utc | 7

sorry if already posted – short new post over at billmon’s.

Posted by: correlator | Mar 15 2006 4:31 utc | 8

Back to Main